Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (22 page)

“SHIT!”

“Sorry, I've gotta go,” Mimi said, wiping her mouth with her arm and hurrying out the door. She dry-heaved down the hallway, zigzagging between the sports trophies and honor roll, neither of which mentioned her name, and then fainted on the floor.

THE AMBULANCE SCREAMED outside the window in front of the school. Patrick and Tony's class leaped from their desks and ran to the window to look out as it pulled up down below. A pair of medics with a stretcher jogged up the steps.

“Everyone sit down this instant!” Miss Kleinschmidt yelled. “No one gave you permission to get up. Sit down now. Whatever's going on out there is none of our concern.”

Patrick looked at Tony. They both knew it was Mimi and ran out of the class to go see. Miss Kleinschmidt shouted for them to stop,
stop this instant or else
… but they ignored her. She slammed a desk drawer shut and hobbled after them.

When Patrick and Tony got down by the principal's office, they saw Mimi on the stretcher with her face up and eyes closed. Foam was coming from her mouth. The medics trotted her past the trophy case and down the steps.

Detective Kurtz and Father Ernst stood talking with the principal and Monsignor O'Day. Monsignor O'Day was on crutches with a cast on his leg from the Spring Follies accident. Tony ran after Mimi to call out her name. But she was unconscious and didn't answer. They slid her into the ambulance like a pizza into an oven and shut the door. The ambulance sped away, siren wailing. Tony came back inside, his head down, and felt an arm grab him.

“Mister Vivamano.”

It was Detective Kurtz with vomit chunks on his uniform shirt.

“What happened? Is she all right?” Tony asked.

“She's fine, just a little faint. But you're not fine. Neither is your friend.” Detective Kurtz led him over to Patrick who's arm was squeezed tight in Miss Kleinschmidt's grip.

“We've solved the case,” Detective Kurtz said, bluffing. “Before she got sick, Mimi told us who did it. It was these two here, Patrick and Tony.”

Monsignor O'Day looked at the boys.

Sister Helen looked at the boys.

Father Ernst and Detective Kurtz looked at the boys.

This was it. Detective Kurtz knew all he had to do was say nothing. Make them believe they were already caught and under the terror of the moment they would confess.

Patrick looked at Tony. How easy it would be to rip their arms free and run down the hallway to the train tracks. If only Tony would come along.

Tony looked at Patrick. His eyes told him the whole story. He understood why Patrick had kissed Mimi. Things happen around a girl like her. Who wouldn't want to kiss her? The main thing was Tony and Patrick were best friends and that couldn't change.

Patrick's legs tingled, ready to bolt for the bridge, ready to run alongside the first freight that rumbled down the tracks, ready to escape and show the whole school that he and Tony were just as good as, and even better than, the Gang of Five who busted out for a measly few hours way back in the fifth grade. This was big time. Dillinger would be proud. They were leaving town.

Tony took a breath, ready to confess. Patrick's eyes burned. Yes, yes, yes, admit it, Tony, just say the words, just say we did it, and we can run. Just open your mouth.

Tony opened his mouth.

But before he could speak, Monsignor O'Day cut in. “All right, that's enough, this thing has gone far enough.”

Everyone looked at him. He was shaking his head, leaning on his crutches and getting flush in the face. This was
his
parish and he was taking it back. “I have an announcement to make.” He swung his crutches around and limped into the principal's office. Flipping a switch, he turned on the loud speaker and grabbed the microphone. Intercoms in every room on the school lit up.
Six hundred students stopped what they were doing and listened. Patrick and Tony and Detective Kurtz and Father Ernst and Miss Kleinschmidt listened from the hallway.

“Attention students, this is Monsignor O'Day. We've had a girl take sick and leave just now for the hospital in an ambulance. I want you all to pray for her.” He turned to the hallway and asked the principal a question. “What's her name again?”

“Mimi Maloney,” the principal said.

“Today, I want you to say a prayer for Mimi Maloney. She's riding in that ambulance all alone. Some day that will be you and me on that ride. Say a prayer for her like you mean it. Ask God to make her well.”

Monsignor O'Day looked out in the hallway at Patrick, still in Miss Kleinschmidt's grip, and Tony, who was held by Detective Kurtz.

