How High the Moon Read online

  Before any of us could utter anything but a gasp, Mr. Morgan bursted into the projector room, dressed in his fancy black-and-white tuxedo. He cringed like his fingers just got pinched.

  “Busted!” I said. Charlie just started to cry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What were you kids doing up in the attic?” Brenda asked. When we didn’t say anything, she turned to Mr. Morgan as if she expected him to tell her what was going on. I didn’t want the good Mr. Morgan to get fired, him having a dead little sister and a moved-away mom and dad—he already had enough bad luck in his life as it was without losing his job, too, so I had to think of something quick.

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with us sneaking in to see the movie,” I said, making my voice sound smooth as soap poured on a finger to help a too-small ring slip off. “We were in the alley when the candy truck came. The delivery guy left the door propped open while he went for more boxes, and we slipped inside when he wasn’t looking.” As proud of myself as I was for coming up with that fib, it bothered me to think that I might be getting the delivery guy in trouble. What if he’d had a down-on-your-luck life like Mr. Morgan?

  Brenda folded her arms, one foot pointed out to the side like a ballerina’s. “If you were sneaking in to watch the movie, what were you doing up on the catwalk?”

  “Well, it’s not like we could hide by sitting in the theater. Mr. Morgan is the one who rips the tickets in half, and he’s got a memory like Dumbo’s mama. He would have known we never handed him a ticket.”

  “And did the delivery man open the attic door for you too, so you could get up there to hide?” Brenda’s lips weren’t smiling, but I swear there was a bit of a grin in her eyes.

  “No, but Mr. Morgan went up there to change a bulb or something, and we snuck in after him. He was over on that end by the stage, so we went down a different path to the very end where it’s good and dark, and we lay down flat until he left. So there.”

  “Sneaking in without buying a ticket is a form of stealing, you know. I could call the police if I wanted to.”

  I knew Charlie was whimpering because he was afraid of getting sent to jail, which didn’t exactly make sense to me. You’d have thought he would have wanted to get sent to the clink since his dad was there.

  “Look, it ain’t our fault that you snobby folks make the rules so that kids like me and Charlie can’t get in. I don’t have a ma to bring me to the movies, and neither does Charlie. All he’s got is a great-grandma, and all I’ve got is my ma’s boyfriend. Neither one of them has money to take a kid to the movies. And besides, not like you Blooms need our lousy twenty cents anyway.”

  I wanted to stay grouchy, but when I looked out at the empty theater, the red curtain still open, the stars still lit, my mad turned to sad because I knew that Mr. Morgan was never going to let me in again. I looked at Brenda. “Maybe sneaking in without buying a ticket is a little like stealing, like you said, and maybe we shouldn’t have done it, but I had my reasons.”

  “And those would be…?” Brenda asked. That grin was still sparking behind her eyes, only by then it was getting on my nerves.

  “None of your beeswax,” I said.

  “Then maybe you can give your reasons to the police. I’m sure they’ll think it’s their business,” she said. Charlie slipped his sweaty hand into mine but I shook it away.

  Brenda turned, like maybe she was going to go off to call the cops, so I shouted, “Okay! So maybe it is your beeswax.”

  Brenda turned around.

  “I snuck in because I love this place. Probably even more than you do. And because I wanted Charlie here to see it. Look at this sad-sack, with a ma in heaven and a dad in the clink. I thought it would cheer him up.”

  Brenda’s eyes got soft, foggy looking, like the eyes of a leading lady when she’s in love, or the eyes of a regular lady when she looks at a newborn baby. Only she wasn’t looking at Charlie with that face. She was looking at me.

  “Well, before you start thinking I’m some kind of do-gooder, you should know that I snuck in for my sake, too. See, my ma went off to become an actress—probably to Hollywood—so I like to check in at the theater now and then, thinking maybe I’ll catch one of her films.”

  Brenda smirked. Like she thought I was fibbing about that last part. “So, your mom is a cartoon dog?” she said, and boy, was that smart-alecky comment enough to make me want to take up swearing again.

