Isabelle and Little Orphan Frannie: The Isabelle Series, Book Three (3 page)

“I told you about him, Isabelle. His sister was my dear old friend, and she left me a ring when she died, and he brought it to me.”

“Do you like him?”

“One marshmallow or two?” Mrs. Stern dropped two marshmallows into Isabelle's cup without waiting for an answer. “Yes, of course I like him.”

“How much?” Isabelle narrowed her eyes, waiting for Mrs. Stern's answer.

“Isabelle!” Mrs. Stern laughed. “What a question. He's a fine man, someone I've known since I was a girl. I knew his first wife too. He's been very lonely since she died. We enjoy many of the same things. He and my husband were friends. We're both over seventy, you see,” Mrs. Stern said, as if that explained it all. “My heavens”—and she put her paint-spattered hands up to her pink cheeks—“but that sounds old.”

“It is, kinda.” Isabelle liked to call a spade a spade. “You're like Guy's grandmother. He says she's young at heart, and so are you.”

“Why, Isabelle, what a nice thing to say. I'm touched. How is Guy? Such a nice little fellow, so kind.”

“Oh, he's a regular hotshot now,” Isabelle said. “Him and Bernie are raising worms. Money back if you don't catch anything.”

Isabelle bit off a chunk of cuticle and chewed on it vigorously. “I helped Guy get out of being a goody-goody, you see,” she explained. “I helped him change his image. That's what you call it, image. Nobody teases him anymore.”

“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. Stern absentmindedly. “That
was
nice of you to help Guy. I see I'm out of cocoa. Perhaps you'd like a nice glass of milk.”

“No, thanks.” Isabelle scooped the two marshmallows out of the cup. “I'll just eat 'em plain if it's all right with you.”

“Oh, I have so much to do,” said Mrs. Stern happily. “I don't know where to begin. Yes, of course, dear.”

Isabelle saw that Mrs. Stern was too busy to talk. But before she split, Isabelle told Mrs. Stern about Sally Smith's postcard.

“Sally Smith wrote to everybody but me.” Isabelle did a slow soft shoe, arms dangling loosely at her sides, to show she didn't really care. “She promised she'd write me. Maybe she lost my address. Or she forgot the zip. If she forgot the zip, that's fatal. I'll never get it. Too bad. Sally was my friend.”

“Maybe I'll have a party,” said Mrs. Stern, counting her knives and forks. “We could have my chicken pie. It's been so long since I've had people in.”

Mrs. Stern was a little spaced out today, Isabelle could see. She said good-bye and, halfway down the path, she realized she'd forgotten to take a handful of Oreos. They'd get stale sitting on that plate. Maybe she should go back. No. If she did that, Mrs. Stern would think she was greedy.

Which she was.

But she didn't want Mrs. Stern to
think
she was.

Across the street, the Brady kids were playing fairy princess. Isabelle went over to spy on them through the hedge.

The littlest Brady, draped in some old lace curtains, was pushing Betty, the dog, in a beat-up old red wagon. Betty had aged, Isabelle thought, squinting through the hedge. Or maybe it was the pink woolen bonnet tied under Betty's hairy chin that made her look so old.

The second Brady kid, the bossy one, Isabelle knew from experience, waved her stick wand furiously and shouted orders.

“Be home by midnight!” she bellowed. “Else you'll turn into an old warty frog that's so ugly the prince will throw you out of the carriage and you'll get stomped on by a slimy, fire-breathing dragon who'll eat you up in one gulp!”

The littlest Brady let go of the wagon, raised her face to the sky, and howled like a banshee. Isabelle seized the moment and pounced from her hiding place to turn a series of really excellent cartwheels on the Bradys' lawn. She managed to do an even dozen before collapsing in a heap. The littlest Brady, recovered from her fit, calmly pushed the wagon over to where Isabelle lay and said, “This is my baby, Elvis.”

“I thought your dog's name was Betty,” Isabelle said. The dog's tail thumped rhythmically against the wagon's side, and she rolled her big brown eyes at Isabelle, as if to say, “Help!”

Isabelle jumped to her feet. “You let her out of there,” she said. “That's mean. Look at her. She's crying.”

“Betty ran away,” the bossy Brady said. “Besides, dogs don't cry.”

“That's what you think.” Isabelle poked a finger at the kid. “Let her out of there this minute. If you don't, I'm reporting you to the ASPCA. No wonder Betty ran away. Who wouldn't. How'd you like to be tied up with a stupid bonnet on?”

