Me and Fat Glenda

by Lila Perl

  I went downstairs slowly. Toby was sitting in the living room with a book in his lap. He looked up as I came into the room.

  “Hi, Sara,” he said. “Are you sore at me?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “Well, I’m afraid my bringing Bruce over here this afternoon had a lot to do with busting up your Halloween plans.”

  “No, Toby. It isn’t your fault—it’s Glenda’s. Or maybe it’s just the way things are. Anyhow, Toby, what I came downstairs to tell you is that I’m okay. So why don’t you go on over to your party now?”

  Toby shook his head. “I told Inez I’d be here till nine o’clock.”

  “Look Toby, that’s stupid. I’m as okay now as I’m going to be at nine. When Mom phones, I’ll tell her I made you go even though you didn’t want to. Except I know you really do. I mean it, Toby. Please don’t hang around on my account.”

  “Nope. Nothing doing.”

  But I could tell Toby wasn’t going to hold out for long. I went back up to my room and about ten minutes later he came up and said if I was really okay maybe he would leave.

  “Boy,” I said, “you’re harder to get rid of than the itch from a whole can of itching powder.”

  “Okay,” Toby cautioned, “but one thing I want you to promise.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No opening the door to any trick-or-treaters who come around from now on.”

  “What should I do? Suppose they get sore and pull a trick?”

  “I already took care of that. I put all the Halloween candy in a big brown bag and attached it to the outside doorknob with a sign that says, ‘Please take some and leave the rest for others.’ That ought to do it.”

  I nodded.

  “Take care now, Sara, and be good.”

  “You, too,” I called after him as Toby bounded down the stairs and out the front door.

  I sat in my room for about fifteen minutes mulling the whole awful mess with Glenda over and over in my mind. Every now and then my eye fell on my Statue of Liberty crown. It was really beautiful, each spike perfect, and exactly the same number of spikes as on the real Statue of Liberty crown. I got up off the floor and put it on and looked at myself in the mirror.

  “Well, why not?” I thought. “It’s Halloween and I’ve got my costume and my mask ready. Why shouldn’t I have a little fun just going around and trick-or-treating by myself.” I didn’t need Fat Glenda. I didn’t need her or anyone else.

  So I began to get dressed in my costume, putting on a pair of warm slacks and three sweaters under my bedsheet-robe because it was really getting chilly out now. I could hear the wind rattling the bare branches of the big tree outside my window and making them scrape and scratch against the glass like wild things trying to get in.

  At last I was ready. I took my flashlight, which was supposed to be my Statue of Liberty torch, and a small paper shopping bag for candy and stuff, and a UNICEF canister to try to collect some money in. I took my house key, too, so I could get back in before the others returned.

  I went out and closed the front door, and the first thing I did was to trip on the front steps because of the long, loose bedsheet and the mask over my eyes, which made it hard to see where I was going. That made me lose my balance, and my crown got knocked crooked. I felt so stupid. But after I straightened out my crown and hitched up my bedsheet a little higher under my sash, I was okay.

  I started down the street. It was now dark outside and there weren’t many people around. The little kids had all been taken home for supper a long time ago and maybe the big kids hadn’t started out yet.

  After the first doorbell I rang, where they put a whole quarter in my UNICEF canister, I began to feel much better. People were really nice. They all seemed to have lots of candy around and after they gave me a nickel or a dime for UNICEF, they said I should take some candy, too, as my “reward” for the “good work” I was doing.

  One lady was giving out big, shiny red apples instead of candy to the kids who rang her doorbell. She said apples were much more healthful and wouldn’t cause cavities. She was right of course. But she must have had to buy just bushels of apples for Halloween.

  At one house a man answered the door. He seemed sleepy and grumpy at first. He said he didn’t have any small change for UNICEF, but he offered me a dollar bill.

  “You don’t have to give that much,” I said.

