Outside In (15 page)

Uncle Joe burst onto the little stoop and began singing and dancing, stomping and clapping. Now I heard cheering and stomping from the porch below. I got out of bed and ran down the stairs to see my parents, in their normal Saturday clothes, doing some kind of dance while all four of them—Witkowskis and Ascontis—sang this soaring song. It had to be from that play they saw,
Man of La Mancha.

They told us kids the story of the play: A man goes out over the countryside like a Spanish knight of the Round
Table to do brave deeds. Really he’s sort of nutty, and he doesn’t see things for what they are—thinks a windmill is a giant he needs to have a joust with—but somehow he makes everyone remember how beautiful life can be, like King Arthur or Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pete stood scowling, waiting to start the lawn mower. Dave made a loco-motion with his hand, one finger circling his ear, but absorbed the story, of course.

“I’m glad you had a nice time,” I said softly to Mom.

She sat on the steps, put her arm around my shoulders, and hugged me. “You should have seen Uncle Joe,” she said. She described him coming out of the theater at the end of the show and walking around Times Square enraptured, with tears on his face, spellbound by the play. “He’s a wild man!” Mom said, shaking her head. “How Aunt Bonnie puts up with him I don’t know.”

I thought of Dave shut out on the stoop last night and wondered how Aunt Bonnie put up with any of them. But it wasn’t my day to go telling tales on Pete, not with my personal record of sins. When Dave sat on our porch beside me, it made me shudder, seeing again the bridge and the wheels. But it wasn’t his fault that Mr. DeLuna had caught me, not him. I was happy because our parents were happy and because nobody had told on me yet. With luck, no one ever would. And I’d been lucky so far.

I
WAS DELIVERING THE
D
E
L
UNAS
’ paper when the door opened and there was Lucy. She was wearing old shorts and one of Sandy’s gym shirts. She had a pair of blue jeans in her hand, with a needle and thread hanging off them. She tucked the
Bell
under her arm without looking at it.

“What are you doing to your jeans?” I asked. She had red thread on her needle and a square of red velvet that she was sewing onto the seat of her pants.

“Putting on a patch,” she said.

“It doesn’t blend in much,” I said. I turned to go, nervous around her since her baby-sitting night.

“Is something the matter, Chérie?” she asked. She was wearing the little rectangular granny glasses with blue lenses that she’d brought home from vacation in Cape Cod. Her hair was pulled back into a curly clump.

“I just want to get these rotten papers done,” I said. “I’ve got homework.”

“Wait till you get to high school,” she said.

“But
you’re
not doing homework; you’re sewing.”

She put her hand on the doorknob. “Better be careful on that bike, Chérie. I heard about what happened on the bridge, with you and Dave. Dad said you were brave … and stupid.”

“Why didn’t he tell?” So he
had
seen Dave.

“Because I told him what Pete and Sandy did. It’s not Dad’s style to tattle.”

“Plus
you’d
lose a baby-sitting job,” I said.

Lucy lifted her chin. “It’s not like it’s a regular job,” she said. Thank God for that, I thought. When I looked at Lucy, I saw that it was what she was thinking, too. I smiled.

“You could have the route back,” I said.

“Why? You don’t want it anymore?”

“It’s not that. It’s the news.”

“Yeah.” Lucy sighed. We stared off in different directions for a moment. “It’s like what my dad says when he’s on the road and he doesn’t call home and my mom worries. ‘No news is good news.’” She pushed at her eyes as though to push hair out of them, but her hair wasn’t really long enough to be in her eyes anymore.

“Who cut your hair?” I asked.

“Lou the barber,” she said.

Lou’s was just a few blocks from school.

“Your hair’s beautiful, Chérie,” Lucy said.

I shook the compliment off. “So’s yours,” I said, meaning it.

Lucy shook her head, too, and closed her door.

“If you were a kidnapper,” Dave said on the way to school, “what night of the year would you think would be easiest for kidnapping?”

“Shut up!” I said.

“You going to the Rangers’ on Halloween?” he asked.

