Ask Anybody (11 page)

I told them. I hadn't meant to, but I did. I told them everything. It didn't take me long. I was surprised. I'd thought it would take a lot longer than it did.

“The bad part was,” I told them, winding down, “she wasn't sorry. She didn't think what she'd done was wrong. That's what really got me. She didn't care.”

“Poor Sky.” My mother's eyes were wet. “It's awful when someone you like and trust disappoints you, isn't it?”

I didn't exactly like Nell, I thought. And I never even thought about whether I trusted her or not. She was exciting. She wasn't like anybody I'd ever known before. I thought it was wonderful to know somebody like her because she was so different.

“Not much you can do, I'm afraid,” my father said. “Except next time somebody tries to talk you into doing something you know is wrong, resist temptation. Maybe if you hadn't agreed to get in the truck, Nell wouldn't have actually driven it.”

That was true. I'd said as much to Pamela but not to my mother and father.

My father patted me on the head. “It builds character to resist temptation, Sky. Did you know that? And character may be an old-fashioned virtue, but it never goes out of style. I've got to get to work. Good-bye,” and he left the room.

“What happened to Angus?” I said. I'd been wanting to ask my mother, but I'd waited until my father wasn't around. “Why didn't he come with you?”

“It didn't work out,” she said. “It turned out that Angus already had a perfectly good wife and children back home in Australia. He just neglected to tell me. And I thought he was different and wonderful to know too, just as you felt about Nell. And he was.”

“Poor Mom,” I said to her. “I've gotta go, or I'll miss the bus. See you, Mom,” and I bent to kiss her. “I'm glad you're home.”

“So am I,” she said.

When I got to the bus stop, Nell was already there, talking to the Kimball girls and Jerry and Ollie Brown, telling them some tale that had them goggle-eyed. Lord knows what she was telling them.

I marched right up to her.

“What'd your mother say?” I said.

“About what?”

“About the dog.”

“Oh,” she said airily, “some car smacked him up good. One of those hit-run drivers, most likely. Harold found him laying in the road. We lugged him out to the woods.” She ran her hand over her curls, caressing them.

“Poor old coot. Never knew what hit him.” She smiled at me, and her chipped tooth gave her face a carefree air.

I looked at her, wordless. Leo hid behind Fast Eddie. He refused to look at me.

“My mother got home from Africa last night,” I said.

“My uncle's driving his truck all the way to Rhode Island,” she said back.

“You hear what I said?” I snapped.

“You hear what
I
said?” A smile shaped itself around her mouth, missing her eyes. “Plenty of people go to Africa,” she said. “Come back, too. You think it's so hotsy-totsy your mother went and come back. It's nothing so big.”

The Kimball girls and Ollie and Jerry Brown giggled.

“You're full of garbage, you know that? You don't even try to be nice. You're just full of garbage.” I turned my back on her. I was so mad I was afraid I'd cry.

I could heard her stealthy steps as she crept up behind me. “Want me to tell you how I make their tongues tingle?” she whispered, so close I could smell her musty smell.

“No,” I lied.

“'Course you do. It's my secret way my mother handed down. Her mother told her and her mother's mother before that. They were gypsies. Only gypsies know how to make their tongues tingle. It's an ancient secret handed down over the centuries.”

I was tempted to turn and face her down, say, “All right. Tell me how to make their tongues tingle.” But I knew if I did, I would be in her power. So I stayed where I was, looking out over the snow-covered fields, watching the gulls wheel overhead, crying their hoarse cries. I heard the bus rumbling up the hill. It was my last chance. If I asked her now, she would still tell me. But I held on, gritting my teeth, and didn't ask. Like my father said, resisting temptation builds character. And when the bus pulled up and Bill swung open the door, I got on and sat next to Saralou Hunkle, who was in my second and third grade classes until somebody discovered she was practically a genius and she skipped a couple of grades and now she plans on being a chemical engineer.

“Hi,” I said. Saralou raised her head from her textbook and gave me one of the groggy stares she specializes in. She wasn't sure she knew who I was, but she was going to give me the benefit of the doubt.

