Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [90]
Mary Lane admires Granny’s ability to know everything that goes on in the neighborhood to the nth degree. She wouldn’t bring her into this if she wasn’t sure of her information.
“For cryin’ out loud . . . ask your sister!” Mary Lane says, at the end of her rope with me.
Why am I always the last to know?
I must look like I finally believe her because Mary Lane springs up outta the bushes and says, “Let’s beat it over to the Latours’.” I have never seen her so excited except on trick-or-treat night. “Now that I know she wasn’t ribbin’ me about Father Mickey and the altar boys, I can’t wait to hear the rest of Troo’s plan.”
I’m not going anywhere. My legs feel like rubber bands and my tummy is all balled up. I’m snuffing, swallowing, doing everything I can not to break into tears. I promised to keep my sister safe and now she’s in the worst kind of trouble. I feel like I’m standing on the shore watching her go under for a third time. I gotta do something to save her, only I don’t know how to swim.
I can’t go running to Mother to ask her to rescue Troo. She would tan my sister’s hide with her golden hairbrush and tell her, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” Granny is out of the question, she’s got enough troubles of her own. My other hope would be Nell, but she’s barely keeping her own head above the water. For sure, I can’t go to Dave. He’s a policeman sworn to uphold the law no matter what. The only other person I can think of asking for a helping hand is Ethel. Maybe she could figure a way to get Troo outta this jam.
With all my heart, I don’t want to believe that Troo is guilty of stealing from our neighbors the same way she does from the drugstore and the Five and Dime. But there are those middle-of-the-nights when she snuck out of our bed. And Mrs. Galecki’s emerald necklace that’s hidden in the toe of one of her Wigwam socks. There is just no getting around this. How could my sister tell Mary Lane about Father Mickey and the altar boys unless she was part of his gang of cat thieves?
Chapter Twenty-four
My sister gave me the cold shoulder all day. That’s how she always acts when I don’t do what she tells me to do, which was show up at the powwow she had planned over at the Latours’ last night where she was gonna reveal her revenge plan. I could just kick myself. That’s what I shoulda done. Hearing what Troo’s got up her sleeve would’ve been awful, but thanks to Mary Lane, now I know something even worse. Something that could get Troo sent to reform school if she gets caught. Getting revenge is not against the law. Not like stealing from your neighbors is.
I was going to talk to her about what she’s been up to with Father Mickey and the altar boys after we turned in tonight, but then I decided keeping my sister’s criminal life to myself is the smart way to go. What would be the point? After I accuse Troo and she finally admits to being one of the cats, she’ll cuddle up and talk to me in her purring dolly voice, give me excuses for being wayward the way she always does, or worse, she won’t do that at all. She’ll hawk a loogie at me and say, “Yeah? So what?” and prance into the darkness to kick up her heels.
After we got done saying our prayers, Troo was still doing an excellent imitation of an iceberg. She didn’t twirl my hair and she didn’t want me to rub her back or give me butterfly kisses. She drew a line down the middle of our bed that I couldn’t cross without getting kicked, then rolled away from me as far away as she could and sang over and over in the coldest voice, “Every party has a pooper, that’s why I invited you. Party pooper. Party pooper,” until I couldn’t take it for one more second and had to run out to the green bean teepee.
That’s where I am now. Listening to the crickets and trying to decide if I should hop the white fence and ask great-advice-giving Ethel what she thinks I should do about thieving Troo, when I hear the first wails of the ambulance. I automatically cross myself