  “Haven’t got any change,” he muttered, fishing around in his pockets and coming up with nothing but a small bunch of keys. “Tell you what. You take this and give me fifty cents change.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “It’s a sealed collection carton and I haven’t got any other money on me.”

  “Well, that’s the best I can do, girlie. But if you want to come back later, half of this dollar is yours.”

  “All right,” I said. “I will.”

  “Oh, and have a candy.” He held out a box of chocolates, each in its own little fluted paper cup. The box was pretty well picked over and I didn’t really want one of the stale-looking chocolates. But he had such a sad, tired look on his face that I rummaged around in the empty papers and found one and took it. The house was all dead and quiet behind him, like no wife or children lived there with him, although maybe once, a long time ago, they had.

  I had been trick-or-treating for about three-quarters of an hour and had made a circle around the neighborhood. I wasn’t far from home, so I decided to stop at our house, leave the apple and all the candy I’d collected, and get the change for the man with the dollar bill.

  I had just come around the corner onto Dangerfield Road when I saw this whole bunch of kids coming toward me. They all seemed to be in costume except for the one in front. It was a large figure in dark pants and a dark jacket, and it looked as if it were running straight for me.

  I got a little frightened remembering what Glenda had said about things getting rough in Havenhurst after dark on Halloween and about needing somebody to protect us when we went trick-or-treating.

  Then the others seemed to stop or drop back but the figure kept coming closer and I still couldn’t make out whether it was a man or a boy or what. The jacket it wore had a hood that fitted closely over the head and was pulled together around the face with a string or an elastic.

  Then the person running toward me opened its mouth and shrieked, “Sara!” And I knew right away that it was Glenda.

  We met under the street lamp and I could see the round moon of her face, her forehead popping with little beads of sweat even in the Halloween cold. Her eyes were wide open and terrified looking.

  “Sara,” she panted, “Sara, you better come quick.”

  “Why?” I said, gaping. “What’s happened?”

  “They threw eggs at your house and then they went inside the yard and started tearing down those stovepipes.”

  She grabbed both my arms.

  “Oh please, Sara, come quickly. I’m so glad I found you!”

  12

  By the time I got back to our house, with Glenda puffing along behind me and dropping farther and farther behind, there were about a million kids gathered there, including the ones who had come part of the way with Glenda to get me. Oh well, maybe not a million. But twelve or fourteen anyway.

  It was impossible to know who was who because everybody had costumes and masks on. Except Glenda, of course.

  Somebody in a wolf-man’s face-mask, with fangs and make-believe blood dripping down its chin, was just coming out of our yard, saying, “Well, they nearly wrecked it, all right. I’d say about half of it’s still standing. It’s hard to know with a crazy-looking thing like that.”

  I had taken my mask off so I could see where I was running and as soon as the wolf-man saw me he came over and took his mask off.

  It was Roddy Fenton, of course. I’d known that even with his mask on, just from hearing his voice. I had such mixed-up feelings about Roddy I didn’t know whether I was glad to see him or furious at him.

  He
grinned. “I see Glenda found you. Say, whatever happened between you two? I thought you were going trick-or-treating together.”

  “We had a fight,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder to indicate Glenda, and not even caring who knew it. “I went trick-or-treating by myself. What’s been going on around here anyway? Who made this awful mess?”

  I hadn’t even gotten around to the front of the house yet, but there were broken eggs all over the sidewalk and from what I could see of “Stovepipes” it didn’t look anything like it had that afternoon when Toby had been up on top trying to finish it for Pop.

  Before Roddy could answer, Mary Lou came rushing over to me. She was dressed in a Mother Goose costume with a tall, pointy black hat. “Oh Sara,” she gasped, “you should see what they did to your house. The whole front’s just pelted with eggs. Every window’s all covered with goo and slime and bits and pieces of broken shell, and there’s yellow running down the clapboard. It’s just disgusting! Makes my flesh creep. It really does.” Mary Lou backed off a little. “Oh, I like your costume. Is it homemade? It looks homemade but it’s real clever.” I reached up and fingered my crown. Some of the spikes were broken and flopping over. “I’m afraid it’s falling apart,” I said in a flat voice.

