Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (10 page)

Mimi sat back down and pushed around her chicken and rice with her fork. She sensed her dad eyeing her, so she put some in her mouth and started chewing.

“Here it is,” Mimi's mom said, sitting back down. “Let's see, bills, bills, bills, I don't see anything from your work, dear.”

Mimi's dad put down his fork. “Let me see … please pass me the mail.”

The mail crossed the table from Mimi's mom to Mimi's sister and then to Mimi. Before she handed it to her dad, she could see the edge of the first fake letter from Holy Footsteps—the one saying they had no room for her—sticking out from the bottom of the stack.

“Thank you, Mimi,” her dad said, taking the letters. He breathed through his nose and the table was quiet as he rifled through the mail. “That's what's wrong with the mail,” he said. “A man works all day downtown, expecting some bit of good news to arrive, maybe a letter from an old friend, and there's nothing here but intrusions into my wallet.”

“What letter are you looking for?” Mimi's brother asked.

“It's my parking decal to go with my promotion. It's just a little orange sticker, but it represents years of hard work. It means I can park in the front row with the other executives near the door instead of having to hunt all over the parking lot on cold, snowy days trying to find a spot with hundreds of other people.”

“Are you the Number One guy now?” Mimi's brother asked.

“No, not the Number One guy, but one of the top guys.” He shook his head and looked at the mail. “You wouldn't know it from all this blood sucking mail besieging me. Look at this.” He started to open some bills.

“Honey, let's not open any bills at dinner,” Mimi's mom said. “It's unsettling.”

“All right, no bills, but let me see, let me show you what other kind of bothersome mail descends upon a man after he's fought downtown all day to come home for some peace with his family. What's this, now?”

Mimi held her breath. Her dad was opening another letter, not hers, some kind of letter with a lot of typing on it. She watched her dad's lips move as he read it, and she glanced down at the letter from Holy Footsteps, which was next on the stack. Mimi reached her hand toward the Holy Footsteps letter to flick it on the floor, where she could bend over to pick it up and make the switch.

“Listen to this outrage!” her dad said slapping his hand down on the Holy Footsteps envelope. Mimi's yanked her hand back. “Why this is a chain letter of the rankest kind, using religion to try to get into my wallet.”

“What is it, Dad?” Mimi's sister asked.

“It's a pyramid scheme with the Hail Mary thrown in to fools us. They want me to send a dollar to ten people who got this letter before me, and then have me send copies of the letter to as many people as I can. That way, everyone below me will supposedly send me money later.” He let out a “Hmmmph” with contempt and read on to himself.

“How much money can we get?” Mimi's brother asked.

“It says here, one man in Mexico City who obeyed the letter became a millionaire, and another man who broke the chain died suddenly. Can you believe this—”

“Are you gonna do it?” Mimi's brother asked.

“Of course not. These pyramid schemes only benefit the persons at the top and take advantage of the people below.”

“Aren't you afraid of dying if you don't send it?” Mimi's sister said.

Mimi's mom cleared her throat. “Honey, God isn't going to let your father die, he just got a promotion. It wouldn't make sense.”

“That's right,” Mimi's dad said.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Is your job a pyramid scheme? I mean with you and the other guys at the top and everyone below you?”

Mimi's dad let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Let's see what else we have here, a letter from Holy Footsteps. Probably another appeal for money to fix the roof or some new gym floor they dreamed up.”

Mimi grabbed the letter in her dad's grip.

“Maybe I should open this,” she said.

“Mimi!” her dad said holding the letter tight. He looked at her face. She was breathing heavily. “What's wrong with you?”

“Maybe it's for me. Maybe it's about how they're getting ready for me to go there next year. I heard some of the kids are getting those letters.”

“Mimi, you act as if this letter were a bomb about to explode. Please let go.”

She let go and lowered her head. Everyone looked at her. Her dad tore the leading edge of the letter and ripped his index finger across the top. “We'll see what new scheme those nuns are up to now.”

“Dad,” Mimi's brother said chewing a roll. “I forgot to tell you. When I was in the den I noticed that your hand grenade is gone.”

