by Lila Perl
“Oh that.” I’d never talked to Glenda about my conversation with Roddy a few weeks back. He hadn’t seemed impressed when I told him Glenda had protected him. But maybe, just maybe, that information had softened him toward her a little. Still, I doubted it.
“If I had told,” Glenda said, “you can be sure my mother would have sent the bill for the lamp over to the Fentons. She does things like that.”
“Look Glenda,” I said, “maybe we should just forget about going to the party. We’ll trick-or-treat and then we’ll go over to your house or my house and eat the candy we collect.”
Glenda took a few more mouthfuls and choked some more. Finally she asked, “What do you think they’ll do at the party?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’ll probably just be a bunch of noisy kids eating popcorn and ducking for apples. I don’t even know where Roddy lives.”
“It’s not far,” Glenda said quickly. “I wonder who’s going to be there.”
“He said Mary Lou for one.”
“She’s not too bad,” Glenda said, looking more relaxed. “I sort of like Mary Lou, don’t you?”
“I always said she was all right. You were the one who didn’t seem to like her.”
“No. She’s okay. It’s kind of funny about Mary Lou going, though,” Glenda said. “I didn’t want to say anything but I always thought it was Roddy who put the chicken-foot sandwich in Mary Lou’s lunch bag.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell Glenda about my telephone conversation with Mary Lou. And besides I still felt guilty for having suspected Glenda of having done it.
“Well, I don’t know,” Glenda mumbled. “It might be fun.”
“Roddy did say to come in our costumes. Glenda, imagine what they’d say if they saw you in that gorgeous blonde wig, and with the glitter-dust on your eyelids.”
Glenda beamed and stared off into space, across the noisy clatter of the school cafeteria. It was as though she wasn’t thinking about herself at all but about somebody else, some distant and wonderful movie star.
Suddenly Glenda leaned across the table, nearly plopping her elbows into what was left of her chow mein. “Listen Sara, let’s do it!”
“You really want to?” I said matter-of-factly, trying to sound surprised and not too pleased about it.
But, of course, I was pleased. I figured it was a chance for both me and Fat Glenda to break out of our tight little worlds. Maybe we weren’t such a freaky pair after all!
When Glenda and I got home from school that afternoon, Toby was out in our yard working on “Stovepipes.” Pop had been on it for weeks, and now it was nearly completed—all fourteen feet of it, the tallest junk structure Drew had ever designed. There was also a car parked out in the street in front of our house, one of those souped-up jobs that a lot of the kids from Havenhurst High went ripping and zooming and throbbing and chugging around the neighborhood in. But I couldn’t see anybody around who might be the owner.
“Stovepipes” was the same construction that Mr. Creasey had admired when he came around early in October about that petition that was being circulated against us. It really was made of stovepipes, the big black ones that Drew had picked up in September when we’d been driving around in the garbage truck looking for a house to live in. Lots of other things had gone into it, too—from old tin cans to automobile fenders.
Toby was way up near the top fastening some screws and bolts, or whatever it was that held Pop’s junk constructions together.
Glenda nudged me. “Does he know what time we’re going trick-or-treating tonight?”
“Toby,” I shouted. “We have to talk to you about tonight.”
Toby looked down. “Oh, say, about that … sorry, kids. No can do.”
Glenda made a face and looked at me.
I squinted up at him. “What do you mean? You said you’d come with us. Glenda and I were counting on it.”
Toby shook his head. “I didn’t promise. I only said ‘maybe.’ ”
“You said ‘maybe yes.’ ”
“There was still a ‘maybe’ in there somewhere.”
“Toby,” I said insistently, “can’t you come down? I want to talk to you.”
“In a minute.” A few seconds later Toby began to wriggle down from the top of “Stovepipes.” He jumped the final three or four feet to the ground. “What’s up?”
“Well, it’s just that I can’t see how you can disappoint Glenda and me like this. What are you doing tonight anyway?”
