“What plan?” she says as she hops off the sofa and turns on the Motorola in such a goofy way that it’s hard to believe that just minutes ago the kid told the smartest washing-machine and rosary-praying lies to Gert, but that’s just the way she is. Unpredictable. Forgetful. With a tummy that never feels full. “I’m getting really, really, really, really hungry again, Tessie. Do we have any Velveeta?”
“Sorry, honey, we’re out.” Not only of cheese, but a lot of other stuff, too. Old Mother Hubbard would feel right at home in our pantry. “Don’t you have any of the chocolate cherries left?”
She points to her protruding tummy and then down to the green shag carpet. The Stover box has been picked clean, which explains why the kid who always feels so much better when she knows where her next meal is coming from licks her lips and says, “Can I have my TV dinner now?”
Seeing my sister sitting there with her shorter bangs that Charlie cut for her sticking straight up in the air and beggar dirty while she waits for the Motorola’s picture tube to warm up, I realize that we don’t only have to clean up the house, we gotta clean up ourselves, too. After running and rolling around and sneaking and crawling and digging through leaf piles on this hot Indian summer day, the both of us are looking like something the cat dragged in, and that’s not going to go over real big with Louise when she gets home tonight from her meeting. Once she gets a whiff of us, believe me, she will not get a nose-full of sugar and spice and everything nice. She’ll figure out that we been out and about and up to no good.
“Tell ya what,” I say to Birdie. “After I straighten up the house a little, let’s take a bath and put on our spy clothes for tonight’s trip to see Mister McGinty and then I’ll stick your TV dinner in the oven.” She adores bubble baths, so I’m sure she’ll go for this idea. “You can finish watchin’ . . .”—I turn around to check what show is beginning to show up on the TV screen, “American Bandstand”—“but the second it’s over, you come right upstairs and get in the tub.”
“Roger that, Tessie,” she says with one of her irresistible smiles. “Now get outta the way, you’re blocking Mister Dick Clark.”
After I run the garbage out to the silver can—Gert’s on her back porch, rocking away and watching our house like a guard waiting to catch escaping prisoners—I finish dusting and running the sweeper across the carpet, and peek in on Birdie to make sure she’s where I left her, then I head upstairs to run the tub water. I squeeze in a few squirts of Joy soap to get it nice and frothy, and hurry into our bedroom to pick out what our mother has started calling “ensembles” out of the little dresser she wedged into our closet.
I’ve got to dig deep to find two mostly clean sets of navy T-shirts and shorts to wear on our trip over to Mr. McGinty’s shack tonight and the snooping around we got to do for the dare, so I’m down at the very bottom of the bottom dresser drawer when my hand bumps into something sitting under the white paper Louise put in there with thumbtacks that are long gone.
“Goddamnit all, Bird!” I say, because I’m sure this giant lump must be covering up some food that she hid away for a rainy day and, of course, forgot all about. I’ve come across some very disgusting things growing here and there throughout the house and considering how bad a state my tummy is already in because of Kitten’s dare, I don’t want to feast my eyes on whatever leftovers Birdie stuck under the dresser paper, but what choice do I have? Who knows how long whatever she buried under here has been multiplying? We could wake up to The Blob breathing down our necks one of these nights.
So I push the clothes to one side of the drawer, breathe through my mouth, warn my gut that it’s about to get some bad news, and slowly lift up the corner of the paper with the tips of my fingers. Sure enough, the wad is big and green and . . . and the worst horrifying, revolting Gotcha! next to the time I found the dripping, bloody cow’s brains that Daddy put under our bed on Beggars Night last year, that I’m pretty positive I’m gonna throw up! And when I get done doing that, I will reach into my back pocket, take out my stubby pencil and my TO-DO list, and draw a line through #4. Catch whoever stole over $200 out of the Pagan Baby collection box.
Q. The culprit that I, and everyone else in the parish, have been looking high and low for, is not Skip Abernathy, but my very own sister?!
A. Signs point to yes.
Damnation!
Why . . . why . . . why . . . why . . . would she . . . ?
Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.
Could this stack of cash . . . could it be one of Birdie’s special gifts?
But it’s not fluffy like the feathers she lays around Daddy’s tombstone, and it isn’t shiny like the ring with the pink, heart-shaped stone she rested against Louise’s plate this morning, and the new nickel I found under my pillow when I was waiting for her to wake up so I could tell her about the great-good-luck murder. And they keep this dough in the collection box at church, so she didn’t find it lying on the ground like she did those gifts. No, as hard as it is for me to believe, I’m 100% sure that Birdie stole these greenbacks right out from under St. Kate’s nose.