chapter eight.

“Read me the one about the little kid who sells matches in the snow in her bare feet,” Teddy pestered me. “Read that one. It’s so sad,” he said gleefully.

I wasn’t going to. I’ve read it to him about a thousand times. He can read perfectly well if he wants to. He’s lazy. Then God laid a hand on my head and made me sweet and gentle and sisterly. So I did.

Boy. Talk about violence and cruelty and all those things they feed kids today on the tube and elsewhere. All I can say is, whoever wrote this book of fairy tales was ahead of his time. He really knew how to sock it to the little ones. He would’ve had some residuals is all I know.

By the time I finished, Teddy’s eyes were at half-mast. The minute I turned my back, I knew he’d be sucking his thumb.

I switched off the light and left his door open a crack. Teddy’s thumb made slurpy noises against the roof of his mouth. He pretends he doesn’t suck his thumb, but he does.

In a flash I flicked on the light.

“Caught you!” I said.

Teddy was down for the count. He didn’t even have the strength to whine. I went into the living room and turned on the TV to help me stay awake until my mother and father got home.

“How was it?” I asked when they finally arrived.

My mother took off her shoes with a huge sigh of relief. She wears very high heels when she gets dressed up. They kill her feet but they flatter her legs, she says.

“Vanity, thy name is woman,” my father says.

“Marvelous,” she said, rubbing her toes. “Absolutely marvelous. I could’ve fed my entire family for a month on what that dinner cost, but it was worth it.”

“Especially when Old Man Hicks-Peterson was footing the bill,” said my father.

“Is it all set?” I asked. “When is Polly coming?”

“I had the vol-au-vent of sweetbreads, and, for dessert,” my mother went on, “coupe Alexandra.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “I’ll tell Al there’s a dessert named for her. When’s Polly coming?”

“I wish I could afford wine like that,” my father said.

I could see I wasn’t getting through. They were like Cinderella coming home from the ball. I kissed them both good night and went to bed. I had a very realistic dream, which I sometimes do. In my dream Martha Moseley was wearing a strapless dress and dancing with Mr. Richards. She was taller than he was. It was fantastic. They were dancing an old-fashioned waltz or something that looked like a waltz. All of a sudden Mr. Richards let go of Martha and began to skate, as if he were polishing the kitchen floor. He’d tied rags around his shoes and he put his arms behind himself as if he were Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. He went around and around, and Martha stood there with her mouth hanging open, just the way Teddy does.

“Take off that dress at once!” a girl shouted. It was Martha’s cousin, who appeared from nowhere and began to tug at the dress.

“If you don’t take off that dress, which is strapless,” Al said, “you will definitely never get a letter from a boy. I am an expert on letters from boys and how they should be written. Make sure they understand you are a platonic friend. Always sign your letters ‘Your old pal, Al,’” she said firmly.

“But my name’s not Al,” Martha said. For the first and last time in my life I felt kind of sorry for her.

“That’s neither here nor there,” Al said. She was in command of the situation. Mr. Richards skated close to them. “Have a weird day,” Al said, and she and Mr. Richards skated out of sight. Martha stood there in her underwear and cried.

I woke up smiling. It was the best dream I’ve ever had. I wrote down what I could remember to tell Al. Sometimes, if you don’t write down dreams immediately, they fade. I didn’t want this one to fade. It was so real.

My mother had come down to earth by the time she hit the breakfast table. “Polly will be here on Friday,” she said. “Her mother and father are taking off at midnight Friday. They’re very nice people. Not at all uppity.”

“Why’d you think they’d be uppity?” I said. “Polly’s not uppity and she’s their kid.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” My mother can be very vague when it suits her. “They’ve traveled so much. Being in the diplomatic service must be fascinating. One expects they might be hoity-toity. But they’re lovely. Very down-to-earth.”

Whatever that means. You never know. One never knows.

I was a little surprised to see Al waiting for me. After yesterday I wasn’t sure she would be. Also, she was wearing her yellow dress. Yellow is a happy color.

“You look nice,” I told her as we set out.

“I had a dream about Mr. Richards last night,” she said.

“I can’t believe you did,” I said. “So did I.”

“You tell me your dream, I’ll tell you mine,” Al said. I told her about Martha Moseley dancing with Mr. Richards in her cousin’s strapless dress.

“Then you stuck in your two cents,” I said, “and told Martha when she wrote a letter to a boy, she should sign it ‘Your old pal, Al,’ and she said her name wasn’t Al, and you said, ‘That’s neither here nor there.’”

We started to laugh, and we laughed so hard we almost cried. It was like the old days with Mr. Richards. He told us a good laugh is good for the soul. I believe it. People turned to stare.

When we’d calmed down and stopped for a red light to change, Al said, “Now it’s my turn. Mr. Richards asked me if I wanted a shooter of Coke and a carrot stick. I said yes, that would be nice. Then he said to me, out of a clear sky, ‘Them little fellas, them three little fellas, they dropped into your lap like a bunch of ripe pears.’ That’s what he said. ‘Them little boys are like a gift from Heaven, as I see it. Not too many folks I know are as lucky as you are. Do you know that?’”

Al’s eyes were wide and glittering. “It was like he was in the room with me.” She turned to me. “How do you suppose he knew? About the boys, I mean.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess he just did.”

“When I woke up,” Al said, “I felt about a hundred per cent better than I did when I went to sleep.”

I nodded. “I know,” I said. “Me too. Isn’t it strange we both dreamed about him the same night?”

“Absolutely bizarre,” Al agreed. We crossed the street. “The funny thing is,” she continued, “that for a long time I couldn’t remember how his voice sounded. Right after he died I got it just right in my head. But in a while I couldn’t hear his voice. I tried. I listened very hard. Nothing worked. But now I can hear him. Clear as a bell. It’s the strangest thing.”

I knew what she meant. It was the same with me.

“When’s Polly coming over?” Al asked casually.

“Friday, after school,” I answered just as casually. “How about coming over for supper so we can make plans?”

Al looked crestfallen.

“Nancy Bishop asked me to sleep over Friday,” she said.

“Did you say you would?”

“Yeah,” Al said glumly. “You know what she wants to be when she grows up?”

“A lion tamer?” I said, joking.

“A Rockette,” Al said.

“That’d be good,” I said. “She’d probably be a good one.”

“Yeah,” Al said. “She probably would.”