The Alley (19 page)

"Walking Princey probably," Billy deduced. "All the more chance that casing is going on, if not the actual breaking in," said Billy.

"Oo-ooh!" said Connie. They were now in the shade of Bully Vardeer's house, which was on their right. On their left were the gardens of the houses that faced Larrabee. In Billy's yard, back a few houses, his dog, Atlas, set up a great howling and yowling, all kinds of remarks expressing distress and anguish because Billy was out and he had to stay in the yard. He couldn't bear it and spoke of his despair and jealousy in many octaves. But—"No dogs out in the Alley!" That was the rule. And it was fair, for even the nicest dogs sometimes do bite. They are especially apt to bite babies who, not knowing the danger and not walking well yet, lurch at them with outstretched hands and gurgle, "Ah-goo, ah-goo."

Connie and Billy tried to ignore Atlas, and proceeded to the end of the Alley. "
Be nonlachont,
" Connie instructed Billy. Billy already was nonchalant. They looked out the iron gate and saw no one. So they sat down on the curbing beside Mr. Bernadette's garden, the end one on Larrabee, and the site of an ancient, years-ago burglary. Opposite it was Bully Vardeer's tiny little front patch of crab-grass lawn facing on Waldo Place. They sat and they waited; but nothing happened, no one appeared. There was no whistling. "Remember," said Connie to Billy encouragingly, "it was many days after the bullet-head man asked Mama and me, 'Does this dog bite?' that he burglared our house."

Billy nodded. Suddenly he pinched Connie's arm. "Sh-sh-sh," he said. "I think I hear something."

Terrified, Connie whispered, "What?"

Billy whispered something back, but Connie did not catch what he said. They sat close together on the curb and waited. Soon they heard footsteps, then the jingle of a dog's license. Ah! Just Bully Vardeer and his dog, Princey. The artist spotted Connie and Billy. "Hello," he said gaily. "Trial over? No game today?" He pushed his hat back to a still better Bully Vardeer angle—it was a habit he had whenever he saw anyone to make sure his hat was set at the right jaunty angle. Not waiting for an answer, he said, "Come on, Princey—dinner!" And he went up his steps and into his house. Billy and Connie listened. They heard only one of Bully's doors close—the inside one. People, people! There are some people who never can get things through their heads. Connie and Billy had warned Bully only yesterday to be sure and close his outside green door—yet in he had gone and left the green door open! "Maybe as a trap, though," said Connie to Billy. "You know—'invitation to the burglars'—and then bop them over the head. I wonder if he has a Tiffany vase? He's probably in there now waiting for them to come."

The two children sat in silence for a while on the lookout for the bullet-head man or to hear the sound of whistling—something, anything, to make casing worthwhile. "Knock wood that nothing does happen," thought Connie, and she knocked Billy's head, a custom in the Alley, to knock on a head and bring good luck.

Then Billy said, "Well, this casing is getting boring, us sitting here, not being able to see very far out to case, anyway. I could climb Mr. Bernadette's tree for a better view. But you know him. He'd think I was a Gregory Avenue kid and bellow at me."

"What is wrong with the Gregory Avenue kids?" said Connie.

"Nothing. Except that they are Gregory Avenue kids, not Alley kids, that's all. Not that he is exactly crazy about Alley kids either."

Connie and Billy discussed which grownups in the Alley liked children and which ones didn't. Then they remembered what they were supposed to be doing, and they realized they were getting tired of doing it. "Connie," said Billy. "How about my getting my express wagon and we go outside? I can pull you sometimes, then you pull me—we can go around the block, go along Gregory Avenue, keep our eyes peeled. We might hear them set the date of the next robbery."

But Connie said, "No. No, Billy, no," she said. "Mama wouldn't let me do that."

Sometimes Billy made the world outside the Alley sound wonderful. Sometimes he would crawl under the gate and go on an expedition on foot. Sometimes he'd just go out the front door with his express wagon. His dog, Atlas, also had the same fondness for the world outside. Sometimes Atlas squeezed under the Alley gate and made a successful getaway. Once when the Maloons were coming home across the Brooklyn Bridge, they saw a black and brown Irish terrier dodging in and out between the cars and trucks, loping along briskly, returning assuredly from a trip somewhere in Manhattan, his tongue hanging out thirstily but happily. "Is that Atlas?" they said. "Yes, it's Atlas!" They couldn't stop in all the traffic to open the car door and let him in—he probably would have refused the invitation, anyway, enjoying his jaunt and resenting the interruption.

"You know," said Connie. "I really admire a dog like Atlas. Think of Wagsie, dear, scared old Wagsie. I would never want her out with the cars and trucks on Brooklyn Bridge alone. She'd be too frightened to enjoy the view." And she, Connie, would be too frightened to go outside the Alley to case. All right to case from in here, safe—but outside? No. "No, Billy," she said again. "I'm not going outside the Alley."

"O.K.," said Billy. He sounded relieved. Who would want to go out with five real burglars and two possible policemen burglars at loose somewhere outside the gates, they didn't know where?

After a little more casing from the curbing under the catalpa tree, waiting for something to happen, Connie and Billy grew really tired of this game. Billy said, "Oh, let's go and play now. I'll get my new Dinky Toy—it's a police car."

"Hm-m-m," said Connie. "Fits in with things, doesn't it?"

"Fits," agreed Billy.

They stood up. They pressed their heads against the pretty iron gate for one last look around at whatever there might be to be seen. They saw nothing. Well, when Connie and Billy had decided to case the casers, they really had not expected to see anything ... they just had thought that they should case, just plain case, in case.... Someone should case, they thought, after the second appearance of the bullet-head man and the same old question. But why they? they asked themselves now. Why not Bully Vardeer himself—owner of the dog now being studied, inhabitant of the—probably—next house to be robbed?

