The Mutual Admiration Society(22)
So it’s not really my fault that I ask Birdie snippier than I should, “Then what’s the damn problem?”
She looks down at the green kitchen floor that could use a good scrubbing and tells me in her tiniest voice, which is already quite tiny, “You’re gonna get mad-der if I tell you.”
“No, I won’t. I promise, no, I sister-promise.” For some other unknown reason, the kid who forgets 99% of what I tell her always remembers that’s the most serious kind of promise there is. A sister-promise can never be broken, no matter what. Even if some dumb greaser forces me to eat maggots on a saltine cracker before he’ll give Birdie back to me, she knows that I would rather do that than break a sister-promise. “C’mon.” I make my voice less ticked-off sounding and more sugary-sounding. “Tell me, honey.” As much as I want to, I can’t go over to the cemetery without her, because I cannot leave her alone. “Why aren’t you raring to go with me to Holy Cross?”
“’Cause . . . ’cause . . .” Birdie says, barely above a whisper, “I don’t want Mommy to take away my all for ones and ones for all.”
“You mean you don’t want Louise to take away your all for ones and ones for all.”
“Roger that.”
My sister was so wound up at the time that I didn’t think she heard our mother warn us not to visit the cemetery or do any peeking into our neighbors’ windows or she’d take away the Three Musketeers bars before she left for work, but I’m not all that surprised that threat got through her adorable, thick skull. Candy of any kind is a very important topic of conversation to Miss Birdie Finley.
If she was walking down Keefe Ave. and Mr. Ed Gein pulled up next to her and offered her a piece of disgusting black licorice to get in his car with him after he escaped from the Big House for murdering all those people, my sister would fall for that. She’d tug open the car door and tell that crazy murderer with one of her irresistible smiles—Thanks for the candy, mister. Sure, I’d love to go for a spin! I’m just crazy about your upholstery, by the way.
Birdie can see that she’s disappointing me, so she starts flapping her arms. She’ll throw her head back and start squawking next and it can take forever to work her out of that state, so I tell her, “Don’t get yourself all lathered up, okay?” and then I pet her little back in long strokes, the way she likes. “Remember? Louise is only gonna take away your candy bars if we get caught over at the cemetery and that’s not gonna happen.” Birdie still doesn’t look ready to rumble, so I need to up my ante. I pick up her hand and place it on the front of my shorts. “That’s a whole pocketful of Hershey’s kisses, and look!” I wave the Red Owl bag in front of her face so she can get a whiff of what’s inside with her special smelling power. “I made you a P B and M.” It can’t hurt to throw one more chip into the pot to convince her how much is at stake here. “And if you mind your p’s and q’s, I’ll nab the box of chocolate-covered cherries offa Mister Lindley’s grave and you don’t even have to give me any.” Next to Three Musketeers bars, Birdie loves those creamy, gooey cherries best of all, so she must be very scared about heading over to the cemetery, because she’s perked up some, but she still doesn’t look like she’s burning with desire.
I’d mention to her our new case and how life-changing important it is to us, but that won’t be enough. I don’t think she understands or cares all that much about solving the kidnapping murder. She might not even remember it anymore. No. I’m going to have pull out my big guns to get her moving toward the black iron fence.
Visiting Daddy’s pretend grave always makes his little dreamboat feel like her ship has come in (Joke!), and she also goes very gaga for my nice fiancé, Charlie “Cue Ball” Garfield, almost as much as I do, which is gonna work out so great after him and me become Mr. and Mrs. When we get back from our honeymoon in Wisconsin Dells that my sister will go on, too, of course, because it’s our version of Disneyland—my little animal lover will just adore petting the deer and seeing the statue of Paul Bunyan’s ox, Babe—The Mutual Admiration Society will live happily ever after in the house on Hadley St. that I like so much. The solid-looking redbrick one with the white shutters and pretty maple tree out back that shades the bedroom off the kitchen that will belong to Birdie. Charlie and me will take care of her for as long as she lives. The same way Mrs. Obermeyer across the street watches over her sister Audrey, who got polio. Even after being in an iron lung at Sacred Heart Sanitarium for a year, the gal still has to wear those steel braces.
I give Birdie’s back a few more kitty-cat strokes and say into her ear, “I know you’re worried about us getting caught and Louise takin’ away your ones for all and all for ones, but . . .” I rub Daddy’s Swiss Army Knife, because I’m about to fire off my end-all-and-be-all trick. “You really, really, really, really wanna go to the cemetery to visit with Daddy and Charlie, don’t you?”
Ha!
You Bet Your Life she does! (Joke!) My future bridesmaid yells, “Go, Bird, go,” and pushes me out of the way, pops through the squeaky back door of the house, and thank goodness I caught a hold of her arm before she jumped down the steps and ran across the backyard toward the cemetery fence.
I yank her toward me and tell her, “I like your enthusiasm, kiddo, but before we can go say hi to Daddy and Charlie, we got a very important caper we gotta pull off first.”