“Oh, hi,” she said. “How're things?” Saralou Hunkle was a barrel of laughs.

I felt a finger in the middle of my back. I turned. Nell laughed and said, “You missed your chance. I'll never tell you now.”

“What's she talking about?” Saralou asked me.

I shrugged. “I don't know. She's loco.” Already I was sorry I'd sat next to Saralou, sorry I hadn't said, “All right, then, how do you make their tongues tingle?” But it was too late.

Behind me, Nell thumped her knees against the back of my seat. It drove me crazy, but I didn't let on. She wasn't going to get my goat.

“You want to come over Saturday?” Saralou said. Before I had a chance to answer her, Nell leaned forward and said, “She can't.”

“Mind your own business!” I cried.

Nell flashed her chipped-tooth smile at me. “We got to plan the yard sale. Those girls said we have to plan all day Saturday.” She always calls Rowena and Betty “those girls,” as if they didn't have any names.

“They didn't say anything to me about it,” I said, sitting stiff and formal next to Saralou, who collapsed back into her book and lost interest in me. Maybe she couldn't remember who I was, after all. I couldn't blame her. Sometimes I had a tough time remembering who I was myself.

When we got to school and Bill let us out, he said, “Thaw's coming. I can smell it Early this year. Good thing too. I had enough of winter. How about you?”

“You said it,” I agreed. I hoped he was right. I wasn't watching where I was going and stepped into a giant mud puddle. I could feel the mud seeping into my boot.

“Watch where you're going!” Nell called out, laughing. “You hafta keep your eyes open in this world, you wanta get ahead.”

Without looking at her, I went inside, the mud squelching damply inside my sock the whole way.

All right for you. I didn't believe her for one minute about her mother being a gypsy. I just plain didn't believe her.

Besides, who ever heard of a blond gypsy? There's no such thing. All gypsies have black hair. Ask anybody.

20

Betty's grandmother died last winter over in Waldoboro. Her mother's clearing out the house, getting rid of things. She says we can have the collection of Betty's grandmother's hats she found in the attic. About twenty-five or thirty of them, she says, and each one more of a conversation piece than the other. Betty's father plans on driving up there in his big old station Wagon that gets about fifteen miles to the gallon. Still, it's cheaper than renting a U-Haul, he says, and just as commodious. Betty also plans to set up a table of her best-sellers, the ones she's through with. She's going to give each prospective buyer a little rundown on the plot so they'll know what they're in for. How to kill sales is what I call it.

Bill, the bus driver, was right. Spring seems to have come early this year. The mud season is here. But the sun is actually warm, and my father has planted his peas and lettuce—always a good sign.

We're busy drawing posters for the yard sale. We're putting those posters every place we can think of: the post office, the gas station, the general store, the library. All the posters give the date and time and place and say in big black letters:
NO EARLY BIRDS
. That was Nell's idea. She said people are so eager to get bargains they start lining up at sunrise. S
O NO EARLY BIRDS
means what it says. If anyone cares.

Maybe we'll make some money, after all. We told the minister's wife if we did we'd donate something to the church. That was after she gave us a set of dishes she couldn't stand. She said she'd used those dishes for twenty years, hating every minute of it. I can understand why, too. They're made of fat china, the most horrible mustardy color you ever saw. Still, one man's meat is another man's poison, as they say, and somebody may fall in love with those fat dishes. It's doubtful, but you never can tell.

We included a snow date on our posters. I hope we don't have to use it. Everyone will fall apart if we do. It would be such an anticlimax. Nell drew up a diagram of where each of us should set up our card tables. She's very businesslike and directs us like a general planning a battle. I haven't really talked to her since she told me her mother was a gypsy. One day last week I was downtown and I hung around the Down East Beauty Salon, where Mrs. Foster works, hoping for a glimpse of her. But it was a day they stay open late, and she never showed. I didn't dare go inside. I was afraid they might ask me if I wanted a wash and set and maybe even a manicure. I was afraid they might pop me under the dryer before I could protest, and then what would I do?