“Also today, I am announcing a general amnesty for anyone involved in the recent prank that has caused so much tension. Anyone who wants to go over to the church now to go to confession and pray, I'll be waiting there for you, ready to forgive and forget. And as always, anything you admit in confession will be a secret.”

“Damn,” Detective Kurtz muttered. He let go of Tony, and Miss Kleinschmidt stepped away from Patrick. “I wont forget you boys,” Detective Kurtz said with a voice full of grit. “You two ever get in any other trouble outside school, I'll remember you.”

“You smell like puke,” Tony said stepping free of him. He went over to Patrick and hugged him.

Patrick was relieved, but also depressed. Once again, his plans to escape had been ruined. And they still had Mimi to worry about. No one knew what was wrong with her. Students started pouring out of classrooms to go over the church and pray for her. The church bells by the gold statute of Mary tolled, and Detective Kurtz and Father Ernst closed their files, got in their cars and drove away. Miss Kleinschmidt went back to her room, sat at her desk, and stuffed a soda cracker in her mouth.

MIMI LAY IN HER hospital bed asleep with fever. An intravenous tube attached to her arm dripped saline solution into her dehydrated system. Her parents and a young nun from the hospital sat holding vigil. It was now night and the room was dark except for a reading lamp over by the best chair where Mr. Maloney sat in his work suit with a loosened tie. He and Mrs. Maloney had been there all afternoon, waiting for some word on what was wrong with their rebellious, headstrong daughter. The nun was holding her rosary beads in one hand and working a cool rag on Mimi's forehead with the other.

“She's a beautiful girl,” the nun said.

“She's our baby girl,” Mrs. Maloney said, running the back of a finger along Mimi's cheek.

“Maybe we should sign her up for softball, get her out of her room more,” Mr. Maloney said. “That's all she needs.”

The doctor came in with a clipboard of test results. Mr. and Mrs. Maloney stood up.

“You may want to sit down,” he whispered.

Mrs. Maloney covered her mouth with her hand and sank into her chair, fearing news of some dreaded, incurable disease.

“Is it her adenoids?” Mr. Maloney asked, still standing.

“I'm afraid not. Your daughter is suffering from morning sickness. She's pregnant.”

Mrs. Maloney gasped. The nun dropped her rosary beads. Mr. Maloney sat down with his mouth open. He looked at the floor, then looked up at the doctor.

“You sure you've got the right room?”

The doctor nodded.

Mrs. Maloney started to cry. Mr. Maloney got out a handkerchief. Mrs. Maloney reached out, thinking it was for her. But Mr. Maloney used it to blow his own nose like a trumpet blast and wadded it back up in his pocket.

“This can't be right,” he said.

The nun at Mimi's side rose up slowly to let them be alone. Mimi started to mumble in her sleep with her eyes closed and they all looked over at her.

“Just three more days,” she said, “three more days.”

Her parents and the nun hurried to her side. Mrs. Maloney brushed back Mimi's wet bangs.

“It's okay, Mimi,” she said, “Mommy and Daddy are here. It's okay.”

Mimi opened her eyes. They were unfocused and bright green in the light from the reading lamp. She looked at her parents and the strange nun.

“You fainted at the school. You're at the hospital now,” her mom said.

“I had a dream that I saw her.”

“Who?”

“It was her.”

“Who?” her mom asked.

Mimi looked to the side, remembering the spectacle of the dream. Her lips were chapped and cracked. “Mary.”

The three adults looked at each other, then back at Mimi.

“Shhhh,” her mom said. “It was just a dream. You need to go back to sleep and rest.”

“You want some 7-Up?” her dad asked. “I'll buy you anything you want.”

Mimi rubbed her eyes. “No, thanks.” She looked at the nun. “Who are you?”

“I'm with the hospital.”

“She was rubbing my forehead. She was on the golf course.”

“Mimi, the nun was rubbing your forehead right here in this room with a cool cloth,” her mother said. “You fainted at school.”

“No, it was on the golf course,” Mimi insisted.

“You've been under a great strain,” Mr. Maloney said. “Mary wasn't on any golf course.”