Mimi's dad froze and looked up. “What did you say?”

“I just thought of it now when you said the word explosion. I was watching TV in the den and looked at the shelf. Your hand grenade isn't there.”

Mimi's dad put down the letter from Holy Footsteps Academy on the table and leaped from his chair. He ran into the den with everyone following—everyone except Mimi. She stole the opened letter off the table and stuck it in her left sock, then pulled out the other fake letter from her right sock, ripped open the envelope and put it on the table. With no one looking, she put the rest of her dinner on her sister's plate and got up and danced around the dining room table swinging her arms with joy. Then she wiped the smile off her face with her hands and whisked into the den to look concerned about the missing grenade.

PRESIDENT NIXON stripped naked and put on his favorite U.S. Navy swimming trunks. He walked out of the changing room and headed toward the White House pool on super secret sublevel five, right down the hall from the continuity of government conference room and the Pepsi machine. He lowered himself to the edge and pulled on his fins, snapped his goggles into place, and slipped into the water.

It was peaceful and quiet under water, and he glided smoothly toward the other end—until he noticed something shiny down by the drain. What's that? he wondered. He kicked his legs, the fins thrusting him deeper and deeper. The President's ears popped and his lungs were tight, but on he swam down, down, down. Looks like a Lincoln penny. Honest Abe, my ass. If I can just get that penny, he told himself, this whole Watergate thing will blow over. All I have to do is reach that damn penny. He reached out his fingers to pluck it from the bottom when suddenly a dozen other pennies fell through the water and settled near the drain. Nixon looked up and saw a black figure looming at the end of the pool. He could no longer tell which was the original penny. A surge of bubbles came from his mouth as he cursed underwater. He kicked off the drain, shooting up to the surface.

Kissinger stood on the ledge empting his pockets into the water to get the President's attention. “Mr. President,” Kissinger said as Nixon surfaced. “We have to talk. The live televised Senate Watergate Hearings begin today.”

Nixon swam backstroke laps while Kissinger walked along poolside discussing the crisis.

“As you know, McCord will testify. He might paint a picture of presidential impropriety.”

“Presidential impropriety? Bah,” Nixon said kicking off the wall and reversing coarse. “I'll just tell them … I'll tell them the truth.”

Kissinger turned around to keep pace with the President. “How do you plan to phrase that? I mean, what is the truth, at this point, sir?”

Nixon kicked harder as his mind struggled to phrase the truth. Kissinger's pace quickened. His black wingtip shoes were getting wet, the chlorine water dulling their shine. “I'll just tell them … I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate operation. I took no part in, nor was I aware of, any subsequent efforts that may have been made to cover up the damned thing.”

“We should write that down, but do you think the American people will believe you?”

Nixon stopped and floated face down like a dead man. Kissinger waited. Nixon wasn't moving. Kissinger stared at the President's pale, white back. “Mr. President? Sir, are you all right?” Fearing a stroke, Kissinger dove in the pool in his suit and tie and swam over to rescue the President. Nixon saw him coming and treaded water, grinning.

“Good job, Henry. I was just testing you.”

“Mr. President,” Kissinger said, struggling to stay afloat, his suit coat billowing out around him, “how can you hope to hold it all together?”

“You know, Henry, in the service, when I was on Bouganville Island, I won a thousand dollars playing poker. You wanna know how I did it?”

Kissinger's heavy shoes and wet clothes were pulling him down. “How sir?”

“The Nixon poker face. See for yourself.” The President fixed his face muscles to look like Rushmore, like a postage stamp of presidential credibility. “It works every time. Don't worry. Why don't you come by this afternoon and we'll watch it on TV together. Maybe Pat'll make some ginger snaps.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. President, I'm playing tennis this afternoon with someone special,” Kissinger said, water up to his chin.

“Someone special? What, some show girl or model?”

“She may have done some modeling at one time. I'm still gathering all the facts.”

“Well, that's what you're good at, Henry. Don't worry about this Watergate thing. Just gather the facts, keep a poker face, and move forward. That's what I'm doing.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.” Kissinger swam over to the ladder and climbed out dripping wet and winded.

