The Mutual Admiration Society(19)

Uh-oh.

Birdie’s “all for one and one for all” bars are almost as important to her as Daddy’s Swiss Army Knife is to me, because besides being delicious “The Three Musketeers” is a nickname he used to describe him and his girls when we’d snuggle in bed or be up at Lonnigan’s Bar together or gazing at the constellation called Orion on our back porch or anyplace else Louise wasn’t.

But instead of Birdie doing her impression of a chicken about to have its head cut off after Louise threatened to take away her most important candy the way I was almost sure she would, the unpredictable kid whips her hand out of mine, jumps to her feet, and shouts at our mother at the top of her opera lungs, “You are so, so, so, so beautiful! You remind me of Ida Lupino!”

Oh, for the love of God.

Just once, once, couldn’t she remember that Louise despises Ida Lupino?!

“She meant to say that you remind her of Maureen O’Hara,” I quickly tell our mother as I wrap my hand around my sister’s bony leg, pull her down, and slap a pillow over her mouth before she can stick her other foot in it.

I guess Louise is too busy giving herself two thumbs up to care about the Ida Lupino crack, because after she checks herself out one more time in the mirror and likes what she sees, she doesn’t roll her eyes at Birdie or me. She just stops to remind us on her scoot out of the bedroom door, “Do your chores, no shenanigans, and Theresa”—her lush mouth foxily curls up on one side—“don’t think for a second that I won’t check with the Radtke girl to make sure you went to confession,” and off she goes. The only evidence she leaves behind is the smell of her Paris perfume, the heart-shaped ring she found next to her plate this morning sitting on the vanity next to her red lip prints on a piece of Kleenex, and a little kid who loves her like nobody’s business.

Because I can’t trust Birdie not to chase down the stairs after her yelling, Hey, Ida Lupino, how about a little hug?, I sit on her round tummy, pin her down to the bumpy white bedspread, and wait until I hear the Chevy squeal away from the curb to tell her, “She’s gone and we got important detecting to do. I’m gonna finish the dishes and I want you to go up and dig around in our closet for my old sneakers, then get the white towel out from under the bed and hang it outta the window to let Charlie know to meet us under the weeping willow soon as he can. Do not hang the yellow towel. That’s the signal to meet us in his bomb shelter.” Birdie is looking up at me from the bedspread blanker than a gravestone before it’s engraved. “Can you remember all that, honey?”

“Can I remember all what, Tessie?”

“While I finish doing the dishes . . .”

But before I can finish repeating what I just got done telling her about the shoes and the towels, my wiry sister bucks me off her pelican tummy, rolls off the bed, and skips out of the room chuckling to herself like she pulled a fast one on me. Poor thing.





6


THERE’S NO FART LIKE AN OLD FART

Birdie can go even more high-strung and ornery if her next meal isn’t within grabbing distance. So after I dried off the dishes, I slapped together her favorite sandwich—peanut butter and marshmallow, nicknamed P B and M—and toss it into her favorite brown bag that’s got the picture of a Red Owl on the front before I move on to the last very important thing I need to do before the Finley sisters can get over to Holy Cross and get down to work. I tug the folded-up piece of paper and stubby yellow pencil out of my shorts pocket, smooth the paper out on the kitchen counter, add on a new #2, and move everything else down.



TO-DO

Take tender loving care of Birdie.



Solve whatever happened to Sister Margaret Mary for big blackmail or reward bucks.



Make Gert Klement think her arteries are going as hard as her heart.



Catch whoever stole over $200 out of the Pagan Baby collection box.



Practice your Miss America routine.



Learn how to swim.



Be a good dry-martini-making fiancée to Charlie.



Do not get caught blackmailing or spying.



Just think about making a real confession to Father Ted, before it’s too late.





Once I’m happy with the order of things, I slide outta my back pocket my detecting and blackmail notebook that matches my navy-blue eyes. Next to Birdie and Daddy’s Swiss Army Knife and his Timex watch, this notebook that’s full of facts, proofs, blackmails, dollar amounts, snooping times, and loads of other top-secret information is my most prized possession that I printed KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU! on the front of, because I shudder to think what my fate would be if Louise ever got a hold of it. After I flip it open to a clean page, I write:

THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO MIGHT BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED



I am going by the book, and I cannot be sure my suspicions about Sister Margaret Mary are 100% correct until I can check off all the steps that Modern Detection taught me I needed to do after a crime has been perpetrated:

Find a dead body.



Search for a suspect with the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime(s).



Gather evidence against said suspect through observation and interrogation.