Darnay Road (8 page)

“Hey
Georgia,” Easy says, and I look at him. I might have tears in my eyes, but I
might not. “Can I sign your cast?”

Well
I don’t know. All we have is Abigail May’s pencil stuck in our sleuthing
notebook. Here she is, sticking that pencil in my face, and I snatch it from
her cause gee-willckers. So I take a couple of steps toward Easy. I hand him
the pencil and my fingers touch his a little. Then I lift my cast a little
closer to him and he’s really almost pretty is what I think. He has eyes that
just make me silly. So I’m smiling a little cause you can’t look at him and not
smile.

But
I know he knows it. I just know he does. So I nod and he lifts my cast with one
hand, and his hands are so much bigger than mine or Granma’s. I think he bites
his nails too. But he lifts that cast slowly and a little higher and I think,
what’s he doing, and he looks under my cast and he finds a spot and he pencils
in there pretty quickly, but not too quickly, and then he lowers my arm again
and he smiles at me. His eyelashes are the longest I’ve ever seen, and his
smile is wide and his teeth are just a little crooked. He is purely a boy, but
not like any other I’ve seen, and I don’t even know what to do with all this
big feeling in me.

So
I just get serious. I tell Abigail we have to go and I take her hand and the
Caghans ride in circles near us until we’re practically home, then they take
off. And they’ve popped a hundred wheelies, but we haven’t talked anymore.

“They
didn’t take those kittens,” Abigail says.

“I
know.”

“After
they talk to Disbro, Cap will come along and give us the sign.”

“What
sign?”

“The
frog. Two ribbets means it wasn’t Disbro.”

“Disbro
won’t tell the truth.”

“Cap
says they’ll find out,” Abigail says so sure.

“Well
I don’t know,” I say.

But we get close to
home and Granma is waiting by the fence. I expect Aunt May to be with her, but
she is not.

“What
are these get-ups?” Granma says meaning our special outfits.

“We
been walking,” Abigail May says, which Granma never ever buys. She tells me to
never let someone else do my talking, no sir.

“We’ve
been walking,” I repeat. “Looking for those kittens. We went down to the ball
fields to see if any of those boys took them.”

“By
yourselves? Was that wise Georgia Christine? You may go to the fire hydrant,
but not off this street. You know this.”

“Yes
ma’am. But we thought maybe Disbro Peak took them,” I say, knowing how thin
this sounds.

We’re
doing that looking at each other. It’s new. It isn’t, but something about it
is. I am not telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but I’m not
telling a lie either. I am sparing her. That’s all. We are on a case and we
promised and rubbed our blood together. We are spies first. We sacrifice.

But
there’s something else. I have a name on this cast, it’s under my arm almost.
It’s Easy.

And
all the names on this cast, and the broken bone itself, it’s Easy’s name I feel
the most.

Once
we make it to my room, and it takes about ten minutes of lectures and ‘I’m
sorries,’ but once we make it, Granma is popping the corn, and probably filling
her glass, and Lawrence Welk is already playing, and the only part of that we can
stand is the Lennon Sisters, of course. But we finally, finally get to my room
and turn on the light and I go to my mirror and raise my arm and Abigail
bounces on her toes and holds her hands like a bouquet of twining fingers under
her chin and we see it in the mirror at the same time, near the top almost
under my arm where my cast is still unsigned and very clean, we see it penciled
in small letters, all capitals, EASY, framed in a heart.

“Oh
my,” Abigail whispers. And I don’t say a thing. I can’t speak about it. But I
feel it. Like I said.

Darnay
Road 16

We
are in my window for the longest time before Cap Caghan does his froggie sound.
He’s on foot cause we barely see him. Two ribbits and cross Disbro, Mike, and
Bobby off the list. Cross off ourselves and there’s Ricky and Granma left.

“It’s
Ricky,” I say, disappointed. I don’t see any sign of Easy.

“You
just want to take the spotlight off of Granma,” Abigail May says.

But
she went to the store same as me, and Granma wouldn’t be mean like that. She
wouldn’t do that. She didn’t mean it, that we’d have twenty-four cats. My
gran…my gran. If she took those kittens…well I might never get over it.