Toby put a hand on my shoulder, as a sort of limp apology, I suppose. “Going to a party with some of the kids from school.” Then he headed off across the yard toward the shed where Drew kept most of his junk piled.
I stamped my foot. “Oh, you’re rotten!”
Toby turned around, wrinkling his brow and making flapping motions with his hands. “Take it easy. I’m sure you two can manage to go trick-or- treating on your own. Glenda’s big and strong enough to protect both of you.”
I turned to look at Glenda. She was staring after Toby and her eyes were stormy. And then an odd expression came over her face. For a second I thought she was going to scream something terrible at Toby, and the next second I thought maybe she was going to cry, and right after that she looked scared. All she said was something that sounded like “Oooh,” and with that she turned and ran out of the yard.
I could have just killed Toby. Instead of following Glenda, I started toward the junk shed. Then I saw the other boy who was back there with Toby and whom Glenda must have seen, too, when she got that odd look on her face. But why?
He was tall and lean and very, very good-looking. About sixteen or seventeen, I guess, with a gorgeous fading-gold suntan, the kind that lifeguards have after being at the beach all summer, and with thick brown hair that swept down low on his forehead. It seemed odd that Glenda would have run away, with any boy that good-looking around. But of course she was terribly angry at Toby. And so was I.
“Listen,” I said, going straight over to Toby and ignoring the other boy for the moment. “What did you mean by talking to Glenda like that? She’s very sensitive about how big and fat she is. You’re not supposed to refer to her size. Don’t you realize you hurt her feelings?”
Toby looked surprised, which made me even angrier. “Did I? Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry’s no good. You already said it.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll apologize,” Toby said impatiently. “Oh, by the way, this is Bruce Fenton. Bruce, my sister Sara. Bruce is a pal of mine from school. He came over to scrounge around in the shed for some auto parts for his … hmmm, pardon the expression … vehicle. When I told him about some of the stuff Pop’s been collecting, he nearly flipped.”
“Hi,” Bruce said. He had a perfect smile with a set of perfect, absolutely white teeth, which made his good looks so perfect it was almost blinding to look at him, and also it made me very uncomfortable.
“Oh,” I faltered, “then I guess that’s your car out front.”
Bruce just grinned.
“Did Toby say your last name’s Fenton? You wouldn’t by any chance know a boy named Roddy Fenton?”
“Nope. Never heard of him.”
“Oh, I thought maybe …”
Bruce broke up into a falsetto laugh. I was glad to find out that at least there was one thing about him that wasn’t perfect, because I thought boys with high-pitched laughs sounded just terrible.
“I was only kidding. Actually I do know the little guy,” he said. “Matter of fact, he’s my brother.”
“I didn’t even know Roddy had a brother … until now. Nobody ever mentioned it.”
“Oh sure,” Bruce said absently. He was holding up a couple of rusty, dented old hub caps that he seemed to be considering for the wheels of his car.
I could see Bruce and I were at the end of our conversation. And anyhow I still wanted to have it out with Toby about Glenda. “It’s bad enough you broke your promise,” I said, talking to
Toby’s back as he combed through the junk looking for something for Bruce, “but saying that to Glenda when you know she’s my best friend. I think she ran out of here crying.”
To my surprise it was Bruce who looked up. “Did I hear you say she’s your best friend?”
“Yes, of course she is. Why shouldn’t she be?”
Bruce glanced at Toby and then back to me. “I probably shouldn’t get into this.”
“No,” I said. “I want to know what you meant just now. Why shouldn’t Glenda and I be best friends?”
Bruce’s face began to redden a little under his fading tan. “Look, you got a right to be friends with anybody you like. It’s just that personally I can’t see being pals with somebody who’s tried to make trouble for you?”
“What trouble?” Toby wanted to know.
“Didn’t you people know there was a petition circulating to try to get you kicked out of the neighborhood?” Bruce looked around the yard. “On account of all this junk and that … that ‘Stovepipe’ or whatever you call it.”
