Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (7 page)

Patrick and Skip looked at each other.

Time stood still.

Skip cussed and turned and ran home as fast as he could.

Patrick dove at Mimi, pushing her down, pinning her to the ground. He pushed her arms away, grabbed at her chest, and stuck his hand down her blouse.

“Get back, it's gonna blow!” she yelled, fighting him.

Arriving back on the scene, Tony stopped. “Hey, what's gives?”

“She's got a grenade!” Patrick yelled.

“Holy shit!” Tony belly-flopped on the grass ten feet away and covered his head. Patrick's hand groped around inside Mimi's blouse. He felt something strange and wonderful. This was it. He'd finally made it to second base. Now he was going to die.

But instead of dying, he kept groping until he finally found it. Mimi kept trying to stop him, but her hands were outside her blouse and his were inside. He grabbed the grenade, yanked his hand out of Mimi's shirt, scrambled to one knee, and threw it as fast and far as he could.

“Take cover!” Patrick yelled throwing himself on top of Mimi.

The grenade landed on the putting green and rolled to a stop six feet from the hole. They all three waited with their eyes shut tight. Nothing. The caboose rattled by and the train was gone. Patrick and Tony looked at each other. They looked at Mimi. She had fainted.

THE LAST TIME Mimi fainted in a crisis was fifth grade. It was the night of the school championship spelling bee to determine who would go on to represent Mary Queen of Our Hearts in the regional rounds. The gymnasium was packed with parents and students. The stage was lit. Mimi was up there in a white dress with six other finalists. Sister Mathilda, who organized the event, was aglow in the podium light in her black habit and thick reading glasses, straining through cataracts to read the spelling words.

“Our next word goes to Mimi Maloney,” Sister Mathilda said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Sister.”

The crowd applauded. Mimi smiled.

“The word is ‘meticulous'. How do you spell ‘meticulous'?”

Mimi took a breath. It was not a word she knew. Meticulous, meticulous, meticulous. She sounded it out in her head. “I will now spell ‘meticulous',” she began.

The crowd leaned forward.

“Meticulous… M-E-T- …” She stopped to be careful. It could be spelled ‘metickulous' or ‘mettickuluss' or ‘metiqueluss' or maybe some other way.
Shit
.

“You have fifteen seconds,” Sister Mathilda said gently.

Mimi's tongue pressed on the roof of her mouth.

“You have ten seconds.”

The crowd shifted and murmured.

“Five seconds …” Mimi's face got hot in the stage lights. Her throat tightened and she couldn't breathe. She blacked out.

When she opened her eyes on the gym floor, she was looking up at the faces of Sister Mathilda and the other contestants who were looking down on her. She wanted to lay there for ten thousand years and never move until everyone died and the stone school building blew away into dust.

“Get up,” Sister Mathilda said. “We have to move on.”

“I have to move on,” Mimi said finally, sitting up on the fairway next to Tony and Patrick.

They both looked at her. She had been out for half a minute.

“What?” Patrick said.

“Take my hand,” Tony said.

“I can get up on my own.” She stood up and wiped the tears from her eyes and looked out at the hand grenade on the putting green and laughed.

“Are you okay?” Patrick said.

“You could've got killed,” Tony said.

She shook her head and looked at Patrick. “Thanks. Thanks for helping. I'm sorry.” She looked at Tony. “I'm sorry I brought you here.”

“Who was that guy?” Tony asked.

“What was this all about?” Patrick said.

Mimi faced the facts front and center. “He was nobody. It was nothing. I gotta go. I gotta get that thing and put it back on the shelf. I've got homework.” She started to walk toward the putting green, but the boys held her back.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Patrick said.

“Yeah, you can't go near that thing. It could blow at any minute! You pulled the pin.”

“I got the pin,” she said, holding it up. “I'll just put it back in.”

The boys laughed and explained to her that with hand grenades, you can never put the pin back in. “Once you pull the pin, it's changed forever,” Patrick said.

Mimi looked at Tony to see if that was true.

“I swear,” Tony said, “that's a live grenade. It can never go back to the way it was.”

