Ralph

I remembered something. “What about those little books they handed out at the movie—what’d we do with those?”

“What books?” Lou said.

“About the children of Fatima. Little booklets they gave everyone. I didn’t even look at mine, did you?”

“They gave out booklets?”

Extremely inattentive, that’s what Sister Marie Monica wrote last year on Lou’s report card. “Get up for a second,” I told her.

I checked under the mattress—that’s where everything ends up—and sure enough, there it was, one of them anyway. We sat together. I let her hold it and turn the pages. There were pictures: a church they put up where Mary appeared...a picture of a crowd all waving hankies...then a picture of the three children of Fatima, the real ones, standing there in a row.

“They look grumpy,” Lou said.

They did.

Their names were underneath. Jacinta, the little girl, was about Lou’s age, in a veil, with her eyebrows down low and a hand on her hip. She looked like someone who didn’t put up with a lot. Her older brother, Francisco, was wearing a long stocking cap like in the movie, standing there real stiff. He looked like he had to use the bathroom.

We didn’t care about the other one, the cousin.

“Hang on,” Lou said, handing me the booklet. She got up and went over to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer. She took out her First Communion veil, all wrinkled up, and put it on in front of the dresser mirror. She smoothed it down a little. Then she stuck her hand on her hip and turned to me with a frown, eyebrows down low.

I nodded. That was good. That was real good. So I told her to hang on and went in the closet and came back with this long red stocking cap Gram gave me for Christmas last year. I never wore it because of the way it looks, like for an elf or something, but now I put it on and stood next to Lou in front of the mirror.

“Wait,” she said, and turned the Jesus rock around so He was facing the mirror too.

We looked at ourselves, all three of us. Nobody smiled.