“A murder?” she says. “Huh.” She scratches her head. “You wanna show it to me now?”
I sure would, but we’ve run out of time. Two streets over, the bells of St. Kate’s are clanging quarter past seven, which means Louise will be expecting breakfast on the table soon, so that’s that. But when I turn to look back at what I can see of Holy Cross one last time to make sure I didn’t miss anything, it hits me that my remorseful sister might be able to lend a hand after all.
Along with her excellent hearing, because her eyes bulge slightly closer to objects, Birdie can also see better than me or anybody else I know. (The kid can scout things out better than an Apache searching for a wagon train during a total eclipse.)
“We can’t go over there anymore,” I tell my almost-always-starving sister, “because it’s almost time for breakfast and I know you wouldn’t wanna be late for that.”
She licks her lips and says, “No, I certainly would not want to be late for breakfast,” and then her tummy growls to second that motion.
“But before we go back into the house,” I tell her, “you know what you could do for me real quick?”
“What could I do for you real quick, Tessie?” she says, looking a little less hungry and more like she’d knock herself over the head with a rock if I asked her to, because she might have a really cruddy memory and all other sorts of weird problems, but she really does love me.
Quickly, before her big tummy can get control of her tiny brain again, I point at Holy Cross and say, “I’ve looked and looked, but I don’t see any evidence of a murder taking place over there, so could you take a quick peek?”
“Why, what an absolutely splendid idea, young lady!” she cheers up and says. “I’d be delighted to lend a helping hand!”
Oh, boy.
She just started doing this lately. Out of the blue, for some unknown reason, she starts to act and talk old-fashioned. It’s not like she’s perfectly imitating voices the way I discovered I could do in St. Kate’s choir loft last year. I thought it was some kind of miracle, ya know? Like turning loaves into fishes. There I was making fun of Sister Raphael behind her back like I always did and still do, because she makes me sing with the boys, when . . . lo and behold . . . instead of my own husky voice coming out of my mouth, I sounded exactly like that crabby penguin! And it wasn’t just Sister Raphael. With some practice, I found out I could do pretty good impressions of just about anybody. That’s not what Birdie does. She just suddenly goes really old-timey on me every once in a while. She might’ve picked it up from the ton of movies and TV shows we watch that take place in cowboy and Indian times, gangster times, and monster times, I don’t know. I’m also not sure if I should make this problem #12 on my SURE SIGNS OF LOONY list. It’s kinda hard to pin down.
My temporarily old-fashioned sister holds out her tiny hand bent at the wrist ladylike and says with a smile, “If you’d be so kind as to offer assistance, I’d be much obliged, Pilgrim.”
Because she’s short, almost a midget really, she has as hard of a time seeing beyond the porch railing as she does peeking into our neighbors’ windows, so I “oblige” her by giving her an alley-oop, wait until she balances herself and has a chance to look around before I ask, “Well?”
“Nope, no abandoned well.”
“Dang it all, Bird!” She’s remembering where Lassie found Timmy on last week’s episode instead of doing what I asked her to. “You’re not lookin’ for an abandoned well. You’re lookin’ for a fresh corpse or some cops or . . . or anything else that might have to do with the murder I just got done tellin’ ya about a few minutes ago.”
“Roger that,” she says in her regular old voice and goes back to eyeing the cemetery. After a few more minutes of intense Indian staring, she shakes her head and looks down at me. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything murderous, Tessie. All I see is Mister McGinty and Missus Peterman talking, Johnny Mahlberg riding his bike down the road, and”—she puffs out her chest—“a robin redbreast perched on top of Daddy’s tombstone.”
This is not cutting the mustard.