Mimi sat down Indian-chief style to think. The boys sat down facing her. She buttoned up her blouse and zipped up her pink windbreaker and
stretched out her arms with her hands resting on her knees. Everyone was quiet. Mimi's face turned serious. The boys drank in the sight of her hair and her moist lips and bright green eyes. After a minute she slapped her hands on her thighs. “Here's what we'll do,” she announced.

TONY WALKED out of the dark creek tunnel into the moonlight wearing a metal trash can around his torso. He had gone garage scavenging, as Mimi suggested, and found the things they needed. He found a trashcan with a rusted bottom that he kicked out. He found a World War II helmet to cover his head, a hockey goalie mask to cover his face, and goalie pads to protect his legs. In one hand, he held a metal trashcan lid like a knight's shield. In the other was a long pole from a swimming pool with a bug skimming net on the end. He walked clanking and creaking onto the green while Mimi and Patrick sat halfway up Suicide Hill watching.

“You look great,” Patrick yelled.

“Wonderful,” Mimi yelled.

Tony stopped about fifteen feet from the grenade and looked back at Mimi. He was only doing this to impress her, and because he felt jealous that Patrick had saved her life earlier. And, besides, Patrick had put his hand in her shirt! He couldn't wait to ask Patrick about that. Mimi waved at him and he marched on.

“Be careful,” Patrick yelled.

Tony flexed his shoulder muscles and held the trash can shield up to protect his face from any flying shrapnel. “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” Tony prayed softly, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for
us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” It was the first time he had prayed since his dog Brando got sick. At the time he was praying for Brando to get well. Poor old Brando, Tony thought, he used to walk him on this same golf course, and now they could soon be together again.

“What are you waiting for?” Mimi yelled.

“This one's for Brando,” Tony yelled.

“Who's that?” Mimi whispered to Patrick.

“That's his dog who died.”

Peeking around the edge of the shield, Tony gently jabbed the pole forward, pushing the rim of the bug skimming net along the putting green toward the grenade like a dustpan. The net rim bumped the grenade. Tony winced and stopped. The grenade started to wobble.

“Lookout,” Mimi yelled. The grenade was rolling down the slope of the green toward the cup.

“Don't' let it go in the hole. Move around it,” Patrick yelled.

Tony shuffled and clanked to the left and slid the net in front of the cup. The grenade had enough momentum that it skipped over the rim into the net.

“You got it!” Patrick yelled.

Tony nodded and waved for them to be patient. This was the hard part. With eyes shut bracing for the explosion, he lifted the pole up off the green. The grenade started flopping and bouncing on the mesh fabric like a Webelo on a trampoline.

“Easy does it!” Mimi called out.

Now sweating heavily through his gold paisley disco shirt beneath his trash can armor, Tony steadied the pole and walked backwards through the valley of the shadow of death—the sand trap. Grunting for strength, and style, Tony hoisted the poll overhead and catapulted the grenade into the air toward the pond. Like raccoons on trash night, he dove into the sand trap with a crash. The grenade splashed into the pond with a quick, white whoosh. There was no explosion. Nothing. It sank to the leafy bottom four feet below and rested there.

“You did it,” Patrick yelled.

Mimi ran down the hill to Tony. Standing up to kiss her, Tony reached out his arms, but the trashcan around his torso fell and he tumbled over again into the sand trap. Mimi sat down next to him and Patrick plopped down, too.

“Tony, great job,” Mimi said.

“You were great,” Patrick said.

“Thanks, it was a little hairy,” Tony said removing the hockey mask. Mimi wiped the sweat off his forehead with her hand and looked at the pond.

“It's hot. Gonna be summer soon and all this will be behind us,” Mimi said.

Tony wriggled out of the trashcan and got his bearing. He pulled out a pack of Camel non-filters and offered one to Mimi and Patrick. They both took one, and Tony got out his Zippo lighter and lit everyone's smoke. “Three on a match, it's bad luck,” he said.

“I don't even smoke,” Mimi said, puffing away.

“I was born with a Camel in my hands,” Tony said.