Bruce stopped to consider. “You know, I sort of like that thing, though. It gives me an idea. When I’m ready to junk my car and go for a new one, I’ll make an artistic-looking monument out of the old one, and stick the whole thing on our front lawn. Let’s see what old lady Waite’ll do about that!”
“What’s she got to do with it?” I asked.
“Oh boy,” Bruce said. “How dumb can you be? Didn’t you even know she was the one who started that petition against you? She cooked up the whole idea, calling people on the phone and getting them all worked up about it. Then she got a couple of other people to go door to door with it, getting folks to sign. But everybody around here knows it was her baby.” Bruce paused and looked straight at me. “I’ll bet that fat pal of yours never even told you.”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open. “No. No, she never did.” Then I thought I had the answer. “If Mrs. Waite did start the petition, I’m absolutely sure Glenda didn’t know anything about it.”
“You’re sure, are you?” Toby challenged.
“Oh yes, Toby, I am.”
I could see that Toby didn’t believe Glenda was innocent
“All right,” I said, “I’ll just go right in the house and phone Glenda and ask her. Is that okay with you?”
Toby and Bruce both looked at me. They didn’t say anything. Then they turned away and started fishing around silently in the junk again.
The minute I heard Glenda’s voice answering the telephone I knew she was very upset but it was hard to tell about what or at whom.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“Nothing. Why’d you call?”
“Listen, Glen. Toby said he’s sorry about what he said.”
She didn’t say anything. I went on. “I know that doesn’t help much. He shouldn’t have said it.”
Still no answer.
“Well, listen Glenda, don’t be angry at me. I didn’t say it. Or is there something else you’re angry about? Oh, come on, Glenda. It’s not the first time somebody said something rotten to you. Don’t be so sensitive.”
“Oh,” she said sullenly, “what would you know about it?”
“Plenty. I’ve been hit on the head, too, you know. In fact, there’s something I have to ask you right now and please tell me the truth.”
“I don’t tell lies!” Glenda snapped.
“Okay. Calm down. I didn’t say you did.”
“You made it sound like I did. And I don’t!”
“Okay, okay. What are you getting so steamed up about? Glenda, please, just tell me this. There’s some kind of talk going around that it was your mother who started the petition. You know, the one that said how we’d have to get out of the neighborhood.”
“Who told you that?” she said suspiciously.
“Well, it really doesn’t matter because everyone around here seems to know and we only just found out. So all I’m asking you is was it really your mother who started it and, if it was, did you know that she was doing it?”
It was dead quiet at the other end of the wire. I could hear my heart pounding louder and louder. But still no answer from Glenda.
“Glenda,” I said hoarsely, “I asked you a question. You’re supposed to be my friend and you said you’d tell me the truth. So tell me, can’t you?”
I didn’t think she was ever going to answer me and then her voice came over the wire, twisted and nasty. I’d never heard it like that before.
“You know what I think,” Glenda snarled. “I think that from now on you’d better stick to your family and I’d better stick to my family!”
And, with that, she hung up on me.
11
Inez and Drew were getting ready to leave for the Halloween dance at the college. They were going early because Pop was on the committee to decorate the gym where the dance was going to be held.
Mom was wearing a black leotard with a high neck and long sleeves. She was just fastening a floor-length skirt of bright orange-and-red wool, which she had woven herself, around her waist. And she had lots of jangling gold jewelry around her neck. She looked really great and not too spooky at all in spite of the fact that it was Halloween.
“Sara love, are you really going to stay home tonight? No trick-or-treating? No party?”
“That’s right,” I said. I was sitting, all crumpled up, on a straw mat on the floor of my room. That was how I felt inside, too. Crumpled up. Like a sheet of fresh white tissue paper that somebody had taken in their fist and squashed into something the size of a ping-pong ball.
Mom crouched down beside me. “It’s a pity. You had such a good idea for a costume. And you worked so hard on that Statue of Liberty crown.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Couldn’t you still arrange to go out trick-or-treating with some of the other kids, maybe some of the kids who are going to be at the party? Or Toby could go trick-or-treating with you and then take you over to Roddy’s party and we’d pick you up when it’s over. Toby won’t mind getting to his party a little later. He feels sort of responsible for this mess between you and Glenda.”