“Yes. You?” Every year the Little River Rangers had a party on Halloween night, at the millhouse on the curve where Marvin Road dipped down toward the bridge.

“Yes.”

I wanted to ask Dave to trick or treat with me, but Pete was all ears. I waited to see if Dave would ask me, but Pete was leaning close to hear. He stared at the two of us, a little smile on his face. But neither of us said a word.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” said Pete.

“Shut up,” we both said. Oops.

Mom put the princess crown on Aimée’s head and watched her face as she saw herself in the mirror. “Looks good,” said Mom.

Aimée cocked her head to one side. “I should have been an elf, too.”

“You shouldn’t have insisted on getting a princess getup so soon,” Mom said wearily.

“Well, you
said I should decide early, just in case.”

I couldn’t have been more pleased at my reflection in the mirror. Tall felt hat, stiffened by a Styrofoam cone underneath. Red felt skirt to match, over the red-and-white striped socks left over from my old Raggedy Ann costume. And just in case some old lady wasn’t sure what I was, I carried the little elf doll I had copied to make my costume.

I said, “I want a haircut for my birthday. Okay, Mom?”

Mom took a braid in each of her hands and wrapped them around my face. She had to reach quite a way to get past her big stomach. Little Vivienne. Or Guillaume, if it was a boy. “Cut
this
hair?”

Aimée stared. “Why, Chérie?”

I flipped a braid over my shoulder. “I’m too old for braids,” I said. It was clear Aimée didn’t believe any such thing.

“Wear it loose then,” said Mom. “Lots of girls do now.”

“No,” I said softly. “It’s too frizzy. I hate it.”

“Forget hair!” Aimée said. “Let’s go!”

Mom grinned and showed us the door. “The night awaits,” she said in the same scary voice she used to recite “The Raven.” “Watch for cars now.” Aimée waved goodbye with the flashlight.

I felt adventurous and responsible and old, walking out on Halloween night, a pillowcase for candy in one hand and the other hand for Aimée. But she pulled away, walking ahead.

Along the dark road the lighted doorways stood waiting and welcoming. Leaves covered the sidewalks and the edges of the road. There was no way around them; we had to kick our way through. Leaves fluttered and whooshed and crackled and caught in the hem of Aimée’s ruffled slip and stuck on the felt of my elf skirt.

I could feel the pavement and the pebbles beneath Aunt Bonnie’s black snow boots as surely as if I were barefoot, but my feet were warm and silent as I walked. It was like hide-and-seek, so quiet was the ground under my feet.

The neighbors all asked us in and turned us around and wouldn’t let us tell what our costumes were meant to be, made us wait while they guessed, guessed who we really were inside.

Between the houses Aimée wouldn’t stay close. Now she walked ahead of me again and stood at the end of Onion Lane, tapping her foot. “Aimée,” I said, annoyed, “you’re supposed to wait up.”

“Stop bossing me,” Aimée retorted.

The next stop, around the deep curve in Marvin Road, was the Little River Rangers’ driveway. A jack-o’-lantern glowed from a flat rock beside the driveway, which dipped down a steep bank toward the river and disappeared.

When Aimée saw how pitch-dark things were beyond the jack-o’-lantern, she stopped and came back to me for once. “Is this safe?” Maybe she was just catching my mood. She held my hand and pulled me forward.

“It’s just darkness,” I said. It was the gravelly kind of driveway, and it hurt my feet through the soft snow boots. I felt safer off the road, where no passing car could see us. I thought of hide-and-seek again, the way I could sneak along under the so-called cloak of night. Aimée tripped over her fluffy slip and would have fallen if I hadn’t grabbed her by the elbow, smacking her so hard in the head with the pillowcase of treats that she wailed louder than she would have if she’d fallen.

Inside, the millhouse was the same as every year before: deeply dark except for the fireplace, with Rangers big and small looming out of the darkness with candles, waving us in toward the cider and doughnuts. Was Dave here? Joanie Buczko appeared from nowhere, wearing a Minnie Mouse costume. She grabbed my elbow and pulled me forward. Aimée’s hand slipped out of mine. There were doughnuts hanging from strings, and I saw Dave’s friend Nathan trying to catch one in his mouth, his hands behind his back. “I’m doing
that,”
said Joanie. “Come on!”