The dog's tail thumped harder, and it seemed to smile at Isabelle.

“There, there, Elvis,” the bossy Brady said, and pushed the dog back down, where it lay, rolling its eyes, rapidly losing hope.

“How come you call it Elvis?” Isabelle couldn't help asking.

The bossy one shouted joyfully, “Because he ain't nuthing but a hound dog, that's why!”

“You're some smart alec, know that?” Isabelle said in her sourest voice.

The two Bradys, as if on signal, stuck out their tongues at Isabelle, who stuck hers out in return.

Then the bossy one sang “You Ain't Nuthin' But a Hound Dog” and waggled her hips, à la Elvis Presley, and Isabelle, realizing she'd been had, turned and ran the fifty-yard dash for home.

SIX

“Your friend Frannie was here,” Isabelle's mother said. “I asked her to come in and wait for you, but she said she had to go home. She'll come back, she said. Where does she live?”

“She's not my friend,” Isabelle said. “I don't even know her. I don't know where she lives, either. Except with her aunt, who's not really her aunt, she told me. She only wants her to call her her aunt.”

“How old is she?” her mother wanted to know. “She looks about seven or eight, but she seems older than that, doesn't she?”

“She looks pretty young to me,” said Isabelle. “A lot younger 'n me. She's small for her age, probably. And plenty fresh, too.”

“Isabelle, don't be so insensitive. How would you like to be all alone in the world?” her mother said.

“Frannie's not all alone. She's got a mother,” Isabelle said. “She's only a half orphan. Her mother's out looking for a new daddy on account of her old daddy died.”

“I know, you told me,” Isabelle's mother said.

“Yeah, well, I didn't tell you the rest. Frannie's mother got all doozied up and put a really fresh bumper sticker on her new car. That bumper sticker is so fresh, Mom, I wouldn't dare tell you what it says.” And Isabelle let her eyes go all big and solemn so her mother would imagine all kinds of fresh stuff. Nothing she liked better than to fuel her mother's already vivid imagination by telling her just so much, and no more.

“What did the bumper sticker say?” Isabelle's mother asked, as Isabelle had known she would.

“I can't tell you, Mom,” Isabelle said. “You'd freak.”

“All right, then.” Her mother was miffed; Isabelle could see. “It takes quite a lot to make me freak, miss. But put yourself in Frannie's shoes. Try to imagine how you'd feel if anything happened to me or Daddy. Or Philip.”

Isabelle leaped up and hopped around the room like a kangaroo on a pogo stick. “That's what I'd do if anything happened to Philip!” she shouted.

“Watch it!” Isabelle's mother rescued a teetering lamp in the nick of time.

“That's enough, Isabelle,” she said crossly. “Remember, he's your brother and someday you and he will be good friends.”

“Aaarrrgh,” Isabelle cried, grabbing herself by the throat and staggering in circles with her tongue hanging out, looking like a dog who's been chasing a rabbit.

“Isabelle, you are too much, you really are,” her mother said, laughing in spite of herself.

“But when I get really sad is when I think about if you and Dad got knocked off by a flying saucer or something and Philip was in charge. Boy, that's when I cry buckets,” Isabelle said. “On account of Philip would beat up on me even before breakfast. He'd beat up on me so much I'd be all black and blue and you could hardly see my real skin I'd be so black and blue and he'd tie me to a stake in the backyard and make me eat sour milk and turnips until I croaked.”

Isabelle was so moved by the picture she'd drawn that she took a piece of paper towel and blew her nose noisily.

“Turnips,” Herbie said in a hollow voice.

“Come on in, Herb,” Isabelle said, opening the door. “You don't have to stand out there eavesdropping.”

“I hate turnips,” Herbie announced, coming in. “If I ate them every day, I'd just as soon vomit. That's why I hate Thanksgiving, on account of turnips. My mother says it's not Thanksgiving without turnips. She says the Pilgrims really loved turnips. How does she know? All I can say is, the Pilgrims must've been off their rockers if they loved turnips.”

“You want to fight awhile?” Isabelle asked, trying to cheer Herbie up.

“Yeah, okay, that'd be good,” Herbie said. “I was feeling fine until you mentioned turnips. They depress me. Maybe we better fight in your yard today, Iz. My mother's expecting company, and she doesn't want our yard messed up.”

“How about my yard?” Isabelle's mother said, but no one paid any attention.