“But she was. She was on the golf course by the ladies tee on the fifth hole by Suicide Hill and she came out of the trees. And you know what?”

“What?” the nun asked eagerly.

“She was barefoot. Her feet were lovely.”

“Honey, don't think about it,” her mom said. “Just rest.”

Mr. Maloney nudged the nun and whispered. “Maybe you should go tell the doctor to get a sedative.”

The nun nodded in obedience, but then Mimi grabbed her by the sleeve of her habit and went on.

“I could see her face. She was sad, but very beautiful.”

“Did she say anything?” the nun asked.

“Sister!” Mr. Maloney glared at the nun and whispered sharp. “Don't encourage her.”

“No, it's all right,” Mimi said looking at them, “I want to remember before I forget. She told me … she was brilliant white … she told me to—” Mimi stopped and looked at her parents. She didn't know they already knew she might be pregnant. She wanted to tell them gently, so they wouldn't be clobbered with the news. “She told me to have the baby and—”

Mr. Maloney stepped back pointing at the nun. “Now, that's enough. She can't … no way. She's an eighth grade girl.” He turned to his wife. “It's the law now. She has every right to her own future. She needs to have—”

“She told me to ‘Visit Colorado and have the baby'.” Mimi's voice was tired, but resolute.

“Visit Colorado and have the baby?” the nun repeated.

Mr. Maloney picked up a bowl of green Jell-O from Mimi's untouched dinner tray and threw it against the corner wall. The bowl broke and the Jell-O stuck to the wall and dribbled down to the floor in globs. He raised his voice. “This is ridiculous. It's all from that thing that happened at school. That's it. Don't you see?”

His wife and the nun and Mimi looked at him. He could see they were afraid of his outburst, so he steadied himself. “Don't you see? She's just having a bad dream, a mix-up of everything that happened at school with that statue, the statue of Mary on the church roof. She's had a shock. Mary isn't running around the golf course telling girls to visit Colorado.”

“That's what she told me,” Mimi whispered.

Mr. Maloney slumped down in the best chair again and covered his eyes with his hands.

Mrs. Maloney sat on the bed by Mimi's feet looking at the floor. The room was quiet for a few seconds.

The nun spoke up with nervous resolve. She knew Mr. Maloney would not like what she had to say. “The Order has a school for girls like Mimi. It's in Colorado.”

Everyone looked at her.

The nun picked up the rosary off the floor and put it in her pocket. She cleared her throat and spoke calmly believing this was why she was sent. “It's outside Denver. It's a good school where girls can go in secret to have babies, to adopt them out to good families who will raise them and love them as their own. While they're there, the girls study and keep up with their classes, and when it's over, they can come home. No one need ever know.”

Mrs. Maloney looked at her husband to see what he would say.

He looked like he was melting into the fabric of the chair, his voice rough and weak. “She's an eighth grade girl, dammit. She's supposed to go to school with her sister in the fall. This can't be right. I just got a promotion.”

THE LAST BELL of the last class of the last day of eighth grade finally rang. Patrick and Tony were sitting in their desks watching the clock like everyone else. The nine planets of the solar system hung in space waiting. When the big hand swept upon the top of the hour, the bell rang out and all six hundred students in the school broke into wild cheering, the eighth graders louder than all the rest of them. Just like that, it was summer. And it was over.

Some of the students got up to shake hands with Miss Kleindschmidt. She smiled and acted as if everyone had been friends all along. But Patrick and Tony kept their distance. They drifted over to Mimi's empty desk wondering how she was doing. She had missed the final few days. Her parents sent a message to the school, which Miss Kleinschmidt relayed to the class. Mimi had a strep throat and couldn't attend school or graduation. She might be contagious.

Patrick grabbed his book on Dillinger and walked across the threshold into the hallway. Tony followed. The hallway was full of kids jumping and yelling—boys with their shirttails out, girls shaking their hair wild. Jimmy Purvis had a magic marker and he asked everyone to sign the back of his good white uniform shirt. On the playground, a lot of kids stood around dazed. Birds chirped. Feathery white dandelion seeds drifted in the breeze. It was like one of those World War II movies when the POWs realize they
can leave the prison camp because the Nazi's have all fled in the night and yet they don't quite know where to go.