The Alley (28 page)

Billy shrugged. "Who knows?" he said lugubriously. He was going to miss the casing. What would he do without casing—and without swinging, since Connie had a job now, running a music school?

Connie, reading his thoughts, said, "Billy ... you know, don't you, the recital is over? That means no more lessons till fall. Ts! What will I do?"

Billy smiled and swung.

That night Billy, cold or not, and Connie stayed up until twelve o'clock. It was like New Year's Eve, the only other night so far when Connie had been allowed to stay up that late. In every yard clusters of neighbors gathered filling in the chinks and cracks and crannies of the two solved burglaries. Various people up and down the Alley served cold drinks in their gardens. There were a great many people in Connie's yard ... laughing, talking. Little by little, people drifted away. There was a translucent, pearl-like moon just over being full. It was more like a waft of a cloud, and one could imagine seeing right through it. Sometimes an airplane, lighted and serene, held steady on its course to LaGuardia Airport. Connie and Billy could not believe that they did not have to go to bed. Expecting any minute that they would be called, they did not enjoy themselves as they should. Why didn't their parents once and for all simply say, "We'll forget about bed for tonight, until you really and truly want to go there, you yourselves. Otherwise, stay up." But the parents didn't say this, and thus they kept the children on edge. Just wait until the parents wanted to go to bed, then they'd say crossly, "What! You children still up!"

Mrs. Goode came and got Hugsy. Mrs. Goode made the remark that if only Connie had to go to bed, she would have no trouble persuading Hugsy to go home and go to bed. Then she made a remark about how Mrs. Ives had practically invited the burglars in in the first place, having told them that Wagsie didn't bite!

"Uh! She always gets everything all wrong, all backward," said Connie to Billy. "Because that is the opposite of what Mama did say."

"You don't have to tell me," said Billy. "Grownups! That kind of grownups!"

Finally all the neighbors left. Just Billy and Connie were in the yard. "Come in," said Mama.

"Oh, please," said Connie. "Just five more minutes."

"All right," said Mama. "Then ... really and truly ... in!" And to Papa, Mama explained, "They have been through such a lot ... and the night is such a lovely one!"

Billy and Connie swung and swung and did not mind the squeak in the swing. The little train went briskly along Myrtle Avenue; and from Mrs. Carroll's yard came her voice: "You kids still up? I'll have to fix that squeak in the morning." Mrs. Carroll always fixed things that went wrong in the Alley—broken gates she mended, squeaks she oiled. Finally Connie's mother came to the back door and said, "Well, now, you really do have to come in." So Connie went in. "S'long," she said. "See you later..."

"Alligator," said Billy.

"What a day, what a marvelous, glorious day!" thought Connie.

And then, after a few days, it was as though it had never happened ... their burglary, their trial in the Circle, their casing; also Bully Vardeer's burglary, Billy's hoarding of the clues, his snapshots, the solving—all, all was as though read about in some book, some other life than theirs.

But, one day soon afterwards, at lunchtime, Connie's father burst into the house excitedly. He always came in excitedly, but this time there was really something to be excited about, more than seeing that somebody had picked his crocuses. "There you are! There! You see that, Connie? Jane, see that?" He banged the newspaper on the table. "See that? There is some justice, after all."

"Hush, darling," said Mama. She couldn't stand noise ... shouting, water faucets running, people speaking loudly or crossly. "Let's see," she said.

Papa didn't lower his voice. He couldn't help talking excitedly—it was his nature, like Nanny's, and came down in their family, through the generations. "There we have it!" he said.

"Have what?" asked Connie. Papa pointed to an article on page one.

"That!" he said.

Mama and Connie examined the newspaper. There, right on page one of the
Brooklyn Eagle
was a picture of their two policemen, Sergeant Rattray and Officer Ippolito. "Precinct number 9999 cleaned up," said the paper. The news account gave the details of how these two officers of the law had been accused of petty thieving—they had done in some other house the same thing that they had done in Connie's house. But there they had been caught in the act, stuffing jewels in their pockets whilst pretending to search the house for, possibly, hiding burglars. In
that
house the lady had not seen through their pockets, as Mama had. The lady saw the policeman, just plain saw him ... no hunches ... pick up a ruby ring and drop it in his pocket. "Hah!" thought Connie. "What could be more damaging than that?"

"Well," said Mama. "Isn't that wonderful? Caught! Caught, that Ippy and Ratty!"

"Papa," said Connie. "Will you get back your ancestral cuff links, Mama's ring, and the watch?"

"I'm afraid not," said Papa. "I've already been over to the precinct. But of course the men deny having taken our things, and we really have no proof. We..."

"No proof!" exclaimed Connie. "What about the pencil?"

"Well, the two of them say the pencil we brought over there was not the pencil they were looking for, and they still say they never saw the ring. But, anyway, plenty of other charges have been made against them, and they're in real hot water."

"And, anyway, now," said Connie, "even though we don't have our things back, now we can trust policemen again. We can always trust them again, since the two wicked ones, the only two wicked ones there are and probably ever will be, or have been, are 'spelled from the police force and have been put in jail.
Now,
if we call the police to help us, we know that
good
policemen, not burglars in disguise, will come and
help
us, not
steal
the few little things the real burglars did not have time to take ... or find."

"Yes, at least that," agreed Billy Maloon. And he and Connie went outdoors to swing. After a while Billy said sadly, "Connie, tomorrow I am going to camp for the whole, entire summer. I have to go home, soon, to pack."

"Pack!" echoed Connie in dismay.

"Yes," said Billy. He turned his face toward Connie. "Yes, I'm going to camp. I don't know whether I'll like it or not. I hear there's something about the bunks—the making of the bunks—I hope I'll know how."

