The Alley (20 page)

Nanny was little and round; her shoulders were bent over because of her arthritis—she was quite stooped. As Connie grew taller, Nanny seemed to grow shorter. Connie was already as tall as Nanny. Imagine being as tall as a grandmother! In good weather when Nanny walked Wagsie to the green grass near the athletic field, she took a cane with her—it was made by the mountain folk in the South, of pine. Wagsie would follow her or race ahead of her; then would come mother Mittens and lastly daughter Punk. The four looked like a picture out of a folk tale, meandering up the street and then slowly, taking their time, meandering home again. Wagsie liked to frisk and gambol despite her stoutness, and sometimes she would find a stick and implore Nanny to throw it. But Nanny would never throw sticks or do anything of that sort. She just walked the animals, talking with them all the way, amiably, or scolding them. "Drop that awful-looking thing!" she would say to Wags, who ate anything. The cats would lurk behind, play games, hide under cars, and then spring out at Nanny to surprise her. "I see you," Nanny would say to give them joy. How the animals loved Nanny! No wonder! She cut up kidneys for them, and liver, fixed dishes that looked tempting enough for Connie to eat—saved delicate little morsels for them, like bits of shrimp. She let Wagsie, shaking in fear, get on her bed in a thunderstorm and lay her head on her pillow.

"What a grandmother!" Connie thought with a sigh of happiness as she settled herself again in the little red rocker. Now Nanny began to cook ... something good—perhaps a soup. Nanny prepared delicious soups. "Don't throw that away," she'd say of some left-over. "It will go into the soup." And what soups!

"Nanny?" said Connie. She wanted to tell her grandmother about an extraordinary thing at school today. She had found a nickel—the nickel was in the palm of her hand now—and tell her, too, about a pencil she had seen and held, a very important pencil.

"Yes, darling?" said Nanny.

"Nanny? See this nickel?" said Connie. She held a nickel up for her grandmother to see.

"Yes, darling. What about it?" said Nanny.

"Well, I found this nickel, Nanny," said Connie.

"Found it!" exclaimed Nanny. "Where, darling?"

Connie could always count on Nanny to respond in exactly the right way. She was always interested in everything. She always said, "O-o-oh?" in an interested way. She was a great listener and a great storyteller, too—great. She inherited the ability to tell stories from her father, who was a great after-dinner speaker. So was Papa. It came straight down the line, the ability to tell stories, from Great-Grandfather, to Nanny, to Papa.

"Yes, darling?" Nanny repeated. "Where did you find the nickel?"

"Well," said Connie. "Did I ever tell you, Nanny, I may have long ago, about a nickel that was stuck in the middle of Morrison Avenue—imbedded in the hard tar—right in front of Morrison School? Everybody in school knew about that nickel, and nobody knew how long it had been there. Georgie Genung—he is a boy in my class—he said his mother, who had also gone to Morrison School, remembers that nickel from when she went to school; it may have been there, stuck in the street, for as long as Morrison School has been there, and that is ninety-four years—like Mrs. Harrington. Or—did they have nickels then? Perhaps they just had pennies?"

"Well, I'm not ninety-four, but I
think
they had nickels then," said Nanny. "Buffalo nickels, I think..."

"Buffalo nickels!" said Connie.

"Yes, buffaloes," said Nanny. "That's what they had, buffaloes."

Connie examined her nickel. "You're right, Nanny—this is a buffalo nickel! It's an antique buffalo nickel, and it has been stuck in the street there from buffalo days."

Nanny wiped her hands on her apron and examined the nickel, holding it close to her eyes. Nanny needed new glasses, but she just wouldn't go to the oculist—she kept putting it off. So now, she tilted her head back and peered down at the nickel through the bottom part of her eyeglasses. Her mouth was open and her upper jaw overhung her lower one. At last she said, "Yes, Connie. This
is
a buffalo nickel, the kind we had—I remember them now—when I was a little girl. Now, how did you get this nickel out of where it has been stuck for so many years?"

"Well, Nanny, I'll tell you if you don't run the water..."

"Not any more than I can help," said Nanny.

"Well, Nanny. Today in school there was a fire drill; at least, we thought it was a fire drill. But it wasn't a fire drill at all—it was a bomb scare. Somebody said, 'A bomb is going to go off.' So the whole school was emptied out, and all the classes had to stand along the street and wait for the bomb scare to be over. The street was roped off, and only the fire engines and a police car were allowed in. So our class, grade five, was standing on Morrison Avenue, and I happened to be standing right near where the nickel was, still in its old worn-down place where it has always been.

"Well, Nanny, we were supposed to stay in line. If we didn't, we would get detention. Anyway, I saw the nickel, still there all right. Now, Nanny, I suppose you wonder why no one has ever gotten the nickel out of the street before—some poor bum like they have over on the Bowery, who needed a nickel badly? But the reason is—well now, Nanny, really, you know that no one can chip a nickel out of the middle of the street in the daytime with all that much traffic. And buses! And in the nighttime no one would know about the nickel—no one would see it. So, there it lay."

"Yes, darling," said Nanny. "So how did you get it out, having to stand in line and all—not to get detention? And in a bomb scare?"

"Well," said Connie, "we were all lined up outside, and fire engines and a police car were there ... a police car from Presink 9999. And you know what presink
that
is, don't you, Nanny? Well, it is
our
presink and the presink of the policemen, the two first policemen whose pockets Mama said she saw through—saw her ring on its pencil clip..."

"Yes?" said Nanny, pausing while stirring the soup to show she was trying to take it all in.

"Well, what do you think, Nanny?" said Connie. "The two policemen parked in the police car marked 9999, our presink, were
our two policemen,
Nanny. I recconized them! Why shouldn't I? They were in our house for such a long time. Well, I hoped they would not recconize me, because they knew that Mama thought they might have taken her ring. I was afraid they might arrest me for having a mama like that ... and the trial in the Alley proved they
had
taken it ... so I did not stare."