  Glenda had caught up with me and now stood panting at my side. She touched my arm shyly. “Don’t feel bad, Sara. They threw eggs at the windows of our house, too, and at some of the other houses on the street. Although I don’t think any house got it as bad as yours did.”

  Looking around the yard, I believed her.

  “That’s because nobody was home,” she went on. “My father was in the living room when an egg hit our picture window. He ran right out and—guess what? They were throwing the eggs from a car and he got hit right smack in the face with one.”

  The other kids all snickered. It was funny really. I could just see Mr. Waite, with his horn-rimmed eyeglasses and his small black moustache all runny with egg.

  “But who did it?” I asked, looking around at the circle of faces. Most of them had their masks off now. I recognized Cathanne and Patty and a couple of other boys and girls from school. They were probably all part of the crowd that was going to Roddy’s party. “Doesn’t anybody know?”

  Everybody shrugged.

  I could hear Glenda breathing hard next to me. All of a sudden she burst out at Roddy. “Oh, come on, Roddy,” she said, glaring straight at him. “You do so know who did it. So why don’t you tell Sara?”

  Roddy turned an angry red and made a ferocious face at Glenda. “What are you talking about? I don’t know one single thing about it. Why should I?” He was so angry his voice broke into shrill splintery sounds. “But I’ll tell you one thing, kiddo,” he said, jabbing a finger at Glenda’s face. “Even if I did know, I’m no squealer. Not like you!”

  Then he turned to me. “Cross my heart, Sara, it was some kids in a car, so you know it wasn’t us. We were all out trick-or-treating and we came by your house thinking maybe you’d come along. There must have been about four or five of them in the car. After they finished throwing the eggs, they piled out and ran into the yard and started climbing that tower or whatever it is and then they started pulling it down.”

  “It’s true, Sara,” Mary Lou echoed from behind Roddy. “We all got here just in time to scare them off. We could tell there was nobody home at your house or somebody surely would have been outside screaming at them, so that’s when I said, ‘Why don’t we go over to Glenda’s and see if Sara’s there.’ So some of us did and when we got to Glenda’s house she was there all right but you weren’t, and she said she’d go out and look for you.”

  I glanced at Glenda sharply. “How’d you know where I was?”

  “Oh,” she looked away for a moment. “I saw you go by in your costume a few minutes after eight. You were walking on the other side of the street. I just happened to be looking out the window. You rang some doorbells on our block and then you turned the corner. I figured you had to be somewhere right around the neighborhood.”

  “It sounds,” I said coldly, “as if you were spying on me.”

  “Sara, I was not spying!”

  “Oh, she probably was,” Roddy interrupted in a singsong voice. “She’s a great one for spying.” He turned to Glenda. “Why don’t you tell Sara what a famous little detective you are?”

  “Why don’t you tell her about your brother and his friends?” Glenda mimicked in return. “They were probably the ones who threw the eggs and busted up ‘Stovepipes.’ ”

  I looked from Glenda to Roddy and back again, but I couldn’t make much sense out of what they were saying. All the other kids were just standing there, watching and listening the way I was.

  Roddy took a threatening step toward Glenda. “That was not my brother who was over here. It wasn’t his car. I ought to know my own brother’s car. Anyhow he went to a party all the way across town with some of the kids from Havenhurst High. He left the house a couple of hours ago.”

  “It still could have been him, in somebody else’s car,” Glenda said stubbornly. “He was here in this very yard only this afternoon, looking over the place. I saw him myself.” She was really brave to keep insisting because Roddy looked as if he was getting ready to hit her. “And if it wasn’t him, I bet it was those no-good friends of his—Beast and that crowd. Everybody knows they’re nothing but a bunch of punks.”

