Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [67]
From over the fence, Ethel’s voice comes pouring thick and sweet. “That you O’Malley sisters ponderin’ the questions of the universe in that bean teepee?”
She knows it is. Who else would it be? Ethel’s just using her fine southern manners. I open up my mouth to ask how her evening has been going and tell her that I’ll be right over for some good advice and how I’ll help her look some more for Mrs. Galecki’s lost jewelry that hasn’t turned up yet, but Troo shakes her head and scowls. She loves Ethel as much as I do and would normally be halfway over there by now, but that’s the kind of mood she is in tonight and most nights, come to think of it. If I say black, she’ll say white. If I say go, she’ll say no.
“I got a little something-something waitin’ on you,” Ethel drawls out. That means she’s got something good to eat.
When the first lightning flashes, I can see Troo even more perfectly. She’s got the L&M dangling from her lips so she can use her hand to rub her bad arm that got hurt in the crash. What I should do is take her back into the house, get under the bed and plug her ears with cotton balls like I usually do when a storm kicks up, but I don’t.
I shout back to Ethel, “Be there in two shakes.”
The heck with Troo. If she wants to stay in here smoking and gloating over how Mother and Dave are barely getting along instead of stretching out in Mrs. Galecki’s porch with our other best friend eating a little something-something, then let her. Mother made us sweetbreads for supper tonight and they didn’t taste like cinnamon toast the way I thought they would. I’m so darn hungry. My stomach feels like a wishing well.
I’ve crawled almost all the way outta the teepee when Mother yells out the back window with all she’s got, “Girls? You out there? Get in this house. It’s about to pour.”
Dang.
I call back across the yard, “Ethel?”
“Ya girls listen to your mama. I’ll see y’all on Wednesday. Lessin’ Miss Troo stunts her growth from smokin’ them weeds and shrinks herself to the size of a gnat, then a course it’ll just be you I’ll be seein’, Miss Sally.”
That’s a good one. That makes me laugh. “Sweet dreams, Ethel. Watch out for those bedbugs,” I say, feeling a splotch of rain landing on my bare arm when I turn toward the house.
I call back to her, “Trooper?”
I wait, but nothing comes outta the teepee but a wisp rising through the top like a smoke signal. I know I should go back in there, snub out that cigarette and drag my sister into the house, but I am just so tired of her digging in her heels. All I’m ever trying to do is honor my promise to Daddy to keep her safe and all she’s ever trying to do is run me ragged. I wish . . . I wish the teepee would get struck by lightning and those sparks would come flying down the poles and flow through Troo just enough to make her go woozy for the rest of the summer. I would prop her up on the backyard bench and always know where she was. She could do some jigsaw puzzles with Mother. They could be two peas in the pod again the way they used to be instead of . . .
(Sorry again, Daddy. Mea, mea culpa.)
Chapter Eighteen
Troo and me are at another best place in the neighborhood this morning. The Finney Library. Mary Lane and my sister come up here every Monday so they can check to see how the Billy the Bookworm contest is going. I tag along so I can pick up a new Nancy Drew to read to Mrs. Galecki and to make sure the two of them don’t kill each other. I’m also here because I need to talk to Mary Lane about a couple of important things I have on my mind. We didn’t get to see her all last week because she was up at the new zoo helping out. At least once every summer the rhino steps on her dad’s foot, so she helps him hobble around like his own personal cane.
“Can you believe the nerve of this kid?” my sister says, jabbing at the Bookworm chart the second we come through the library doors. She wants to win the prize in the worst way because she really adores going to the movies and, of course, ending up on top of the chart is another something she can lord over our