Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [105]
(Like always, sorry, Daddy.)
By the time Troo and me recover from Mother’s Spam-and-brussels-sprouts casserole, the sky has gone dark enough for the streetlights to come on. We are on our way to the Latours’ to join up with Mary Lane and Artie so we can have the put-off powwow where aaalll will be revealed. The fastest way over to Vliet Street is shortcuts.
About halfway through the Hamlins’ yard, I ask my sister the question that won’t stop rolling over and over in my mind. “Hey, did you break your promise to Mr. Gary and tell Father Mickey about Mrs. Galecki’s will during one of your talks?” I’m pretty sure she did, but I’d like to hear her admit it.
Troo reaches over, strips the leaves off a bush and throws them up in the air like confetti. “So what if I did?” she says. “You’re the only one around here who makes a Federal case about breakin’ promises. What’s the big deal?”
I’m positive that finding out about that gigantic inheritance is what made Father Mickey come up with his plan to murder Mrs. Galecki, but I can’t let Troo know that. It doesn’t seem like she would, but my tough little nut would feel terrible about causing somebody else to accidentally die, the same way she feels terrible about causing Daddy’s crash. That’s why I tell her, “No big deal. Just wonderin’.”
After coming out of the Hamlins’ and crossing the alley over to the Latours’, Troo jiggles open the unhinged gate. From inside the house, we can hear Mrs. Latour screaming at the kids about brushing their teeth and getting into their pj’s. That sounds so good to me and Troo knows that, so she grabs me by the wrist and drags me down to where Mary Lane and Artie are already waiting for us in the bomb shelter.
Troo and me had never seen one of these things until we moved onto Vliet Street. (Daddy told us we didn’t need one out on the farm because “Joe McCarthy’s full of hooey. The only Reds we have to worry about, girls, are the ones from Cincinnati.”)
Tonight’s not the first time I’ve been down here. Our first day in the city, Troo and me met Artie over at the playground. He brought us over to his yard, showed us the shelter and told us how his dad is sure that we’re gonna get bombed by the Russians, it’s just a matter of time. Artie bragged about how his family can live down here for two weeks or more. In my opinion, that was, and still is, a harebrained idea. You stuff all the Latours into a small space like this they are going to kill each other before any radiation could.
I get the heebie-jeebies when I’m closed up, but the underground hole isn’t too bad if you keep the door open. But once it’s shut, like it is now, it feels like I think it would if you were buried alive with lots of canned goods and candles.
The reason Troo insisted we meet in the bomb shelter is not only because she adores it, but because she’s being extra, extra careful about Father Mickey or some blabbermouth finding out what we’re up to. That might sound kinda silly, but she’s right, ya know. These blocks have ears and eyes. And motoring mouths. My sister wants to lay out her revenge plan in absolute, walls-of-steel secrecy.
“This meeting is called to order,” Troo announces, and makes us say the Girl Scout Promise for some reason. “On my honor, I will try to serve God and my country, to help others at all times . . .”
For the next half hour, she spells out exactly what is expected of us, what parts we’ll be playing in her revenge plan against Father Mickey tomorrow night. Because I can’t tell her without letting her know what part she played in his plan, she thinks she’s only going after a priest who got Mother an annulment and is the head of a gang of altar boy thieves. Only I know that Father