The President pulled his diving goggles over his eyes and dove back to the bottom in search of the lucky Lincoln penny that would solve everything.

PATRICK AND TONY climbed the embankment up to the train bridge on the way to school. Mimi was already there waiting for them in her green plaid uniform skirt and white blouse. It was a cloudy day and rain threatened. It was the first day of the snow globe investigation and the authorities would start questioning students one by one. Mimi had said she had a plan, and the boys were keen to hear all about it.

“How'd everything go last night, I mean with the letter?” Tony said.

“Oh, fine.”

“What about the grenade?” Patrick said.

“Well, Dad thinks maybe one of the junior executives who were in the den took it because they were jealous of his promotion.”

“What does your mom think?” Tony asked.

“She never liked it anyway. She's just glad it's out of the house. Now, about this snow globe case, I've decided to go with the old pyramid scheme.”

“Pyramid scheme?” Tony said.

Mimi had only heard about pyramid schemes the night before, but it taught her that she needed a system of telling all the students in the class what to say to the investigators without having them know where the instructions came from.

“I'll be at the top,” Mimi said, “I'm Number One.”

“Can I be Number Two?” Tony said.

Mimi turned toward him as Tony flexed his romantic eyebrows. “Sure, why not. And Patrick you can be Number Three.”

“Fine, but what's your plan?”

The plan was for Number Two to tell a pair of students one theory of how the snow globe got up there, while Number Three would tell two students another theory of how it got up there. Everything had to be spoken. No passing notes. Those four students would be instructed to each tell another pair the theories that they heard, with instructions to pass them along down the pyramid. A student passing along his theory would ask another, “Have you been told yet what to say?” If the kid said “yes,” the teller would find another student to tell, but if he said, “no,” he'd tell him the theory he was supposed to pass on. Eventually every kid in the class would have instructions on what to say when questioned. No one was to tell the next person below who the next person above was. That way no one could trace back it all back to Number One.

“What's the point of all this?” Patrick asked.

“Yeah, why not just have everybody say the same thing?” Tony said.

“The point is to make it look natural like there are these different theories. One is that Miss Kleinschmidt might have done it.”

“Hah! That's crazy. Why should they think she did it?”

“They both won't, but we'll do some things to make the detective think so, to let him think that she's crazy, and then with the other theory we'll get the priest to want to believe that one.”

“What's the other theory?” Tony said.

“That it was a miracle,” Mimi said.

“A miracle? You mean that somehow that snow globe just floated up there into Mary's hand? He won't fall for that,” Patrick said.

“He doesn't have to. He just has to wonder why so many kids think it might have been a miracle. You heard him talk about that Mary stuff. It's divide and conquer. He'll eat it up. One more thing—”

“What?” Patrick said.

“I need each of you to give a different answer when they ask you who did it.”

“What should we say?” Tony asked.

“I'll leave that up to you. Just both make up something different. That way everyone won't be saying the same thing. It'll sound more believable.”

The plan seemed solid and one that would divide and conquer the investigators, so they agreed that Mimi was Number One—the top of the pyramid—and no one could know who Number One was. They walked down the embankment off the tracks and cut through yards to school. The gold statue of Mary on the church roof rose above the treetops against gray, black clouds thundering in the distance.

MISS KLEINSCHMIDT STOOD BY HER DESK as fat drops of rain pounded the Mary Queen of Our Hearts parking lot outside. She wore a gray pants suit, heavy rouge on her cheeks, and a shade of lipstick that looked like burnt ox blood. “Today in history,” she checked her notes, “May 17, 1849. A fire almost burns St. Louis to the ground.” That seemed to satisfy her, some. She strutted about, rattling off her usual directives—don't slouch, listen up, write legibly—but she also radiated morbid anticipation, a hunger for the savory broth of judgment that was about to be served up hot. Professional investigators would soon be grilling her students to find out who stole the snow globe. This was going to be a good day. She had combed her wiry gray hair more than usual for the occasion, but it still loomed over the class like a volcanic plume over a mountain village.