  Mrs. Bloom walked into the Starlight at that very moment, her hair bright gold under the dome light, one section of seats from us, her voice rising up to us through the empty windows that kept Mr. Zimmerman from roasting. Glen Perkins was with her, dressed in the green jumpsuit he always had on when he stopped in at The Pop Shop to pick up a pack of Camels. The one that had PERKINS CONSTRUCTION stitched over his back. Mrs. Bloom was pointing down toward the stage and yakking, though we couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then suddenly she swooped around so she could point at something at the back of the theater. That’s when she looked up and saw us in the projector room.

  It was too late for me and Charlie to duck. Brenda gave a sigh and Charlie swallowed so hard that if he’d let that gulp of air come back up, you can bet he’d have burped loud enough to put Joey Jackson’s best one to shame.

  Mrs. Bloom said something to Mr. Perkins. He nodded and headed down toward the screen, while Mrs. Bloom marched between a row of seats to get to the stairs leading to the projector room.

  “Brenda?” she said when she stepped inside—like her name itself was a whole question.

  Boy, that Mrs. Bloom sure was decked out! Big, sparkling rings glowed from her fingers, and more jewels dangled from her ears and swirled around her neck. So much gold and so many gems, it was almost enough to blind a person in such bright light.

  Her face screwed up like her stomach was full of pop fizz when she looked at Charlie and me. She winced as she checked out Charlie’s head full of bald patches and red knicks, then his patched knees. After she took in Charlie’s dirty sneakers with the hole in one toe, her gaze zoomed right over to my feet and started crawling up my legs, which made me look down, too. I hadn’t paid any attention when I bounced out of bed and grabbed clothes from the drawer Teddy put my playtime clothes in, and now I was a bit sorry about that because I wasn’t looking so good in my mismatched ratty pants and stained shirt. My jacket zipper was broken because Mrs. Fry still hadn’t found one that size to yank from her bag of rescued zippers, so I pulled it shut to hide my stain. Mrs. Bloom’s head lifted and her eyebrows crawled right up to hide under her bangs when she got to my face. “This child is wearing makeup!” she said.

  Mrs. Bloom turned to Mr. Morgan and asked him who we were and why we were there. Poor Mr. Morgan looked too scared to move, so I started talking. “I’m Isabella Marlene, but you can call me Teaspoon. Everybody does. Well, everybody except my teachers. And this here is Charlie Fry. We…”

  Brenda got that your-name-is-ringing-a-bell look, and even though I was staring up at Mrs. Bloom, I saw her stretch a little taller, even though she was still squeezing her hands like she was wringing out wet laundry. “She’s… she’s my new Sunshine Sister,” she blurted. And didn’t that just figure, Brenda Bloom being a part of that do-gooder program, her being so perfect and all.

  “I was just showing her and her little friend around the theater,” Brenda added.

  “Actually, he’s my neighbor,” I corrected, but I went along with her fib about me being her Little Sister in that dumb program.

  “I thought Mrs. Gaylor said you were planning to pair with Veronica Hanson, the little girl who lost her mother a couple of years ago?” Mrs. Bloom said.

  “Veronica Hanson? Oh, I know her!” I said. “She’s in my grade, but she’s in a different classroom. She lives with her new stepmom and her dentist daddy. And while she ain’t exactly heading for a walk down the Sweetheart of Mill Town runway, she sure doesn’t seem like a big enough mess to be a Sunshine Sister to me. She gets good grades
and keeps her hair combed and everything. It just goes to show, though, things aren’t always how they look.”

  “Well, I was, but…” Brenda looked at her mother, her perfect pearlies biting at her lip. She looked over at Charlie and me, then gave her ma one of those just-a-minute signals with her finger. She opened the door and asked Charlie and me to follow her. “And you,” Mrs. Bloom said to Mr. Morgan while we were walking out, “if you’re done with your work, you can leave. I don’t pay you to stand around and eavesdrop.”

  Brenda led us to two seats up against the wall opposite the projector room. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said, like she was a mind reader and could tell that I was already thinking that the second she turned around, me and Charlie should make like a banana and split.

  We were about to, too, until we got to the aisle and I realized that we could hear Mrs. Bloom and Brenda’s voices coming through the glassless window in front of the projector. Sure enough, they were talking about me!

  “I know, Mother… but… then we had our meeting where Miss Simon gave us a bio on each Little Sister, and afterward, she took me aside and personally asked if I’d pair up with Isabella. Her teacher is considering holding her back in fifth grade for another year, and says she’s in desperate need of a good mentor.”