Having heard nothing, seen nothing of importance, Connie and Billy crawled on their stomachs, sticking close to the curbing, to Connie's back gate. This was a rehearsal of what they had decided to do in case they ever did see the bullet-head man while they were casing. They would crawl away and give the alarm, probably to Bully Vardeer in his Japanese garden, and then crawl on home.

"Crawl flat," Billy instructed Connie. "Stay five feet behind me the way cars do in the Holland Tunnel—they have to stay a certain number of feet behind the car ahead. Keep your distance. Then, if one of us gets killed, the other might not."

"Oo-oo-ooh," said Connie.

Thus they crawled inch by inch down the Alley. "If only," prayed Connie, "Ray and June Arp don't come out and say, 'Whatcha doin'?'" But there was still no sign of the Arps in the Alley or of any of the other children their age.

Keeping five feet apart, and with no one in the Alley to observe them, they reached Bully Vardeer's garden gate. There he sat, on his top step again, his eyes closed, lids and all, not to miss one wan ray of pale sunbeam; even his arms were outstretched behind his head to burn his furry armpits. Billy and Connie crawled past him to her garden, went in, and closed the gate.

"Isn't that something," said Billy in disgust. "Just sits and suns, with burglars asking about his dog! He should sit behind the curtains and be on the lookout. He's been warned! We warned him."

"I know," said Connie. "But he may be right. Why watch now? The burglars waited a long time between the day they asked Mama and me, 'Does this dog bite?' and the day they broke in. They probably wouldn't come to Bully Vardeer's house the very next day—that is, to break in. Maybe they are just casing it for a while, keeping in touch—when Bully goes in, when he comes out, getting everything down pat about his house."

"Yeah," agreed Billy. "Maybe they even saw Bully come in just then with Princey, knew he was home. They couldn't tell that he had stripped off his shirt, come right out the back door, gone into sunbathing, and wouldn't be able to hear them; they couldn't tell that, with Bully sunning, it's as good a time for a break-in as with Bully away."

"No," said Connie. "They can't see through solid. Anyway, Princey would have heard them and barked. They would know that that type of dog barks."

"True," said Billy.

"Anyway, they may be waiting for another Alumni Day," said Connie.

"There's only one a year," said Billy.

"Well, some other day of importance," said Connie. "When everybody is somewhere else."

"True," said Billy.

Billy and Connie got on the swings and swung and thought in silence for a while—until around four o'clock when the other children their age trooped out of the Arps' house, singing "It's Howdy-Doody Time." Katy stopped long enough to take a look at them. "The swingers," she said.

"Yeah," said Billy. "Well, Eu
rip
edes, Eum
end
adees."

"Plee-a-dees," said Connie. And they swung high.

They were both very nonchalant.

About a week passed with, thank goodness, no unusual happenings. Connie had to just plain live as well as case and so did Billy, though he preferred casing to schoolwork. But he had to visit his grandmother often and do his homework—put out the trash—everything! Having done their main job—warned Bully Vardeer—and also having told their parents all they knew, they went on with just life. One thing Connie had to do in just plain life was to take piano lessons.

Today, about a week since the trial in the Circle, the main happening was that Nanny had come home ... happy-looking. She had played lots of bridge, visited lots of dearly loved friends; then she had begun to miss Connie, and so, here she was again, home in Brooklyn. Not that Brooklyn was really "home" to Nanny, the South was really "home" still to her; but, "I have to go back to my children now," she'd tell the people in the South, meaning Papa, Mama, and Connie. To Connie she often said, "Brooklyn? Child!" she said. "They laugh about Brooklyn in the South. 'Jupe!' (my nickname) they say to me—'You don't mean to say you live in Brooklyn?' You know, child—Brooklyn is supposed to be a place you laugh at, not live in, in the South..."

"They don't know how beautiful it is or they wouldn't say that. They don't know about the Alley—probably never even heard of it—if you can imagine such a thing!" said Connie.

Connie had been practicing the piano, "Indian Drum Song" and "Dancing Marionettes." When she finished, she went into the kitchen and sat down in the little red rocker. It was good to have Nanny back. Connie loved to sit, and talk to her, and hear about her trip on the Augusta Special. Nanny was polishing and counting her silver, the forks, the spoons ... everything. "I have to make sure that those thieves didn't get something."

Connie thought, "If Nanny had never gone away, the burglary might not have occurred. Or, if it had been bound to occur, anyway, it was too bad that she had missed it; for Nanny loved excitement." Nanny had the news on every hour on the hour and sometimes in between to get the latest. She also listened to
all
the baseball games—she was for the Dodgers. When Nanny was listening to a big league game, you had to tiptoe in this house. She would get really cross, say that she would go back down South if you made noise while the game was going on.

Connie had written Nanny the entire story of the burglary, of course, and when Nanny came back, she had retold it to her in every detail, even told her about the trial in the Alley, the clues, Bully Vardeer, and casing.

"Ts! Child!" Nanny had said over and over in a very satisfying way. Connie's usual feeling of peace and contentment stole over her now as she sat rocking. Today at school an extraordinary thing had happened, and with Mama away for the day, she was going to tell it to Nanny, first. She loved talking to Nanny. "Nanny?" Connie would say. And Nanny would say, "Yes, darling?" in such a loving voice. If Connie had a wish for all children everywhere, it would be that every child had a grandmother like Nanny.