Lesley Kagen - Whistling in the Dark

“Is too.”

“Is not.”

I spent the way over to the park feelin’ like we shouldn’t be doing this. Mr. Dave had warned us at breakfast about staying away from the zoo, but boy, I sure was missing Sampson and had a desperate, desperate need to see him. Troo kicked a rock all the way over so I could tell she was thinking. Mary Lane kept running off and peeping into people’s yards, reporting back nothin’ too exciting except for the peeing boy statue she saw over at the Raymonds’.

We stopped at a couple of the other cages on the way to Sampson’s. The lion’s fur was all falling out and he looked like he had ringworm or something. And the elephants didn’t move at all and looked kinda fake. The hippos were underwater and I couldn’t blame them because if it got much hotter, I could fry an egg on my face.

After we climbed up into our tree across from Sampson’s cage, I felt so relieved to see the King that I almost started to cry. He was laying on his back singing, but he turned toward me when I called his name and in his eyes I could tell that he’d missed me as much as I missed him, like anybody would miss a long-lost relative. And then he went back to sucking on his toes. That made me laugh, seeing Sampson like that, not a care in the world. It made everything that was worrying me-Bobby rubbin’ himself in the shed and Mr. Gary and Father Jim being light in their loafers together and how Mr. Dave and Troo were getting along worse than the Bat tling Bickersons-just sorta fly out of my head.

Until Troo lit up a cigarette and blew out one of those French smoke rings and said, “Girls… I got me a plan.”

It was warm that night. The heat wasn’t giving up like it did sometimes after the streetlights went on. And the air around me smelled like just-cut grass and the macaroni and cheese Mr. Dave had made us for supper with a slice of Ethel’s black-bottomed pie for dessert.

Mary Lane and Troo and me were sitting on top of the monkey bars closest to the shed, watching Bobby play checkers with Mimi Latour over on the benches, and going over Troo’s genius plan one more time.

Everybody knew there was a padlock on the shed door, but it had a chain that was loose and you could pull it apart pretty far. Not real far, a kid couldn’t sneak in between the chain and the door or anything. Not a regular kid. But a kid like Mary Lane, the skinniest kid in the whole world, she was pretty sure she could get in there, and once she did she was gonna get her hands on that Kroger bag and take it to the cops.

“You ready?” Mary Lane asked as she swung down off the monkey bars.

This was one of the reasons Troo and me loved Mary Lane, because she was always ready for anything. Like ringing doorbells and running away, or kicking car tires up at Fillard’s Service Station and then laying down on the ground and moaning like she had got run over. And one time she even said she was a crippled child and went door to door collecting pennies that she used to buy herself licorice. She was a wild little monkey that Mary Lane! Especially when it came to peeping.

“I’m ready,” I said. But I wasn’t. I felt scared the same way I did after I climbed those steps to the high dive over at the swimming pool, walking slowly across that rough board over to the edge. Then I’d just stand there, bouncing in the breeze, waiting for my courage to come push me off. I can’t tell you how many times I backed down those steps, my head hangin’ low and embarrassed.

But I wasn’t gonna back down tonight. I could feel it. I wondered why that was. Maybe it had something to do with Mr. Dave being my father or Mother getting better or both those things getting put into one big bowl and mixed up together to make a batch of a different, braver Sally O’Malley. Was that how growing up worked?

Across the street, the big lights were on at the playground. The ones they put on when there was a softball game being played by the men in the neighborhood. Tonight it was the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory against the policemen. Mr. Dave was up there. He was playing third base. All the men were yelling baseball words at each other. C’mon, Gil, just a little hit. Pitch, you got about as much control as two rabbits on a first date. Hey, ump, if you’re just gonna watch, buy a ticket. And a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ from the benches. When the wind changed directions, I was sure that the cookie factory team would win. The smell of those chocolate chip cookies would give those factory men strength.

I jumped down from the bars and looked over at Mr. Dave in his baseball uniform with the red stripes and thought I’d just run over to third base real quick and tell him about Mary Lane seeing that Kroger grocery bag in the shed.

Troo did some of the mental telepathy on me and said snippy-like, “Forget it, I don’t care if he is your daddy, he’s not gonna believe you and he’s gonna get mad that you bothered him while he’s playing ball.”

“Who’s your daddy?” Mary Lane asked.

Troo said matter-of-factly, “Rasmussen is her daddy.” Mary Lane nodded like Ethel did sometimes, all low and wise. “Yeah, I knew that.”

“You did not, Mary Lane. That is your biggest lie ever,” I said.

“Did too know that. For Chrissakes, Sally, who are you? Helen Keller? Look how much you two look alike.”

I looked over at the softball field. Mary Lane was right. Mr. Dave was crouched over at third, smacking his hand into his glove. He’d told me and Troo that we could come over and watch the game but not to leave the playground under any circumstances. Eddie Callahan was playing for the cookie factory because his dad used to work up there before he got all caught up in that cookie press, so Nell was sitting in the bleachers, waving at Eddie every two minutes. I wished Mother could be here to see Mr. Dave. He looked so handsome with his honey-colored skin, his hair almost as white as mine now with just the right amount of muscles, the kind that didn’t look like he wanted to punch you, but that he’d be handy if you needed him to lift furniture. It would make Mother feel a lot healthier just looking at him. I bet they ended up getting married and then they would go on a honeymoon to someplace they both would really like, maybe someplace glamorous like Miami Beach, Florida, and when they came back they-

Mary Lane shoved me and said, “Quit your dreamin’… it’s time to do a peepin’.” She laughed like one of those chimps that lived out on the Monkey Island. “She’s a poet but doesn’t know it but her feet show it. They’re long fellows. He he he. ” She didn’t seem scared at all. In fact, I hadn’t seen Mary Lane this happy since she accidentally lit that huge fire up on North Avenue last summer.

“Troo,” I said, “make sure Bobby stays on that bench, and if he doesn’t, yell something like, ‘Oh hi, Bobby, wanna play tetherball’ very loud, okay?”

Troo was staring at Bobby real concentrated with her tongue between her lips. “I got him in my sights.” She had her Davy Crockett coonskin cap on, and her wiggly red hair that had lightened in the summer sun to a not quite ripe strawberry color was halfway down her back. “What about Barb?”

I said, “She’s not workin’ tonight. I asked.”

I turned to Mary Lane to say let’s go but she was already heading toward the shed. I looked over at Mr. Dave one more time and I thought how proud of me he was gonna be if Bobby turned out to be the murderer and molester, and if he wasn’t… no harm, no foul.

Mary Lane disappeared around the corner of the school. I looked back once more at Bobby, who was now leaning over the checkerboard toward Mimi Latour. He had his hands laying on top of hers.