  “Well, I just spoke to Mrs. Gaylor and she said—”

  “I know. I know. I haven’t gotten the chance to tell Mrs. Gaylor about the request yet, because she was gone by the time Miss Simon and I got done talking. I’m sure she’ll agree to switch things around once I tell her that Mrs. Carlton and Miss Simon both said that they couldn’t think of a girl better suited to be Isabella’s big sister than me, because I’ve been raised to perfection and would have so much to teach her.”

  “She said that?” Mrs. Bloom asked, her voice as proud as if she’d just won an Oscar Award.

  Man oh man, I said in my head. Teachers! What snitches, telling the Sweetheart of Mill Town that I might become a flunky! Why, I’d bet my last Sunday school dime that Mrs. Carlton and Miss Simon told her that I have a couple of drops of bad blood in me, too.

  “Well,” Mrs. Bloom said. “You’ll certainly have your work cut out for you, judging by the looks of her.” Mrs. Bloom gave one of those now-what-was-I-doing groans, then she said, “I need to get back to Glen, and you need to show Raggedy Ann and Andy out. Don’t forget to close out Mrs. Feingold’s till.”

  I tugged Charlie back toward the seats Brenda assigned us, but I couldn’t get us sitting by the time Mrs. Bloom came out and started down the stairs, walking like a bossy queen. My teeth were still gritted as Brenda led us down and to the door that opened into the alley.

  She held the door as we stepped out. “See you Monday for our getting-acquainted meeting, Little Sister,” she said with a smirk.

  I spun around so fast that I almost made myself dizzy. “Whoa!” I said. “Look, I don’t know why those two busybodies went and asked you to be my Sunshine Sister. But I never said I’d be part of that do-gooder program.”

  Brenda wasn’t just kind of smiling then—she was outright laughing. This made me so mad that I marched right up to her, standing on tiptoes so I was almost, almost looking her square in the face. “Listen, Miss Goody Two-shoes. I don’t care if Miss Simon, or Mrs. Carlton—or the good Mother Mary herself, for that matter—asked you to be my sister in that dumb program, I’m not going to have my whole summer ruined. Got it?”

  Brenda’s smile fizzled. Then she said slowly, “I think you’re about to learn that in this life, what we want to do is often the opposite of what we get to do.”

  You’d think that a kid you risked jail time for so he could see a movie at the Starlight Theater would have been grateful enough to at least walk home alongside of you so you had someone to bellyache to—but oh no, not Charlie. He just took off ahead of me, waddle-hopping down the street faster than I would have guessed he could go, like he couldn’t get back to that old, smelly house fast enough. “It’s not like you’re going to get a spanking or something,” I shouted. “Mrs. Fry won’t even hit Poochie with her stick when he’s trying to chew her leg off, so she sure ain’t gonna hit you!” Still Charlie didn’t slow down, and I wasn’t going to bother catching up to him if he wasn’t going to be a good listener anyway.

  Mrs. Fry was pacing in front her steps when Charlie reached the yard. I was still half a block away, but I could see how upset she was. She had her old-lady hankie out and she was holding it against her bony chest as if her heart was about to explode and she had to be ready to catch the mess.

  She grabbed Charlie and hugged him, then gave him a little I’m-mad shake. Mrs. Fry’s voice was as small as she was, so I couldn’t hear what she was saying as she guided him inside, but I could tell he was in for a good ear chewing.

  A couple of hours later, I was in the bathroom wearing Ma’s elbow-length gloves tucked up to my armpits and singing into my hairbrush microphone, admiring my black, curled-to-crusty eyelashes, when Teddy came home. I didn’t hear him come in because there weren’t any clothes in the bathroom and the echo was real good; I only knew he was there when I saw him in the mirror, his face fit-to-be-tied cranky. “Teaspoon, you come out here right now. Mrs. Fry just told me what you…”

  Teddy stopped. “What on earth do you have on your face?” He stepped into the bathroom and spun me around, staring hard at my Taxi Stand Lady makeup. “Who did that to you?” he asked, as if I was wearing a gob of spit instead of pretty cosmetics.

