The Luck of the Buttons (9 page)

The door swung open and Burton Ward came in, dragging Winslow by the hand. “Button,” he scoffed under his breath as he passed Tugs. Tugs’s stomach dropped. She hoped Miss Lucy didn’t know about the Ben Franklin incident.

“Button!” mimicked Winslow, not so quietly.

Miss Lucy turned and said loud enough for the whole library to hear, “Sorry we don’t have room to put
all
of your blue ribbons in the case, Tugs.” Then she scurried after Winslow, who was randomly pulling books off shelves as he passed, and Tugs slipped out the front door, forgetting entirely about the camera instruction manual.

Tugs was studying the sidewalk so hard as she walked home from the library, trying to avoid stepping on the cracks between the squares, that she nearly walked smack into Ned, who came charging around the corner full speed ahead.

“Ned!” she said.

“Tugs!” he said.

“Huh,” said Tugs.

“Yep,” said Ned.

“I was at the library,” said Tugs.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Granny said.”

“Well.”

“Why aren’t you with Aggie?”

“She’s at camp.”

They watched Mrs. Perkins chase the Wards’ cat out of her petunias.

“I’m on my way home,” said Tugs.

“I’ll walk with you,” said Ned.

“But where were you going?” asked Tugs.

“The library,” said Ned.

“Well, I guess I could walk with
you,
then,” said Tugs.

“OK,” said Ned, scratching a patch of mosquito bites. “I saw Mr. Moore.”

“Oh.”

“He was in the phone booth outside the Ben Franklin.”

“Hmmm.”

“The door was open and I sort of overheard him say something strange.”

Tugs glanced over at Ned.

“Well?”

“He said Goodhue was ripe, or maybe it was, ‘Time is right for picking.’ What did he mean?”

“Don’t know,” said Tugs.

“I thought you were interested in what he is up to.”

Tugs shrugged. Her mind was muddled over what had happened at the library. She had a ribbon hanging in the display case, with her name printed right there for everyone who walked into the library to see. It had been exciting in the moment, but now she had doubts.

What if people thought she was showing off? What if she
was
showing off? Would they know Miss Lucy had been the one to put the ribbon in the case, or would they think that a Button such as herself would have picked the lock and stuck the ribbon in there uninvited? Yet if there was one thing Buttons were not, it was criminals. She would never pick a lock.

Her heart beat faster with the indignity of it all, and she brooded as they climbed the library steps.

Tugs followed Ned through the door and stopped in front of the case. Her stomach clenched. How had she not seen how dirty and wrinkled her ribbon was? It looked like a used ribbon, not the ribbon of a real winner. Aggie Millhouse would never display a dirty ribbon.

“Ned!” she whispered as Ned stepped into the library. “What do you need at the library?”

It took Ned a moment to remember.

“You!” he said.

“But I’m right here.” Tugs glanced around the library, but no one had noticed them yet, not even Miss Lucy, whose concentration was still completely taken with the Ward boys. “Come on, let’s go.”

Miss Lucy, in her haste to chase Winslow, had left the display case open. Tugs tucked her camera under one arm, reached into the case, grabbed her ribbon, and ducked out the door, a puzzled Ned trailing behind her.

Back outside, Tugs was suddenly tired. “Let’s watch cars,” she said, and flopped down on the bench that sat at the edge of the library yard, facing Main Street.

“Model T,” said Ned.

“Olds,” said Tugs.

“Whippet!” they said together. There wasn’t much traffic, but then there never was in Goodhue.

“That was lucky, anyhow,” said Tugs.

“What?” said Ned hopefully.

“The case was still open.”

“Oh,” said Ned, nodding as if he understood. “Yep, that was lucky.”

“I guess I should get home,” Tugs said.

“Me too,” said Ned.

They were almost to the Perkinses’ house when they saw the three Marys roller-skating toward them. Mary Alice, Mary Helen, and Mary Louise were not only best friends; they were also beautiful, with straight hair, straight teeth, and small, plump limbs. Seeing them for the first time since Aggie’s party, sailing down the sidewalk, their matching skirts billowing, their laughing faces glowing, it was as if the pages she’d just read in the dictionary,
luck, fortune,
were skimming toward her. Tugs found herself wishing to be a Mary, too.

Tugs waved.

“Hiya, Mary Alice, Mary Helen, Mary Louise!” she hollered.

“Well, if it isn’t Tugs Button and her little sidekick,” said Mary Alice as the three skated to a neat stop. “Where are you off to, nursery school?”

“My house,” said Tugs. She smiled in what she hoped was a carefree summer-afternoon sort of way, then remembered her buckteeth and her cousin next to her. She pulled her top lip down and chewed on her lower lip. The Marys started to go around her.

“Want to come with?” she said. “To my house?” She stepped in front of Ned. “He’s not coming.” She held up her camera. “I’ve got my Kodak. I won it at the Fourth of July. I didn’t see you there. Where were you? I could take your photograph.” Never mind that it couldn’t really take pictures.

“We were over at the auto races in Cedar Rapids with our families,” said Mary Louise.

“Eight thrilling events,” said Mary Alice. “Much more fun than that silly picnic.”

“We’ve all got Kodaks,” said Mary Helen. “Boring.”