Herbie and Isabelle had just started to mix it up when an old-fashioned, oversized pram came up the street. Pushing it was Frannie, who stopped to watch as Herbie jumped up and down on Isabelle's stomach as if she were a trampoline.

“Ugh! Oooff! Help, he's killing me!” Isabelle bellowed.

Frannie just stood there as Herbie continued his assault.

“Hey, Frannie, get this turnip offa me, will ya?” Isabelle cried.

“No siree!” Herbie said quietly. Herbie was always quiet when he was winning. “You're not pulling that phony stuff on me again, Iz. I'm wise to your tricks.” Once bitten, twice shy, as Herbie's grandmother said. He went back to his trampoline bounce.

Then he heard a little tinny voice say, “But how?” and for one fatal second his attention was diverted. He turned to look and Isabelle, using her splendid big feet, tossed Herbie skyward, and by the time he hit the turf, she was upright again.

“You can't trust boys,” she told Frannie, brushing herself off. “They cheat.”

Then she noticed that the pram Frannie was pushing was full of what looked like an oversized load of arms and legs. Grimy, scabby arms and legs which, on closer inspection, turned out to be two little boys.

“Who are these bozos?” Isabelle asked.

“They're my guys,” Frannie said proudly. “Three's four, and Zeus, he's almost two. Say hi, guys.”

“Why do you call him Three?” Isabelle wanted to know.

Frannie lifted her shoulders and said, “And baby makes three,” as if that explained it. There was, apparently, no question Frannie didn't have an answer to.

“Aren't they kind of old for those things?” Isabelle asked, pointing to the pacifiers that stuck out of each boy's mouth. Three's was a sickly pink color and Zeus's a nasty shade of yellow.

“I thought only babies sucked on those things,” Isabellé said.

“What's it to you, old dodo?” Three spoke around the pacifier, which bobbed up and down as he talked.

“That Three,” Frannie said with a proud smile. “He can be real fresh at times. Aunt Ruth says if they suck on pacifiers, they won't suck their thumbs. Plus it keeps 'em quiet. Right, guys?”

Three made a horrible face, and his pacifier zoomed from one side of his mouth to the other.

“See that? That's a trick he learned. Smart, huh? Do it again,” Frannie commanded. But Three had performed once and that was that. Zeus waggled his fingers at Isabelle and said not a word.

“If you want,” Frannie said with the air of bestowing a great favor, “you can push 'em around the block. Five cents for once around.” She shoved the pram at Isabelle.

“What would I want to do that for?” Isabelle asked, astonished at the idea. “That's crazy.”

“Lots of people want to push my guys around,” Frannie said smugly. “They like to pretend those cute little buggers are their children and they're the mothers. I have special rates for steady customers. Half an hour for a dime. Plus”—Frannie fluttered her eyelashes—“we have weekly rates too, if you're interested.”

“I coulda pushed a dog named Elvis around today if I wanted,” Isabelle said, sucking on a piece of her hair. “He had on this baby's bonnet, and he was cute as a bug. Cuter'n those bozos,” and she smiled sweetly at Three, who stared back at her, his eyes as hard and expressionless as two black olives in his wide face.

“A dog named Elvis!” Frannie said. “What a dumb name for a dog. Why'd they call him that?”

Isabelle leaped in the air and clicked her heels in imitation of Mary Eliza Shook showing off her ballet skills.

“Because he ain't nuthing but a hound dog, that's why!” Isabelle cried, trying not to laugh out loud.

SEVEN

Halfway down, in her search for the great white shark, the idea hit. It was so perfect, so right, so excellent that Isabelle opened her mouth and hollered, “Yo!” and swallowed half the bath water.

Choking, gasping, she came up, smiling at her own cleverness.

She would take little orphan Frannie over to meet Mrs. Stern. She would put her arm protectively around Frannie's thin shoulders and lead her up the walk and through Mrs. Stern's tomato-red door.

“And who is this?” Mrs. Stern would ask, silver eyes sparkling a welcome.

“This is my friend little orphan Frannie,” Isabelle planned to reply. “I'm being kind to her.”

No. That wouldn't do. If she said, “I'm being kind to her,” that would be rude and crude. Better to show, not tell. In her every gesture Isabelle would show Mrs. Stern how kind she was being to little waif Frannie. Mrs. Stern would be impressed by Isabelle's kindness. She would then know that Isabelle was a far kinder person than other people. Especially Guy Gibbs.