The Mutual Admiration Society(75)
Because Sister doesn’t have any ropes or chains keeping her in the folding chair she’s sitting so straight-backed in, it doesn’t look like she’s a prisoner being held for ransom, so what in the heck is this nun doing here running her hand down Pyewacket’s back and looking at Mr. McGinty with so much love beaming out of her windows to the soul?
Uh-oh.
Was I right when I wondered if the reason her initials of M. M. are etched on the back of the expensive St. Christopher medal along with J. M. is because they really are doing the “horizontal polka”? Are the two of them sitting here planning a secret honeymoon trip to Wisconsin Dells? Was that what Sister Margaret Mary was doing when Birdie and one of Kitten’s snitches spotted her near the weeping willow tree earlier? Practicing her running away?
Sweating bullets but sick of beating the bushes for her all day, I screw up my courage and ask from the shack doorway, “Why were you running around the willow tree today, Sister?”
“Tessie, please join us. I’ll bring you and Charlie your cookies and soda,” Mr. McGinty says with little nudges that get us going in that direction, “and we’ll answer all your questions.”
I don’t want to stare at Sister Margaret Mary when I pull out the folding chair on the other side of Birdie, but I can’t help myself, and neither can Charlie when he sits on the other side of me.
After Mr. McGinty brings down the venetian blinds on the windows, which is a little suspicious, if you ask me, he sets the plates of cookies and glasses of root beer down in front of my fiancé and me, places his hands on our principal’s shoulders, and says, “Children, I’d like you to meet my sister, Martha.”
“Your . . . your . . . WHAT?!” I holler.
Charlie spews out, “Sister Margaret Mary is your sister?!” because this life-changing information has caught him off guard, too.
After our principal uses her napkin to dab at the mess Charlie made on the table when the soda came shooting out of his nose, she nods and tells him, “That’s correct, Jasper. Jimmy and I are twins.”
This is not a case of mistaken identity on her part.
Jasper is Charlie’s baptized name. I don’t call him that because before his mother suicided herself, he was so outgoing that his neighborhood nickname was Jasper “The Friendly Ghost” Garfield, and I don’t think he wants to be reminded of those good old days any more than I want anyone reminding me of when everything was good with my world.
The gal born Martha McGinty smiles down at my cat purring in her lap, the little Siamese traitor, then turns toward me and says, “And in answer to your question, Theresa, I was running around the weeping willow earlier today because I was attempting to catch Pye in order to remove a large burr she had embedded in her fur.”
I saw Pye streak out from under the willow when I was looking for Charlie on top of the cemetery hill earlier, and I also noticed that horrible burr she had matted in her fur when she and Charlie were sitting on his back porch looking for feathered friends together after Birdie and me made our leap of faith into his backyard, so she’s not making that up.
“Twins are a statistical miracle!” my fiancé says, like a pig rolling in you-know-what.
Sister Margaret Mary looks at her brother across the table and says with a dazzling smile that I have never seen before, “Indeed they are.”
I don’t know, ya know?
They don’t look like twins, except for how tall and strong they both are, and the fact that they got the same hair color, cow-brown eyes, and those great choppers. But I’m not stupid. I know there are those other kinds of twins that aren’t identical. I can’t remember what they’re called now, but those kinds of twins are always very alike in their personalities. Johnny and Janie Mahlberg, who are in the seventh grade, both of them have collecting bugs as a hobby. Sixth-graders David and Donna Peabody, the two of them love to play tetherball and can finish each other’s sentences. And look at the Bobsey twins! Nan and Bert, and Freddie and Flossie, they like to have adventures and sometimes solve mysteries. But other than having very religious personalities, what could the so-called McGinty “twins” have in common?
Q. Is it even humanly possible that our principal, who I can’t imagine even being born, more like ascending from Hell with strict instructions from Satan to be her meanest to kids, is related to our good and dear friend, sweet and shy Mr. McGinty?
A. It is certain.
Q. Oh, yeah? Then how come nobody told me this before?
A. Cannot predict now.
“How come you never told me you had a twin sister before?” I blurt out to Mr. McGinty.
He must not be offended by my suspicious-sounding tone, because he smiles, and says so convincingly, “But I have, Tessie. I’m certain I mentioned it on the afternoon that you and Birdie helped me plant the lilac bushes near Mister Gilgood’s mausoleum. When you told me they were your favorites, I distinctly remember telling you that my twin sister, Martha, loves them, too.”
Birdie and me talk about so many things with him when he’s working in the cemetery, and he’s very soft-spoken, and I can get easily distracted by her, so maybe he did tell me he had a twin the day he was planting lilacs near the mausoleum and I just didn’t catch it because the smell of lilacs almost puts me in a stupor, or maybe I really do need hearing aids, or maybe, for some unknown reason, him and his so-called sister are making this whole story up, and a few days from now I’ll get a picture postcard from Wisconsin Dells with Babe the Blue Ox on the front.