“It
wasn’t her,” I say. My Granma is not the bad seed.

“You
know we have to interview the suspects,” Abigail May says.

Yes
I know that. I helped write those rules for spies, didn’t I?

“Then
go on over and talk to Ricky,” I say.

I
know she’s mad now.

But
we watch out the window and we don’t see Cap anymore, and Easy never was there.
And Cap don’t go for Ricky. Well, Ricky is mad at them and all.

“It’s not him,” Abigail
says while we stare over at her house. Abigail’s house is dark so Ricky and
Aunt May must be asleep. But we are so surprised when her front door opens and
there are two in the doorway and one separates from the other, a man wearing
all black who is situating a black hat on his head. He leaves big gray and
latches the gate and walks down the sidewalk with his shoulders hunched.

Well
I’ve never seen the like. Is Aunt May sick?

But
we are both quiet, watching that ghostly figure walk out of sight.

“Abigail
May,” I say.

“He
comes sometimes,” she says.

“But
where’s his car? It was there before.”

“He
parks on Scutter and walks back. He likes the exercise.”

“Is
he supposed to leave the rectory this late?” I check my Cinderella watch and
it’s half past ten. A good spy always checks the time when she sees something
fishy.

And
this is fishy.

“I
don’t come out when he’s there. Aunt May wouldn’t like it. She says once I go
to bed I cannot get up except to bathroom.”

“But….”

“He’s
her friend,” Abigail says like she’s mad at me. “I’m not supposed to tell
because priests are not allowed to be friends with anybody.”

“He
has Father Sukas and Jeffries though,” I say. I can’t imagine wanting to be
friends with Father Anthony. What would you do? He’s always in the black outfit
with those pale hands.

“Priests
get very lonely,” she says hotly.

“You
don’t know,” I say. “Can’t they ever see their families?”

“Sometimes
they are far away like in Germany or something.”

“What
about the nuns?” I say. We’ve already talked all this to death, many times. But
now we need to talk about it again.

“It’s
not a mystery. All right?” Abigail says then she goes to my bed and flops down.

I
end up lying beside her but I don’t want to fall asleep this way, lying
cross-ways. Abigail May don’t care what way we lay. She just messes the bed all
up, but I like to lay with my head on my
Mickey Mouse Club
pillow and
the covers all neatly over me.

“You
can’t tell Granma. Or anyone,” she says.

“What
about Ricky? Does he know?” I ask.

“He’s
always out with the Hardy Boys.”

“What
about tonight?” I say.

“I
don’t know,” she says like Granma does when that’s the end of it. “You can’t
tell,” she says again.

Why
does it seem like there are more and more things I can’t tell my granma? Well
part of it’s spy stuff. But now there’s other stuff.

Easy.
I think of every word I know that rhymes with his name. I like breezy best.
Easy-breezy. I always liked that.

So
what in the world would I do at the Quick Shop? I could buy some Turkish Taffy
or something. Maybe one of those slushies. Red. I’d like to try that. But I
would never ever go there. Not me.

Abigail
May flops over on her other side so her back is to me. Sleeping with her is
never easy.

There
it is again. Easy. I never knew how many times I use that word. And now I’ll
always think of him probably.

I
tuck my hand under my cast so I can feel that heart.

I
want to see Easy’s house, that’s for sure. I say that to Abigail.

“Didn’t Granma just say
you can’t leave Darnay Road unless she gives permission for something like
roller skating?” Abigail says in a real sleepy voice.

“Yes,”
I allow.

“Georgia?
Rub my hair,” she says all sweet now.

And
I have to roll a little on my side to make my arm long enough to reach her
little pin-head. I rub over her little hairs, so short and dark and shiny. It
about hits me then, yells into my face seems like. Her mama could come and take
her away. From me. And that is just not a possibility. Without Abigail May…well
I don’t know if I could live.

I
feel some tears coming, but I cry real quiet, I don’t even sniff.

In
no time she’s asleep.

Darnay
Road 17

I
am so sleepy come Sunday morning. Abigail May is bouncing around. Mass is at
nine-thirty, and Aunt May drives. I groan because Abigail raises the shade all
the way up and the sun is dancing rainbow splatters right through my eyelids.