“I'm quitting after this summer,” Patrick said, “Some day my lungs will be pink and new again.”

“High school,” Mimi said sighing, “I was accepted to Holy Footsteps, but I don't know what I'll do.” She was thinking about the fake letter she would have to intercept before her mom opened it.

“I guess you're worried about getting into high school with that snow globe shit,” Tony said.

Patrick took a drag on his cigarette and looked at Tony. Tony was fluffing up his wavy black hair with his hand and flirting with a confession. “I guess you wonder who really did it,” he said, “I mean, who do you think would have the balls to put that snow globe up there?”

“I don't know.” Mimi looked at Tony and then at Patrick. Patrick looked at the sand to avoid her eyes. “I give up,” she said.

Tony flicked his ashes and looked at Patrick. He back-slapped Patrick on the arm. Patrick narrowed his eyes at Tony to warn him to shut up. “Go, ahead,” Tony said to Patrick, “Tell her. I trust her.”

Mimi looked at Patrick, and he weakened. She did have the greenest eyes.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

Mimi laughed. “Can
I
keep a secret? I was going to ask
you
the same thing. Can you keep a secret about all this tonight?”

The boys nodded in agreement.

“OK,” she said. “Who did it?”

So, they talked and they smoked in the sand trap in the moonlight. Tony
embellished the snow globe story to make it sound as if he had been plotting for months some way to get even with Miss Kleinschmidt, to teach her a lesson for her years of cruelty. He described how high and dangerous it was to put that snow globe in Mary's grip, and no one in the school knew the secret except Mimi, Tony said, because she was special.

“After we get caught,” Patrick said, “Tony and me are leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Yeah, on a freight train.” Patrick spoke in reverential tones about how the train tracks had been inviting him to run away from the future, how after eight years of grade school, he felt empty and trapped and didn't want to end up working downtown like all the dads. “Society is just moving us through these school buildings like holding pens, because society isn't ready for us yet,” Patrick said. “Tony's coming with me.”

Mimi looked at Tony to see if he was going to run away.

“Maybe,” Tony said admiring Mimi's eyes.

Mimi laughed. “Don't worry about running away. You won't get caught. If you need some help, I mean, I can teach you how to lie. I'm so good at it I sometimes fool myself.”

The boys looked at each other. Maybe Mimi could help. She did seem to have a way of handling things. “It's only two weeks until graduation, and then it's summer,” she said. She grabbed two fistfuls of sand and threw them up in the air with the cigarette clamped in her grinning lips. They all three put their right hands together and swore to keep each other's secrets and gave a little team holler the way they did at CYC basketball games. Only this time, they were playing against the adults. Tony and Patrick were both in love with her now. But Mimi—she was her own girl.

BEFORE SCHOOL the next morning, Archdiocese's special investigator Father Ernst along with Detective Kurtz convened a meeting with church and school officials to explain how the snow globe investigation would unfold. Miss Kleinschmidt and the school principal, Sister Helen—a nun in modern habit—were sitting at the table in the rectory basement next to an empty chair awaiting the arrival of the head priest of the parish, Monsignor O'Day.

“We can't let them get away with this,” Miss Kleinschmidt said, sipping a cup of hot water with a bullion cube in it. Her breath smelled of chicken broth and cigarettes.

“With God's help, we will find the truth,” said Father Ernst. He wore his usual black priest uniform, and his long leather coat rested over the back his chair. He was scanning a Vatican monthly newsletter article on recent sightings of Mary in South America.

“We have to be ready to be tough, to be assertive, and to use the most modern investigative techniques,” added Detective Kurtz. Clad in a clean, blue uniform shirt he had ironed that morning, Kurtz drummed his fingernails on the wooden desk and looked at the clock. It was 7:35. Everyone, including Monsignor O'Day, was supposed to be there at 7:30.

“He said he would come,” Sister Helen said. “He's probably just arranging some official papers for the meeting.” More than anyone, Sister Helen was
familiar with the late arrivals of Monsignor O'Day. She fidgeted with her short gray hair, which she had cut every few weeks to stay businesslike and efficient.