“And,” added Mary Alice, “Mr. Moore says he’s going to put our photograph in the first edition of the
Goodhue Progress,
due to the generous contributions our fathers made.”

“We can’t come anyhow,” said Mary Louise. “My mother is going to give us bobs.”

“Oh!” said Tugs. “But your hair is so beautiful already.”

The Marys giggled at that and tromped on the grass to get around Tugs and Ned. Then they glided away. Tugs looked after them, holding her camera in front of her.

“Click,” she said.

Back at home, Tugs left Ned in the living room with Granny and her mother and went to her room with the excuse that she had to change clothes. How could she be like the Marys with Ned hovering around?

She sat on her bed with her camera and scanned her room through the viewfinder, inspecting everything through the lens.

Click:
a spider resting in her web in the sloped corner of the ceiling.

Click:
tiny faded flowers on the curtain, rustling slightly in the barest midday breeze. The curtains were frayed at the bottom, and dirty.

There were several yellowed newspaper pictures cut from the
Cedar Rapids Tribune
.

She scanned the whole room but could not find one beautiful thing.

Until the Fourth of July, Tugs hadn’t known she wanted a ribbon or a Kodak. She hadn’t thought about possibility. Tugs had never aspired. Burton’s accusation rang again in her head. Tugs
was
a Button, and all at once she understood what that meant. Who else but a Button would wear dirty ribbons pinned to their dirty overalls? Her face burned with belated embarrassment.

“What on earth are you still doing in here?” said her mother, peering around the door. “Ned wants to entice Granny into a game of marbles, but she’s retreated out to the weed patch.”

“Tell him I don’t have time for him,” said Tugs. “I’m busy.”

Mother Button stepped all the way into Tugs’s room and shut the door behind her.

“Busy is doing something useful. Now, your cousin is here. I suggest you get out there and do something with him. You’ve got one foot in the doghouse already, leaving him with Ralph Stump for the three-legged race.”

“I can’t,” said Tugs.

“What do you mean, can’t?”

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Wear? Since when did you worry about what you are going to wear?”

“Girls wear dresses and skirts, Mother. I can’t go around wearing those dirty overalls anymore.”

Mother Button studied Tugs, then pulled open the middle dresser drawer and pulled out a dress.

“Here. You can press this. It probably still fits.”

“Oh!” said Tugs. “I forgot about that dress. Thanks.”

Tugs bounded out of bed and pulled on the dress in its wrinkled state and smoothed it with her hands. It was an old dress of her mother’s that had been made over for Tugs for last year’s school program. She’d stuffed it in the drawer afterward, never intending to wear something so uncomfortable again. It was a little small but she could still button it, and if she scrubbed the dirt off her knees, maybe no one would notice that it was a little too short. Why did she have to keep growing, for Pete’s sake?

“There,” she said, presenting herself to Mother Button and Ned in the living room. “All I need now is a bob. Can you cut my hair, Mama?”

Mother Button looked at Ned, who shrugged.

“It’s the Marys,” he said. “She wants to look like the Marys.”

“Hmmm,” mused Mother Button, running her fingers through Tugs’s mass of curly hair. “Is that how the girls are wearing it now? I guess we could see what we could do.” She rummaged through the junk drawer for a scissors and went to the linen closet for a sheet to put under the stool. “Just straight across all the way around, right?” she asked.

“Here,” said Ned, holding up Mother Button’s
Good Housekeeping
magazine. “Look at the pictures of the ladies in here.”

Tugs thanked Ned grudgingly. She was grateful for the haircut help but annoyed that Ned was hanging around in the first place. Didn’t he have friends his own age to bother? She paged quickly through the magazine.

“There,” she said, pointing to a woman in an ad. “Like that. To the bottom edge of my face.”

“Looks easy enough,” said Mother Button. “Go wet your hair in the sink and we’ll give it a try.”

Tugs stuck her head under the kitchen sink and got it soaking wet. Then she wrapped a towel around her head and hopped up on the stool. Mother Button worked a comb through the snarls as Tugs winced. Then she pulled a lock of hair down with the comb, stopping the comb at chin length, then snipping along the teeth of the comb. She grabbed the next lock and repeated the process. Trouble was, when she let go of the wet hair, the spring in the curls wound right back up, leaving Tugs’s new cut considerably shorter than anticipated. It was more of an ear-length bob than a chin-length bob. Ned’s eyes grew wide.

“Well?” said Tugs, anxious to see.

“It’s bobbed all right,” said Ned.

“Oh, dear,” said Mother Button. “I’m afraid this might not be exactly what you had in mind. But Ned is right. It
is
bobbed.” She went to her room and brought back her hand mirror and held it up for Tugs to see.

“Perfect!” said Tugs. “I’ll bet the Marys got theirs short, too. Wait until Aggie sees!” She shook her head back and forth. “I feel so light. Oh, my neck is all cool. You should try it, too, Mama. It’s fashionable
and
comfortable.”

“Well, one bob in the family might be enough for starters,” said Mother Button. “Get the broom, now, and sweep up all that hair.”

“But I need to go to Mary Louise’s.”

“Tomorrow,” said Mother Button firmly. “Your hair won’t grow overnight, and if you change out of your dress for the rest of today, it will still be clean tomorrow.”