The Mutual Admiration Society(34)
What he was trying to teach me that night was that I was supposed to be very careful not to let my sister and me get into too much hot water and I am having a very bad feeling that’s what I’ve done. I’m having so many grave doubts, in fact, that I’m about to cross out #2 on the list:
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.
I’ll do a 180 turn and tell Birdie I was dead wrong about what I heard and saw happening over here last night. That Louise’s newest “gourmet” dish she served us for supper yesterday—liver with green olive frosting—must’ve given me some kind of brain poisoning that made me see things that weren’t there. When my sister tells me, “Roger that, Tessie,” we can run to Charlie at the weeping willow tree, have a quick Mutual Admiration meeting, and take out some of the treasury money we keep hidden in the trunk of the tree. And after we pick up the chocolate-covered cherries offa Mr. Lindley’s grave—I sister-promised—we’ll have a visit with Daddy, and then go straight home and get the red Schwinn out of the garage. I’ll set Birdie on the handlebars and Charlie can hop on the back fender, and I’ll pedal us over to the Milky Way Drive-In. Even though we’ve just eaten breakfast, we can always make room for their “out-of-this-world” food. I’ll treat us to double Galaxy cheeseburgers and Pluto fries and we can slurp up a strawberry Mercury malt, three straws.
Yes, this is an excellent plan to keep us from getting in any deeper over our heads, because never in a million years would my almost-always-starving sister say, “No thanks, Tessie,” to a visit to “The Milk” with Charlie. On this I am 100% positive.
“Tweetheart?” I say to the pitiful kid who’s still kneeling in front of the leaf pile. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I got you all worked up over nothing. Louise’s olive liver musta poisoned my brain and made me imagine seeing a murder last night and . . . hey, speakin’ of food, I bet you’re starvin’ from all the climbing and runnin’ and leaf searchin’, and I mighta accidentally stepped on that peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich I brought for you, so whatta ya say we just call it quits and—”
“Tessie!” she jumps to her feet and shouts. “I found a clue!”
10
A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME
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.”