  I didn’t tell him, but Teddy was a good guesser. “Didn’t I tell you that I don’t want you talking to those two?” he asked, vibrating like the wringer washer right before it croaked.

  “Why?” I shouted.

  “Because I said so,” Teddy almost yelled. “Now scrub that junk off your face and come into the living room. I want to talk to you.”

  But it wasn’t just because he said so. He couldn’t fool me. He didn’t want me talking to the Taxi Stand Ladies because he was afraid if I did, I’d take up cussing all over again. I was sure of it, because right after those two came to town, before I even knew their names, Teddy and I walked down to The Pop Shop so he could get the Sunday paper to do his crossword puzzle. Ralph was parked up alongside of them, and Walking Doll was chewing him up one side and down the other about something, cussing like a sailor. They stopped arguing when they saw us, and Teddy stared right into Walking Doll’s face—probably trying to figure out if her Marilyn Monroe mole was real or fake—and then he gripped my hand tighter and yanked me across the street to the store fast, even though there was a car coming. Teddy sure did hate cussing, but I didn’t think it was very nice of him to not say hi back, or give a thank you after Walking Doll called to him to stop by anytime—which I thought was right neighborly of them.

  As soon as we got across the street, while Teddy had his hand on the smudged door of The Pop Shop, but before he opened it, he turned to me and said, “I don’t want you anywhere near those women. You cross in front of the Jacksons’ house and come down this side of the street. You hear?”

  “I heard. I ain’t deaf,” I said.

  Teddy made me wash until my eyes stung and my skin looked like it was rubbed raw with pickled beet juice, then he made me sit on the couch while he chewed me out for sneaking into the theater, dragging Charlie along, and making poor Mrs. Fry worry herself to the brink of death.

  While he blabbed on and on, the snappy melody of a song they played in Lady and the Tramp came back to me and I started singing it. It was one of those songs with no words, so I just sang la-la-la where there should have been some.

  I expected Teddy to tire himself out from his ranting like he usually did, but this time, right in the middle of his outburst, he stopped. Just like that. And when I looked up, he wasn’t even standing over me anymore, but sitting in his chair, even though his work clothes were cow-bloody. His arms were lying in his lap, limp as the empty sleeves of a wet work shirt.

  I stopped la-laing. “What’s the matter, T
eddy?” I asked.

  Teddy stared straight ahead and sighed.

  “Teddy? What is it?”

  “I don’t know what to do anymore, Teaspoon,” he said. His chin was tucked in so far that you couldn’t even tell he had one, and his voice was raspy, like he had tonsillitis.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my chest feeling like Charlie was sitting on me all over again.

  He clicked his tongue against his teeth, making that little sucking sound, then he sighed big. “Since your ma left, I’ve done my best, Teaspoon. But I fear my best isn’t good enough. What do I know about raising a child, much less one teetering on the edge of womanhood. You run like a stray, you fight like a barroom drunk, and you don’t do your schoolwork.”

  “But I don’t cuss anymore,” I reminded him. “That says something, doesn’t it, Teddy?”

  “…and now you’ve added breaking into theaters to your behaviors,” he said, not even giving me one ounce of much-deserved praise for keeping a clean tongue.

  “Oh, I didn’t just add that, Teddy. I’ve been sneaking into the Starlight for a couple of years now.” Boy, did I hate it when my mouth worked so quick I didn’t have time to catch the words before they came out.

  “And to top it off,” Teddy said. “Mrs. Fry ran into Miss Tuckle today, and she told Mrs. Fry that you haven’t been to Sunday school in weeks, even though every Sunday I give you a dime for the offering plate, and off you go.”

  I might have been scared as Charlie when Teddy brought up yet another one of my bad deeds, but I wasn’t about to let him see that.

  “Well, I guess you could say that I did get a little sidetracked on my way to church the last few Sundays, but I still got those dimes you gave me,” I lied. “And I’ll see that Jesus gets them when I go back tomorrow.” I thought for a second, and chewed my lip. “Hey, Teddy. Mrs. Fry didn’t blab about me and Charlie sneaking into the Starlight right in front of Miss Tuckle, did she?”

  Teddy’s eyes scrunched. “If we are doing things we wouldn’t want our Sunday school teacher to know about, then maybe we shouldn’t be doing them in the first place. Don’t you think?”