"Oh," said Connie. Her heart was sinking. All the long days of playing with Billy Maloon were over ... the Dinky Toys, swinging, casing, talking, building cities and tunnels and tracks and everything—all this was going to be over and right now—tomorrow! Then she thought of Billy in the woods, in a camp, swimming, making bunks, and he was so little! And she knew Billy, and she knew that he was a very brave boy—who else could catch robbers, smell Muras a mile away, and take pictures on his camera of a real honest-to-goodness going-on-right-then burglary? But—but he might be lonesome; at night he might, he just might, with the lights out ... cry.

"Billy," said Connie. "You'll like it there—I know you will. And if you don't, you can telephone me from camp. I'm an old hand on the phone, now. I answer it all the time."

"O. K.," said Billy. He jumped off the swing. He stood in front of Connie for a moment; he didn't say anything; he just looked at her; his eyes looked like deep dark pools. Then he said, "Well, by."

"By," said Connie.

"It's Camp Pineside," said Billy. "Vermont. Write."

"I will," said Connie.

"Well, by," he said.

"By," said Connie.

Connie's father came to the back door. He handed Billy his box of clues. "Billy," he said. "The police returned these clues to you. They don't need them any more. Your evidence was completely conclusive, they said. So, here they are ... your mementos."

"Thanks," said Billy.

Connie said she would like to keep the screwdriver named "Stanley," if Billy didn't mind. Billy said, "O. K." He was going to bury the others in his yard. "If Atlas doesn't dig them up," he said, "centuries from now, someone, a member of an expedition, might dig them up. 'H-m-m, what's this?' they would say, and wonder what they meant."

Then Billy really went, he went in to pack. Connie, with a lonely heart, as she swung, turned toward Billy's house, at his end of the Alley. Soon a light came on in his room. He didn't pull down the shade. His yellow curtains fluttered in the breeze. It was very late when finally he put out his light.

"By, Billy," said Connie softly.

By, Billy. Now ... what?

Now, Billy Maloon was gone. The long hot days of June melted together, and it was hard to remember what day of the week it was, much less day of the month. Connie read to her mother a great deal—a picture post card from Billy of Camp Pineside with an X showing where his cabin and room were was her bookmark; and she read to herself a great deal. Or, sitting in the little red rocker, she just talked to Mama or Nanny, who said the South might be hot, but you did not have this humidity there. Connie did not mind the long days that began empty and ended up full. Oh, the wonderful and long days of summer! Just to hold a whole day in your hand and have it and think that it was empty to begin with but that each moment could, would, contain so much. She didn't even miss Billy too much—at first.

A great deal of the time, as usual, she swung. And, as usual, quite often one of the big girls, June or Katy or Laura, as they passed by, watched her swinging. Often Judy or June or Laura came in to swing. Once in a while Katy said, "Boring." But Connie kept her eyes glued to the far end of the Alley, the Circle end, to the view of the Circle. Sometimes Katy came in. She never asked. She just opened the gate, left it open, came in, swung a while, jumped down in a moment or two, and walked off as though to say, "How boring!" which indeed she did say now and then, but in a dispirited, lifeless sort of way, a warm, summer-sort-of-day way of talking. Usually, in fact never, did she bother to close the gate, though Wags could get out.

Quite often, however, Connie did miss Billy acutely. The wonderful days they had had together ... building towns and villages, camps, motels, highways for the Dinky Toys, their garages, or having the cars travel along the little roads on the patterns of the rug. She recalled the first day that Billy Maloon had come to play with her. "Can Connie play?" he had asked Mama. Connie really now could not help feeling lonesome for him. He and she were such good friends. Neither one of them ever said anything mean to the other! They just liked each other the way they were. They never had to think what to say to each other. They never minded if they never said anything. Or, sometimes, they talked for hours. And how was Billy making out with the bunks, Connie wondered. She could not help a tear weaving down her smooth, tanned cheek. Where'd that come from, she wondered. She almost never cried. "Such a brave girl!" her mother always said. "And such a 'mart girl, too," Connie would always add, recalling a baby expression.

Connie brushed the tear away. She wondered where Hugsy was; he was next best to Billy in the Alley. Oh, yes, she remembered. He and his whole family—Greggie, Susie, Mother and Father, all of them—had gone off on a camping trip in the Catskills. Well, should she be really lonesome? Another tear swelled up and out of her eyes. Well, she was not the crying type, and she brushed that one off, too. So ... she would go in and read to her mother. A few more swings, touch the bottom branch of Mrs. Harrington's tree with her bare toe, and then out she would hop.

At this moment, Katy Starr came to her back gate again. Katy was all alone—the other girls were not with her. They were still down at the Circle. She stood at the gate a moment. "Now," thought Connie. "She will walk right in again, swing for a second or two, then hop off, shake her shoulders, and go back out, saying, 'How boring!' Well, that's life," thought Connie neither sadly nor not sadly. Still, she was not in the mood for this. Why not have Katy stay out of her yard once and for all? Or at least obey the rules posted on the tree ... to ask, just plain ask to come in.

But Katy did not follow her same old pattern. She stayed at the gate, and from the gate—which you remember was always kept closed, always, because of Wagsie—she said to Connie, "Connie? May I come in?"

ELEANOR ESTES
(1906–1988) grew up in West Haven, Connecticut, which she renamed Cranbury for her classic stories about the Moffat and Pye families. A children's librarian for many years, she launched her writing career with the publication of
The Moffats
in 1941. Two of her outstanding books about the Moffats—
Rufus M.
and
The Middle Moffat
—were awarded Newbery Honors, as was her short novel
The Hundred Dresses.
She won the Newbery Medal for
Ginger Pye
in 1952.