“No,” I interrupted irritably. “I can’t do that. Don’t you see, that’s exactly what Glenda’s going to do. She’ll probably go trick-or-treating with those kids and then she’ll go to Roddy’s party. Oooh, I have a good mind to phone her right this minute and tell her they never wanted her there in the first place and only invited her at the last minute because they knew I wouldn’t come without her!” And I began scrambling to my feet, thinking that was exactly what I’d do.
But Inez put a firm hand on my shoulder. “No Sara. Don’t do that. Telling Glenda the truth about Roddy’s invitation would be very cruel and hurtful.”
“But look how she’s hurt me! ‘You stick to your family; I’ll stick to my family.’ And all the time I thought we understood and even liked each other’s families. I really did like her family. Going over to her house to make alphabet-burgers in her mother’s kitchen was like stepping back into Aunt Minna’s kitchen in Crestview. I even told Glenda how I felt because I thought she was my friend. And she used to tell me how interesting she thought you and Pop were and how she admired the clever way we did things at our house.”
Inez just kept watching me with a worried frown.
“And now,” I went on, “I see that she only pretended to understand what it was like for me, because she needed to have a friend. Because nobody else in the whole neighborhood would have anything to do with her. Now she’ll have plenty of friends and she won’t need me. And she’ll never even know that the only reason she got them was because of me.”
Mom put her arm around my shoulders. “No Sara, it won’t work that way. If there is some reason they didn’t want her before, they won’t be so quick to accept her now.”
“Yes, they will,” I insisted. “She’ll tell them all how kooky we are. How you painted the guest room ceiling black and how none of
us sleep in regular beds and how you and Drew eat raw meat with raw eggs on top. And they’ll all make terrible fun of me. Oh, can’t we move back to California?” I pleaded. “It’s going to be awful here without any friends at all.”
“Sara,” Inez soothed, “please don’t decide this minute how everything is going to be from now on. You’re very upset—and you’re mixed up, too.”
“All I know is I hate Glenda,” I exploded. “I just hate her!”
“Don’t say that, Sara. Glenda really was your friend in many ways. But perhaps it took too much courage for her to be your friend all the way. Just remember that you were the one who told us to be patient because people around here weren’t ready for changes. Maybe Glenda wasn’t as ready as you thought she was. Maybe it was too hard for her to ‘understand’; maybe she always had too many problems of her own.”
I just sat there thinking bitterly that it was easy for Mom to be so understanding toward Glenda; she hadn’t just lost her only friend.
It wasn’t the same for Inez and Drew as it was for me. They had made lots of friends among the people who taught out at the college. Toby had it easy, too, because he liked a lot of the kids who worked on the school newspaper and who came to Havenhurst High from all over the surrounding area, not just from our part of Havenhurst.
Just then Drew stuck his head in the doorway of my room. “Ready to go, I? How’s Sara?”
“I’m okay,” I said glumly.
“Not very,” Mom said, giving Pop a quick look. She turned to me. “Look, Sara. Toby will stay with you until nine o’clock. I’ll phone from the college about ten, to see how you are. If you’re still upset I’ll come back before Toby leaves. I wouldn’t even go now except I’ve promised to do the special effects part of the decorating. Is that plan okay?”
I nodded. Mom touched her lips to the top of my head and went off downstairs to tell Toby the plan. Right after that she and Pop left.
It was still early, only about seven thirty. All afternoon the little kids had kept coming around, ringing the doorbell to get candy for trick-or-treat. They traipsed up the steps in their funny little costumes, lugging great big orange-and-black shopping bags for people to dump the candy in. Some of them were so small they couldn’t even reach the doorbell. Most of them came with their mothers who waited for them out on the sidewalk. But now they had dwindled down to a trickle. Toby had been staying downstairs for the past half hour so he could answer the door.