No way. No how. Cross my heart and hope to die.
I’ve been trying to teach myself how to swim in our bathtub. Soon as I can figure out how to do more than just the dead man’s float, I’ll be able to dive to any depth to save my loved ones. And I suppose I’d have to rescue Louise if she was going under for the third time, too. It would look too suspicious to the cops if I didn’t.
What was that? There! That rustling in the weeping willow branches? Charlie? Boy, oh, boy, I can’t wait to behold the look of amazement on his face after the three of us get seated in a circle beneath the flowing green branches that are long enough to keep us from getting noticed by cemetery visitors who might stop by the water to refresh their thirsty, sad hearts.
After I call our meeting of The Mutual Admiration Society to order, I’ll first tell our Sergeant of Arms, who doesn’t even know yet that we’ve taken on THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO MIGHT BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED, about the scrapes the Finley sisters had with Louise and Gert Klement and Mr. McGinty this morning. He’s gonna get such a kick out of that.
Charlie may be a kid whose smile went rusty after his mother suicided herself, but he can’t help but grin when he’s got a good adventure or mystery story in his hands. That’s another important something we have in common. We both love checking out books from the Finney Library that he sometimes joshes should be changed to the “Finley Library,” because I really do believe the famous sign that’s painted on the wall behind the checkout desk—KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
“My heinie hurts, but I don’t feel nothin’ stickin’ in me,” Birdie sits up and says. She’s stopped rolling, and now she’s bouncing her bottom up and down on the grass. “Ya sure you saw a bee, Tessie?”
“Ummm . . . I guess it coulda been a hornet or a wasp. Ya better keep at it.”
I want to keep her busy a little longer while I go on searching for more signs of Charlie, who is sure to peek his head out any second to check for the hundredth time if Birdie and me are coming his way, because he knows how important good timing is to me and we’re so late for the meeting. But unfortunately, other than seeing tan and black Pyewacket streak out from beneath the green branches of the willow, all seems quiet down there and that can mean only one thing.
“Goddamnit all, Bird!” Before I even know what I’m doing, I reel around and knock her down on her back, straddle her, and shake my fist in her face. I’m not sure if we would’ve been on time for the meeting if she hadn’t run off, but chasing her around the cemetery didn’t help. I know it’s not her fault when a wild streak comes over her, but I can’t help it when my beastly temper comes over me, either. I am Big Bad Wolf mad! “Looks like Charlie got tired of waiting for us to show up, and guess whose fault that is?!” Before Birdie can say something dumb like I don’t know, Tessie. Whose fault is it? I tell her, “Yours!” That’s not completely true, either. Bumping into Mr. McGinty slowed us down, too, but my temper doesn’t care about facts when it gets a grip on me, it has a mind of its own.
“I’m so, so, so, so sorry, Tessie.”
Birdie didn’t singsong that apology the snotty way she did when I asked her to give me a mea culpa during her wild streak, she really does mean it now that she’s back to her old weird self. But instead of her whimpering making me feel righteous the way it should when you put somebody in their place, I’m all of a sudden feeling like I’m doing an excellent impression of that maniac Butch Seeback. Whatcha gonna say and do next, you mean bully? Call your poor, half-witted sister Tweetle-Dumb and roll her down the hill?
FACT: It’s not my fault that I can be the worst big sister in the world, just the pits.
PROOF: Everybody knows that nasty tempers go hand in hand with red hair and I inherited the both of them from my mother.
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
Why am I getting so lathered up and assuming again?
Charlie could still be at our meeting spot. I just didn’t see him, that’s all.
Shoving my temper to my back burner, I kneel next to whimpering Birdie, pry her too-long, blah-brown bangs off her forehead, and tell her in a less-boiling-mad way, “If ya wanna make up to me for all your screw-ups this morning, then right after I get you cleaned up”—she’s a sweaty, wet mess. Tears are trickling out of the corners of her eyes and snot is gushing out of her too-upturned nose—“I want you to use your Indian vision and check for Charlie around the willow.”