Rowena asked our teacher if we could put up a poster in our home room. She said once that started everyone would want to put up a poster advertising something or other. It was Betty's idea to put one up down at the bus station. The next day we went down to see how it looked and it was already gone. Someone had ripped it off. I couldn't believe it. None of us could. Only two buses a day, and already someone had torn down our sign. It's enough to make you lose your faith in human nature.

It turns out Rowena's mother's changed her mind again. She says we can have her fur coat for the sale if we price it at eight fifty. And not a penny less. We took a vote on it I voted for it, and so did Rowena and Betty. Nell was the only holdout. She said the coat wouldn't bring a cent more than five dollars. We overruled her. Nell doesn't take to defeat. I walked home with her after our meeting, and she sulked all the way.

Rowena's mother wants half of the eight fifty. If we sell her coat for that much. She wants fifty percent commission. She told Rowena to tell us that. Poor Rowena.

Nell hasn't said anything more about getting old folks to give us stuff from their attics and we give 'em a tax deduction in return. I asked my father about that, and he said he didn't think it sounded right. Only established charities you give donations to, he said, can give you a tax deduction on the things you give. Good old Nell. She sure does try. Give her that.

“The kid sounds like a first-class charlatan,” my father said, shaking his head. I thought it was in admiration, but I couldn't be sure. “If she doesn't get to be chairman of the board, she'll probably wind up behind bars.”

21

The morning of the yard sale dawned foggy but with patches of blue showing out over the water. I felt groggy and cross, like a baby waking from a nap. I snuck out of the house early, so the boys wouldn't follow me. I didn't want them over at Nell's yet.

Mrs. Sykes was already there, perched behind the wheel of her car, looking like a hen on its roost. It was possible she'd spent the night in Nell's yard. I wouldn't put it past her.

“What kept you?” she said in her grouchy way. “I been here for hours. When's this fool sale start? I'm on the lookout for bargains. Never pay full price for anything, my husband always said. He was right, too.”

I pointed out the “
NO EARLY BIRDS
” warning. She brushed me off as if I'd been a mayfly.

“If they weren't outa staters”—she jerked a thumb in the direction of Nell's house—“they'd be up and about now like good country folk should. They're slugabeds.”

A curtain in one of the downstairs rooms stirred, and a pale, murky face looked out at us. They were up and about, outa staters or no. I set up my card table in the yard and arranged some stuff my mother had given me when she'd been seized with one of her clearing-out fits. A half-empty bottle of perfume, a box of dusting powder that hadn't even been opened, a picture frame encrusted with shells, and a calendar that said “World's Fair 1939.” Treasures, all.

Another car pulled up. A man leaned out and shouted, “This the place?” Before I even had a chance to answer, the car doors opened and people spilled out, the way clowns in the circus tumble endlessly from one of those tiny cars. They milled about, inspecting my goods. “Where's the good stuff?” they said. “This is mostly junk.” I tried not to have hurt feelings, even though I knew that what they said was halfway true.

“It doesn't start until nine,” I said in a feeble voice. The man slapped a large, grimy hand down on my table and said, “This ain't hardly worth the price of the gas it took getting here,” looking at me from under heavy crusted eyelids. I knew if I said again that the sale didn't start until nine, he wouldn't listen, so I said nothing and watched them pile back into the car and roar down the road. Two more cars appeared, spewing forth prospective customers. I had to turn them all away. After they'd made insulting remarks about my offerings, that is. Still no sign of Rowena or Betty or Nell. Where was she? She must know all these people were showing up in her front yard. Why didn't she come out and help me?

In the meantime Mrs. Sykes had snuggled down in her back seat, covering herself with an afghan she said she'd knitted herself, bidding me to wake her when the action started.

I was about to give up, go back home and eat breakfast until it got close to nine. Then I saw Rowena looming over the horizon, dragging her card table. Her mother followed, dressed in her print dress and her black shoes with the heels. I looked to see if she was carrying some of her bread. Instead, her arms were filled with a large white box that she carried with tender, loving care, as if it were a newborn baby about to be christened. I went to help them, glad to have something to do.