The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [6]
“Rusty made the pie,” Paula said, thrusting Rusty forward.
Rusty gave Marylou a squinty look. A little leather medicine bag hung on a cord around her neck. “Didn’t make it for you,” she mumbled.
“Rusty!” her mother said. “That’s not nice!”
“I’m not nice,” said Rusty, but she held out the pie, wrapped in foil and smelling delicious.
“I’m not nice either,” Marylou said. “Join the club.” She knew she should invite them in and offer them some, but she couldn’t do it. She took the pie, planning to eat the whole thing as soon as she could get to a fork and a table. “Thanks so much, sweetheart!”
At this, Rusty gave her an even colder look. I should hire this kid to kill Wilson, Marylou thought. She could picture Rusty delivering a pie laced with antifreeze. But, no, she wanted the satisfaction of doing it herself.
As Paula and Rusty turned to leave, not being able to tell, apparently, that she was speaking to the Radioactive Lady, Paula invited her to go to church with her family.
“My husband Buff’s the youth minister at Genesis Church,” Paula said. “We’d love for you to be our guest! It’s a big church with a small church feel!”
“Oh God, here we go,” Rusty groaned. She hurled herself off the porch steps, black shirt flapping like bat wings, and darted across the street toward their house.
Paula stood there in her yoga suit, grinning at Marylou, and for a few seconds Marylou seriously considered saying yes right then but finally told Paula she’d think about it. Going to church with Paula’s family might make her feel less lonely, but she hadn’t moved to Tallahassee to make new friends. She had priorities. She had a vermin to exterminate.
So she and Buster walked and rested and walked again. And then one day, with no plan in mind, bereft of courage and inspiration, Marylou got the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
Part Two MAY 2006
Q: How many times had Suzi been warned?
A: Every time she turned around.
Every time she turned on the TV or opened up a newspaper there were stories about perverts who scooped up children, locked them in closets, tortured them, raped them, strangled them, and buried their bodies in crawl spaces. What was a crawl space? And those were just the stories she found on her own, trolling the Internet. She was also warned directly by her parents, by the plastico chick on the evening news, by an Officer Friendly visiting their school who wore a protective puffy suit so he looked like the Michelin man and encouraged the kids to attack him with fury. “If someone tries to grab you, yell fire and run! Kick and punch and poke. Even adults you know might have bad intentions. Teachers, scout leaders, ministers, even Father himself. If an adult makes you uncomfortable, get the hell out of there. Tell another adult, hopefully not another child molester. Don’t be fooled by the ploys: ‘Your mother sent me. Help me find my lost puppy! Want some magic dust? Come to my house and drink beer and watch a dirty movie! Want to sleep in my tent?’ Don’t walk to school, or wait for the bus alone. Don’t ride your bike alone. Never be alone.”
But who would’ve suspected that an old woman living in her own neighborhood, a woman who walked her corgi morning and night, who would’ve thought that this white-haired, slightly humpbacked old woman was the very person Suzi should’ve been on guard against?
Suzi had drawn the task of walking their mini poodle, Parson Brown, each morning before school and each evening after dinner, and her mother made her wear a whistle around her neck so she could blow it if someone tried to mess with her. Like a whistle would stop a maniac! Oh well, it showed that her mom cared about her at least a little. Suzi hadn’t blown the whistle