The Mutual Admiration Society(56)
SHOPPING SPREE
Stick some money in Louise’s hiding place in the pantry behind the soup cans so she can pay the bill for the house that still smells like Daddy in its nooks and crannies.
Buy Birdie a lot of food.
Pick out bird-watching binoculars for Charlie at the pawn shop.
Pay for some advertising.
Order the X-ray glasses from the back of the Superman comic book.
Give deaf Jeffy Lanfre money to buy me some hearing aids at St. John’s School for the Deaf.
Talk to Mr. Yerkovich and his best friend, Terry, at Bloomers about giving me a break on a lifetime supply of pink roses for Daddy’s pretend grave.
Almost all of that list is written in blood, sweat, and tears, but I’m still working on my pro and con list for #4. If we’re successful solving our current case, The Mutual Admiration Society has got to find a way to let everyone know what hotshots we are.
But if we pay for some advertising, I’m not sure if we should buy a billboard like Mr. Art Skank did or if dotting our front lawn with signs like the election ones his sister, Mrs. Nancy Tate, has got stuck in hers would do the trick. Either way, those advertisements would only mention our detecting abilities, because we can’t broadcast the part of our business that charges to keep secrets secret. “The Mutual Admiration Society Is Our Name, Blackmailing Is Our Game” is a very catchy slogan, but that would be like that famous murderer and skinner coming up with—“Stop by Gein Upholstery Tonight after Midnight! Ask for Ed! Come Alone for a Life-Changing Deal!”
I adore them all, but #5 on my SPREE list is the one that curls my toes the most. I have been waiting so long to order a pair of those X-RAY SPECS for $1.00 that they got in the back of Superman comic books—Look at your friend. Is that really his body that you see under his clothes? After we get our blackmailing payoff from whoever kidnapped Sister Margaret Mary, I plan to stick a buck in the envelope I borrowed from Mr. McGinty’s desk and run to the mailbox faster than a speeding bullet! (Joke!) And on the day the package lands on our front porch, I’ll rip it open with more power than a steaming locomotive! (Another one!) And after building inspector Mr. Hopkins figures out that it was nothing more than Beans and Wienies Wednesday that was causing it to reek so bad in the school basement, I’ll show up the first day back with those cardboard specs in my navy-blue uniform pocket. And then I, Theresa “Tessie” Finley, blackmailer extraordinaire, will use those X-ray glasses to look through the Peter Pan blouses of the eighth-grade girls who stuff their boulder holders with socks every morning before they walk to school. Believe me, those boobie fakers will fork over their babysitting money so fast to keep me from announcing over the school’s loudspeaker that they’re not traffic-cone pointy under their white blouses, but flatter than Keefe Ave. The Mutual Admiration Society would make so much moola that we could laugh in the face of The Millionaire if he came knocking. This investigating business is turning out to be so much trickier than I thought it’d be, so boy, it’d feel good to pull off something I’m already great at, ya know? Something easy I can wrap my hands around. Something like fake boobies. (Somebody call the doctor, my joke department is having triplets!)
But for now, between being terrified that someone from the funeral might have seen my sister and the only reason they didn’t shout, Look at the top of the cemetery fence, everybody! It’s one of the Finley ghouls! is because they didn’t want points taken off for rowdiness while they were participating in the “Best Mourner in the Parish” contest, and my worries that I’m not going to make it up to church in time to confess, but also knowing that I’m finally about to see my fiancé, when I part the bushes in his backyard, I feel like I’m being attacked from every direction.
Birdie is jacked up, too. My little live wire is squiggling, struggling to break out of the half nelson I got her locked in so she doesn’t escape from these bushes and bolt toward my Charlie, which would scare the living poop outta him, because he, well, he is not the strong and silent type. Charlie is only the silent type. And he is not much to look at, either. If he rode past someone when he was delivering newspapers that person would never think, Gosh, what a handsome kid. Once they got a load of his head that all the ringworms ate the hair offa what they would probably think is, That kid just reminded me that I haven’t gotten up to Jerbak’s Beer and Bowl to play a game of snooker in a while. Charlie “Cue Ball” Garfield is also the runt of a family that is famous for rough-and-tumble sons who wrestle in state championship matches and win. But believe me, what my fiancé lacks on the top of his head and in his muscles, he more than makes up for in his heart and soul.
FACT: The two of us are one in a million. A match made in Heaven.
PROOF: I always thought since second grade when Charlie sat in the desk next to me that he was the cat’s meow, but he didn’t return the favor. We didn’t become engaged until a month ago, and I think I owe that good timing to my daddy and Charlie’s mom, Frances “Franny” Garfield. To make both of their kids feel better about having to live without them, I strongly suspect that our passed-away parents got together to hatch a plan, because I don’t care what the priests say about suicided people not going to Heaven. If her son can forgive his mother for committing the worst mortal sin then it doesn’t make sense that the Son of God, whose job it is to be all-forgiving and all-loving, would send Mrs. Garfield to Hell for ending her life before He could. That’s nothing but all-sour-grapes in my book.