  Roddy stepped up very close to Glenda and his words exploded in her face. “Bruce does not go around with Beast anymore!” Roddy’s hands flew to Glenda’s throat and began to encircle the collar of her zipper-jacket. “And you lay off my brother, you squealing rat! Hear me? For once and for all, lay off!”

  “He’s going to choke her,” Mary Lou shrilled. “Somebody stop him. Please.”

  I was already shoving my way between them. “Cut it out,” I said irritably. “What’s all this about, anyway? Can’t somebody tell me? I know who Bruce is. But who’s Beast?”

  Cathanne, the girl with the long red hair and the sharp nose, tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Beast is a big fat guy with pimples. He dropped out of school last June. But it coulda been him and some of his crew did this job tonight. I don’t know.” She turned to Patty who was standing at her side. “What do you think?”

  Patty nodded. “It coulda. It definitely coulda.” Roddy had let go of Glenda now and was leaning back against the fence that encircled our yard. Glenda still stood in the same spot where Roddy had started to choke her. I could see she was trembling.

  “Okay,” I said, “maybe it was this kid Beast who did it. But what’s all this stuff about Glenda and Roddy’s brother? What’s she got to do with Bruce anyway?”

  “Go on, tell her,” Roddy said to Glenda with a smirk on his face. “Tell her what a squealer you are.”

  Glenda stood there a minute with her face all red and sweaty. Then she ripped back the hood of her jacket. “All right, I will! ’Cause I’m not ashamed of it. I did see him steal that car. And I’m not sorry I told.”

  There was a little chorus of gasps from the kids standing around.

  “He didn’t steal it,” Roddy snarled.

  “Oh no? Then why did the police find him and Beast in it later that night all the way out at Fish Harbor? Hmmm?”

  “He only borrowed it!”

  “Did Bruce really take somebody’s car?” I asked Glenda.

  “He did, Sara. Honest he did. I saw it myself. It happened last November, about a year ago. I was coming home from school real late one afternoon. It was nearly dark out. I saw Bruce get in this car in Mr. Ellacott’s driveway and fiddle around a little and then he got it started and he drove away. I thought maybe he was just borrowing it, too, at first. But when I got home and mentioned it to my mother, she telephoned Mr. Ellacott and he didn’t even know it was gone till he ran outside to look.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then my mother said we had to go to the police station and report it. And we did.”
>
  “Her mother, her mother,” Roddy murmured sourly. “Her mother’s really a pip.” Suddenly he leaned forward and grabbed my shoulder, practically knocking me off my feet. “Hey, I’ll bet she never even told you that her mother got up that petition against your family on account of all this junk in the yard and whatever … .”

  Roddy waved an arm at the wreckage of “Stovepipes” just over the fence. ‘I’ll bet you didn’t even know that, did you? What’ve you got to say about your fat girlfriend now?”

  Glenda’s eyes were fixed on me. They looked dark and frightened.

  “I don’t think her being fat has anything to do with any of the things you just said about her,” I said stiffly to Roddy.

  Roddy waved his arm as if to say, “Okay, okay.”

  “And about the petition,” I went on, “I already found out about that, so you’re not telling me anything new. You can’t make Glenda responsible for everything her mother does.”

  I could read the gratitude in Glenda’s eyes for that. Roddy just looked disappointed.

  Of course, I still had to have it out with Glenda about whether she knew about the petition all along, but I didn’t want to do that in front of everybody. Even though I was still partly angry at Glenda, I had to admit she was having a pretty hard time of it with Roddy and all.

  “Say, Roddy,” Mary Lou piped up, “it’s getting late. Why don’t we get on over to your house for the party?”

  Roddy looked surly. “No. I’m not leaving here until she takes back what she said about Bruce being the one who threw those eggs tonight.” And he looked menacingly at Glenda again.

  “I didn’t say it was him,” Glenda protested. “I said it could have been.”

  “Look,” Roddy said, “it wasn’t Bruce and that’s that. And the only reason he took Mr. Ellacott’s car that time was because somebody dared him to.”