The Mutual Admiration Society(63)

FACT: Whoever snatched our principal wasn’t Mr. McGinty.

PROOF: It just dawned on me that thinking this whole time that he was the guy who coulda kidnapped her was really, really, really, really stupid. Nobody goes around taking people just for the hell of it, they do it for the money, and our godfather is the last person in the neighborhood who needs bucks, so all is not lost! The Mutual Admiration Society could still find the much poorer guilty party and earn a reward from the cops or figure out some way to blackmail him, and what a feather in our detecting cap that would be!

I excitedly ask Kitten, “How much dough did the kidnapper tell the sisters he wants in the ransom note?”

She looks confused and says, “The who? The what?”

Because she’s so tall, I figure she must not of heard me, so I stand up on my toes to repeat myself. I paid for this confidential information with hard-earned blackmail money and I don’t want to share it with every other bad kid standing in this confession line, so I whisper close to her face, “The kidnapper,” which goes to show how thrilled I am at this recent turn of events, because that’s a very risky thing to do, considering her leprosy pimples and my future as a Miss America contestant. “How much ransom money does he want to return Sister Margaret Mary to the nunnery?”

Kitten snaps her head back and says, “What’s wrong with you? Ya got the delirious flu or something, Finley? I didn’t say nothin’ about a kidnapping or ransom money.”

“But . . . but . . . you just said Sister Prudence found a note and I . . . I . . .”

Damnation!

I assumed again.

If Kitten’s information is correct—and I have no reason at all to doubt a kid that I’ve admired since kindergarten when she flicked a booger into Sister Jane’s carton of milk and blamed it on Jenny Radtke—The Mutual Admiration Society is back to square one: THE CASE OF THE MISSING NUN WHO MIGHT BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED BUT NOT BY MR. MCGINTY.

I could kick myself and that lying Magic 8 Ball all the way down Keefe Ave.!

This hasn’t been a life-changing day at all. This has been a life-wasting day. I could’ve been doing so many more useful things all morning, like . . . like spying on Skip Abernathy to see if it’s him who stole over $200 out of the Pagan Baby collection box or I could have spent some time thinking up an advertising slogan for Louise’s treasury election or taken a bath and practiced my swimming or worked on any of the other more useful numbers on my TO-DO list.

I have suffered such a blow that I desperately ask Kitten without thinking, “Are you sure Sister hasn’t been kidnapped?”

Uh-oh.

That was a big mistake.

Kitten’s got the business slogan “Satisfaction guaranteed,” but if you ever doubt her information? Believe me, the only guarantee you’re gonna get is that she’ll give you the worst Indian burn you ever had in your life. I’m not kidding, Cochise would be jealous. (No joke.)

She’s already put her hands into a grasping, twisting position. “Ya ain’t doubting my information, are ya, Finley?”

I don’t think she meant for Butch to hear that, but he did, because he belts out in his high-pitched lamb voice, “Ya hear that, everybody? The Finley snot just doubted Kitten’s information!”

All of a sudden the kids that were ratting their hair and cracking their gum and making out in the confession line freeze in place, and even Mrs. Cumberland, who was practicing the organ in the choir loft, quits playing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the middle of the chorus.

Of course, I didn’t mean to ask Kitten if she was sure she knew what’s going on in the neighborhood. It just slipped out. But doubting her information like that? Especially in front of all these kids? That was . . . that was like asking Mr. Skank if he knows how to embalm a body or . . . or asking Mr. Yerkovich at Bloomers flowers if he knows how to arrange a wedding bouquet or asking Mr. McGinty if he knows how to dig a proper grave. Those are their “bottom lines” and Butch is making it sound like I just crossed Kitten’s!

I peek over to where I left my troop of two to see if they noticed how quiet it’s gotten, and how I could really use some help, but it looks like I can’t count on them to come to my rescue. Charlie’s back is turned, and he’s busy doing exactly what I asked him to do. He’s got out his whittling knife and his determined look and is trimming Birdie’s too-long bangs the way she likes them as they chatter away to one another, probably about what a great saint Francis is or something else dumb.

I have taken a long walk off a very, very, very, very short pier. And I’m positive that groveling is not going to get me out of the fix I’m in, but I give it a shot and try to tell Kitten anyway, “I . . . I didn’t mean to doubt . . . I’m sorry.”

If it was just the two of us standing here getting ready to confess, I’m pretty sure she’d just punch me in the arm and say, Don’t let it happen again, Finley, because she knows how highly I regard her and I have never, not once, over all these years questioned how good she is at her job. But with all the greasers hanging on her every word and her new boyfriend egging everybody on, she’s got no choice. She has to think of her reputation.

Kitten leans down, grabs my left wrist, and twists the ever-lovin’ hell out of it, and fine, I guess I deserved that. But then, I don’t know, ya know? Maybe she’s showing off for Butch or maybe it’s just that “time of the month” the eighth-grade girls talk about at recess or maybe I hurt her feelings or something, but Kitten grins with her corn teeth and says loud enough for all the greasers in the confession line to hear, “Finley here”—she hard-noogies the top of my head with her bony knuckles—“I guess she knows better than me and doesn’t need my information.” There’s lots of laughing and booing and cat-calling from the crowd. “Sooo . . . go ahead, kid. Show us what ya got. Find out on your own what happened to Sister Margaret Mary.” My wrist is burning and now I got a headache and I think I might toss my cookies, because I can tell that Kitten’s not done humiliating me for doubting her by the look on her pimply face—I’ve seen this look many, many times over the years. She’s about to growl out the dreaded life-changing challenge that no kid in the neighborhood ever wants to hear, “I dare ya.”