My sister may be acting like she’s Charlie Chan, but believe me, whatever she found at the bottom of the leaf pile is not “inscrutable.” It’s probably a Juicy Fruit wrapper, which she likes to make necklaces out of, or maybe it’s just one of those skinny balloons that are half-filled with what looks like Elmer’s glue that, for some unknown reason, appear near the necking tree on Sunday mornings.
On the other hand . . . what if my idea about the killer burying a chopped-up corpse in the leaves was right? Could my sister have her hand wrapped around somebody else’s hand or some other hacked-off body part? My tummy couldn’t take seeing something like that. Just looking at the tongues in the window of Mr. Lebowitz’s deli store that we have to walk past on our way up to the library, well, God Almighty. I have to do the same Helen Keller impression that I’m doing now whenever I need to get up to the Finney to tell Miss Peshong that I read a bunch more books so she can move me up on the Billy the Bookworm chart, because I’m going to beat brownnosing Jenny Radtke at her game of one-upping me or die trying.
“Quit groaning and open your eyes, Tessie!” my sister says. “Look . . . look . . . look . . . look at what I found!”
I’d really rather not, but when Birdie is on a wild streak, this normally mild-mannered kid can turn into a terrier dog digging for a bone. If I don’t play along, she’ll keep hounding me until I give in, so I have no choice but to peek from between my fingers at what she’s unearthed and boy, oh, boy. I’m so relieved that what she’s holding up with the tip of her pointer finger isn’t the tip of a corpse’s pointer finger that I’d shout Hallelujah! if I wasn’t feeling so sorry for her.
How awful it must be to be Robin Jean “Birdie” Finley. To feel sure you have the answer to a problem only to find that you can’t put two and two together time and time again. To get called Loonatic and Tweetle-Dumb and Birdbrain. To drift away to parts unknown. To have a memory that has more holes in it than the cemetery. To have your mother look at you most of the time like you’re a stone around her pretty neck. To believe you found a clue to a kidnapping murder when you’ve done nothing of the sort.
Q. What was all-loving, all-knowing, all-mighty God thinking when He gave my little sister the short end of the stick?
A. Reply hazy try again later.
“Nice try, honey,” I pat her back and tell her, “but from here on out, you better leave the real detective work to me.”
“What do you mean I should leave the real detective work to you?” she says. From running around in the Indian summer heat and all the chocolate kisses Birdie has stuffed in her mouth, she looks like a fugitive who just got done robbing Dalinsky’s Drugstore’s candy aisle. “You always tell me that we’re partners in crime.”
“We are partners in crime. It’s just that . . .”
Shoot.
Even during a wild streak, a time when my sister’s delicate feelings are not as breakable as they usually are, I still have to be careful to put her down gently.
“I wish what you found was a clue. I really do, but . . .” I point at the chain she found in the leaf pile that’s dangling from her finger. “This is just one of those St. Christopher medals visitors leave on the gravestones so their loved ones have a safe trip to the Great Beyond.” Birdie knows that. She just forgot, that’s all. “Please don’t feel bad. We can’t all be as excellent at detecting as I am. Many are called, but few are chosen.” I switch gears and bring up what I tried to tell her before she found this so-called clue, which is something she really is good at. “So like I said, how about we forget all about this stupid kidnapping and murdering business, go grab Charlie, get those chocolate-covered cherries, say hi to Daddy, and then the three of us can head up to the Milky Way. Yum-yum.”
I’m so sure my little chowhound cannot resist that offer that I don’t even wait for her answer. I start off toward the weeping willow tree, but before I can go two full steps, Birdie grabs on to my hair and yanks me to a stop.
“You’re wrong, Tessie. This medal isn’t the kind people leave on tombstones so their loved ones have a safe trip to the Great Beyond,” she announces to my back like she is the end-all and be-all on the subject of metal-medal identification.
“Yeah, it is!” I’m twisting like a fish on the end of a line, but she’s got her fingers hooked around my ponytail but good.
“No, it’s not!”
“Is, too!”
“Is not!”
“Let go of me, for crissakes!” I shout.
When she loosens her grip, I spin around and automatically go into the boxing stance my Golden Gloves champion father taught me to go into if anybody dares to put their hands on me—up on my toes, fists held high, and ready to throw the first punch. But just as I’m about to clean my little cuckoo’s clock, it hits me that no matter how mad I am at this kid who may have the footwork of Marciano and the strength of new world heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson, when it gets down to it, Birdie Finley is a featherweight and it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Daddy wouldn’t like that.