“What
you looking at?” I say.

“Big
gray,” she says staring out the window.

She
loves that old house pretty much.

“I
had the most terrible dream. In living Technicolor—a brontosaurus rising out of
the river and demolishing the trestle bridge. We’d gone there to look for the
kittens and it came bursting out of the water chewing on a tree,” I say.

“Did
we find them?”

“What?”

“The
kittens!” She runs to the bed and jumps on it jarring my arm.

“Are
you even listening! One second ago I was running for my life from a
brontosaurus!”

“He’s
a plant-eater,” she reminds me.

“I
know that,” I say. We know all about dinosaurs. I have the Golden Book set of
encyclopedias, and we go to the library all year long and we’ve looked at every
picture of dinosaurs we can possibly find.

“And
he wouldn’t be alive in the river. He’d be spotted. He wouldn’t be underwater
he’d….”

“Abigail
May,” I say, my voice all raspy with sleep, “I know all that. But in my dream
he was acting just like Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

“Well
whenever I have a bad dream you tell me all the reasons why it isn’t true, so
I’m just telling you,” she says, lying on her back so she can get her toe up to
her mouth and bite on her toenail. She knows that drives me crazy.

I
push her some and she straightens out and hops up laughing. She sure is happy
this morning for a girl whose mama is threatening to come around and drag her
all the way to Florida.

“Well
thank you very much, but that man-eating dinosaur was very true while I was
asleep,” I say like I’ve got the headache.

“Don’t
tell Granma about Father Anthony,” she says.

We
look at one another for a minute. “Don’t tell Granma about Easy signing my cast
like that,” I say.

The
‘don’t tell Granmas,’ just keep piling up.

Mass
takes forever and ever and ever. I put my imagination to good use and think of
Easy signing my cast, the way he wrote there so carefully, holding my arm up so
gently. My good hand is under my cast right now, my fingers running over that
heart.

Someday when I do get a
boyfriend for real, I hope he’s as nice and beautiful as Easy. Well maybe it
will be him, maybe he’ll wait and I’ll grow up and be so beautiful, like
Natalie Wood. And maybe we’ll have a convertible, red with white seats would be
so, so fine. I’d wear a silk bandana and sunglasses and Easy, or Moondoggie, or
someone so handsome will be driving us down the highway and we’ll see wonders I
imagine, maybe even go to Hollywood.

Granma
nudges me. It’s time to go up for communion. I get up and move out of the pew
behind Abigail May. The doily on her head has blown up on one side, folded over
the bobby pin she wears in the center of her head to hold her head-covering on.
I reach up and smooth it flat again. God wouldn’t be punishing her now would
he? I have the broken arm and she has to move? And Ricky, he’s getting punished
too, and sneaking out every night, well it’s obvious to me, a true spy, that
he’s in trouble.

Maybe
I shouldn’t take communion. Maybe I need confession instead. I sure can’t go
now. They only have it on Thursdays. Pretty soon I’m kneeling at the railing
beside Abigail May, my head bowed while I watch for Father and the altar boy,
one of the big boys I don’t know, make their ways down the row of us doling out
the wafer we can’t bite but must let dissolve on our tongues like Fizzies, only
this is a very holy thing, so holy that if you bite the wafer, it will bleed
and probably cause blood to run out of your mouth and people will look at you
and scream.

Now
it’s my turn and I lift my head.

He
says the words in Latin, “The body of Christ.”

I
open my mouth and I feel Father Anthony’s wet fingers touch my tongue and for
just a split second he looks at me and I look at him, and that’s a first time
cause the priest always just looks at your mouth like he’s trying to aim
communion right in there, so I can only think about how I saw him leaving
Abigail’s house so late, and he’s friends with Aunt May when he’s not supposed
to make friends.

Then
he’s moving on to Granma and Aunt May and I follow in Abigail’s path, my hands
folded, my steps so soft as I walk back to our pew.

One
good thing. Mass is nearly over and there’s a pancake breakfast after and I’ll
have a chance to watch Father Anthony and Aunt May.

And
I will be watching.