“Your mouth’s big enough,” I said, and pushed her toward Nathan. I felt safer inside, safe enough to laugh.

“Meanie!” she said, and looked back at me, giggling.

I might have followed, but from behind me in the dark, hands clutched my shoulders. “I’ve come to suck your blood.”

“Get off me!”

“Come here, will you?” Dave pushed me away from the firelight, making me spill my cider. Why couldn’t he just be nice? I landed on one of the benches with my doughnut in my lap. The fire made Dave in his Dracula cape look very realistic.

“What are you being so weird for?” I asked him.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

“Should I be?”

“Shh.” He kept looking over his shoulder. “I don’t know where Pete is.”

“So? Who wants him?” I asked.

“I don’t want him to see me talking to you.”

“You’re a jerk.” He just wanted to stay in with the boys.

“I didn’t tell on you, Chérie,” he said. “It was Pete.”

“What do you mean, it was Pete?”

“I told Sandy about the bridge, and he told Pete.”

“Of course.”

“Yeah, well, Pete told Dad.”

“Why?” Why should Pete have it in for me?

Dave looked at the fire. “To get me back,” he said.

“For what?”

He didn’t answer. I hadn’t heard about Dave doing anything to Pete. It was about time somebody did.

I chewed on my lip, something I must have picked up from Aimée. At last I said, “Well, nobody told Mom and Dad.”

He sat down on the bench beside me. “Really?”

“Really.” We both thought about it, why nobody would tell my parents anything bad right now, not Pete or Uncle Joe or Aunt Bonnie. Or Mr. DeLuna, but I didn’t tell Dave that part, in case he didn’t know whose car it was that had brought me home.

“Chérie.” Aimée came tattling over to me. “Pammy is hogging doughnuts.”

“So?” Dave answered Aimée. “What’s it to you?”

Aimée peered at him. “You know what Joanie called you? Dave Ass-conti.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Dave.

Joanie rushed over, covered in doughnut crumbs. “Watch out, Nathan’s coming!” she said, giggling. It was obvious that she wanted him to. Nathan, who’d taken his mask off to try to bite doughnuts, put it back on now to chase Joanie.

The mask was blue and grotesque, with protruding red eye sockets and a warty nose. Aimée burst into tears when she saw it.

“You little weirdo,” Joanie told her. She said it nicely, but
still.

“Cool it, Em,” I said.

“But—” Aimée sniffed up her sobs.

“He’s just a giant rubber ugly,” I said. “Like the ones you put on your finger. Come on, don’t cry. It’s Halloween.”

“He’s a Blue Meanie from
Yellow Submarine,”
Dave said. Aimée didn’t like them, either. She sniffed.

“Aimée needs to go home.” I stood up. Joanie waved a Minnie Mouse glove at me. She wasn’t coming; she was staying with Nathan.

Dave followed me out the door like Dracula after his prey. I trudged up the hilly driveway, lugging the treats and Aimée’s crown, which she didn’t want to wear anymore. Her shoes were too tight, and she was sucking her cheek and sniffling, scared of the dark driveway or the Blue Meanie. She wouldn’t let go of the flashlight, although I could have used it better to light our way. She
clutched the side of my red skirt with her free hand. I had a hard time negotiating the pitch-black driveway with her weight and the pillowcase and the crown. And Dave was tagging along beside me, his cape flapping in the wind, which had gotten colder while we were inside.

At first I was glad Dave was with us, but he walked too slowly. He kept trying to catch my arm to tell me something, but Aimée hauled me along so fast I tripped over Aunt Bonnie’s boots on the gravel.

“Dave, what?” I said in exasperation. We were almost at the end of the Rangers’ driveway, where we could see a little bit from the glow of the jack-o’-lantern.

“I want to go home,” Aimée said, looking around at the spooky Halloween trees and the empty road.

Dave held my elbow and whispered in my ear, “My dad asked me what I thought about moving to Ohio.”

I stopped and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”