Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [111]
“Thally! Thally! Thally!”
She’s on the middle of the three school swings, pumping with all her might. I can’t yell at her across the playground to hush up, Father Mickey might hear me. And what if he hears her? She could wreck Troo’s whole plan. But I can’t just ignore her either. Wendy doesn’t understand ignoring. I know from years of experience that she’ll yell louder and louder the higher and higher she goes, so I do the only thing I can think of. I peel across the blacktop and try to talk her down.
“Wendy, you gotta stop,” I pant out as she swings past me. “You gotta be quiet. Please. Tapioca, tapioca, tapioca.” I never know how much of what I say she really understands so this is always a shot in the dark. “You should go be with your mom. She’s callin’ you. She’s gonna be mad if you don’t.” That’s worked a couple of times in the past. “See? She’s right over there.” Wendy doesn’t look where I’m pointing. She throws her head back and looks up and then so do I. The moon that was so bright just a few seconds ago is wrapped up in black clouds and the wind is picking up enough that the trees are rustling. “Uh-oh. You know what that means. A storm’s comin’.” Just like Troo, Wendy is not nuts about thunder and lightning. “It could even be a tornado. You don’t want that. Remember what happened to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz?”
“With flyin’, Sally,” Wendy says, pumping harder.
“Yup . . . yup, that’s really good witch flying, but you . . .” I’m trying to get ahold of the swing chain and drag her to a stop, but she’s really high and weighs a lot more than I do, and that’s not even counting how strong she is. The last time I tried to do this over at the playground, she spun around to get away from me and when she twisted back she knocked me down.
“Be with, Thally,” she yells. “With . . . with . . . with.”
“Wendy . . . no . . . please, please . . . shush . . . shush . . . shhh.” She’s asking me to do my impression of the Wicked Witch of the West that makes her laugh so hard, but once I start, she’ll want more . . . more . . . more! I don’t have time for that. I have to get back to where I’m supposed to be over in the nook of the school. Troo is going to come charging out that rectory door any minute and if I’m not there to do my part, to be the decoy, Father is going to catch her. “All right. Okay,” I tell Wendy. “You stay and swing and . . . ah . . . if you’re real quiet, I’ll come right back in a little while and be the witch, okay?”
When I take off, Wendy doesn’t do exactly what I asked her to. She yells again, “Thally! Thally!” but I can’t help that. I can’t stop.
I hurry to listen in the window again. I can hear much better now. Things are really heating up inside the rectory. Troo is yelling and Father Mickey is, too, then my sister shouts even louder and something breaks and then everything goes quiet. There’s a flash, which must be Mary Lane’s Brownie bulb, and then Troo comes dashing out the rectory door much faster than when we practiced. She didn’t give me the chance to get back to my hiding spot.
My sister whizzes past me, yelling, “Run, Sal, run!”
From inside the house, Father Mickey roars, “Fuckin’ kids!” and just like Troo thought he would, he comes charging out the door, which is supposed to be my cue to run across the playground and lose him in the neighborhood, but I barely get five feet when he grabs me from behind, spins me around by my braid and slaps me across the face so hard that I feel my front tooth break on his ring. He is cursing and trying to pull me back up off the ground by my right arm. In the light of the rectory hall that’s spilling out behind him, Father Mickey looks rabid. His hair is standing on end and his black Irish eyes look frantic above