"No, darling, you did not stare," said Nanny.

"Well. They were parked right by the nickel. And they saw it. 'Look, Ippy, there's a nickel there,' said Sergeant Rattray, and he got out of the car and he tried to pick the nickel up. Imagine! He thought he could just pick up that nickel! But of course he couldn't! Been stuck in the street too long, see, Nanny?"

"Too long," Nanny echoed.

"So ... I pretended to be talking to Judy, my best friend at school, hoping Ratty and Ippy—"

"Ratty and Ippy?" said Nanny in astonishment. "Who are they?"

"I thought you were listening, Nanny. They are the policemen with the pockets! Sergeant Rattray is Ratty and Officer Ippolito is Ippy. Ratty and Ippy. Anyway, I hoped they would not recconize me, but I kept keeping my eye on them, and see—doesn't this prove, Nanny, once a thief, always a thief? They had stolen—perhaps—Mama's diamond ring; and now they were trying to steal a nickel that really belonged to the street? Anyway, they gave up, and Sergeant Rattray, Ratty, got back in the car. After all," said Connie sarcastically, "they did not have a screwdriver named 'Stanley' with them the way real, right burglars do. They are like vultures, these two, birds of prey, and pick the bones that the real, right burglars leave behind. Understand, Nanny?"

"Yes, darling ... bones."

"So, after a while," said Connie, "me and Judy got tired of standing in line while the firemen ran in and out of school and up on the roof. So I said to Judy, 'Hey, Judy,' I said. 'Let's try to bounce our tennis balls on the nickel.' We happened to have our balls with us because we were in gym when the alarm rang ... we had never had a chance to bounce a ball on the nickel before because of all the traffic. 'Walk on the green, not in between.' And at other times, cars would come racing around the corner. But now, the street was closed off in both directions, so I suggested, I made the suggestion—'Let's bounce the balls on the nickel.'

"Judy said, 'O.K.' So we bounced. Now—are you listening, Nanny? I was bouncing my tennis ball at the nickel, trying to hit it, and sometimes I did hit it, and sometimes I didn't. You know, Nanny, I don't get A in P. E. (that's phiz-ed)—just B—not good, not bad—and this is like a dream really. I hit the nickel lots of times. (Judy didn't, and she's better than I am in P. E.—gets A!) Well, I don't know what happened, but out popped the nickel! And—here it is!

"All these years nobody could get the nickel out, not even these two policemen of Presink 9999, and suddenly, like a tiddlywink, it popped out for me! All the kids hurrayed. They said the nickel was mine. I got it out. And they said—the kids said—that it was lucky a kid from Morrison School had gotten it out, because it might have been any old person, not connected with Morrison School, who would get it out, like those two policemen, Ratty and Ippy. And after all, Nanny, it was in front of
our
school; and it was best that a person, you know, a student, a child there—well,
me
—should get it out. Don't you think so, Nanny?"

"Yes, darling.
You,
" said Nanny.

"So, I was the one who got it out. Somehow my ball got it out. Now, Nanny. You know those policemen—they might have said it was
theirs.
'We saw it first,' they might have said. They wouldn't know that everybody in Morrison School had seen it before. They might have said, 'That's our nickel.' This time they did not come in for the kill—me doing the work, they getting the reward."

"Ts," said Nanny. "What will my friends, Lottie and Miss Annie Hempstead, think about this latest happening in Brooklyn? Ts," she said.

"Oh, they'll be very interested," said Connie. "Anyway,
now,
Nanny, this is
my
nickel. Everybody said, even Judy Fabadessa said, it was mine. In the beginning it belonged to the street. But it was
my
tennis ball that popped it out. So everybody said I should have it. And you can't divide a nickel into four hundred parts (that's how many children there are in Morrison School), for all to share it. So now it belongs to me.

"I took a good look at the policemen, Nanny, and they were looking straight ahead—they were not looking at me. So I put the nickel in my pocket. Then, along came Mr. Leep, my teacher. He is the nicest teacher I ever had. You know that that is saying a lot, don't you, Nanny? Because I only ever had one teacher I really didn't like, and that was Miss Crane in grade three? She screamed...

"Anyway ... the nickel. I thought I should ask Mr. Leep if it was really all right for me to have the nickel as my own found nickel ... he knew the nickel, you see, he had seen it often ... and I asked him if I should keep it. I told him, and Judy, she kept interrupting and saying, 'And that is right, Mr. Leep, and that is right!' I told him how the nickel had popped up out of the street—my tennis ball had made it pop—even though it had been bedded there for centuries. A buffalo—I wish I had told him that. Anyway, he smiled. He has the nicest smile, Nanny ... even though I only got B, not A, in arithmetic; he likes arithmetic the best of everything ... he still smiled at me. He said, 'Connie. I think that this nickel is yours and that having it pop out at you is a sign that you will get 100 per cent on your test this afternoon—if we ever get back into school.' And he walked away then to keep order in the lines."

"Yes, child?" said Nanny. "Order in the lines?"

Connie could see that Nanny was enthralled. And she went on. "So," she said, "I brought the buffalo nickel home. Here it is. I am going to put it with all my other found money. It's a wonder the burglars didn't find
that,
too—the found money. Well, it's in my wooden Dutch shoe, hanging on my wall, that's why. Of course, burglars would not think to look in a wooden Dutch shoe, hanging on a wall. They look mainly in old socks and under mattresses. That's the way some old people hide their money. Not you, Nanny, I don't mean you. You put your money in the bank, don't you?"

"When I have any," said Nanny.

"Well, you do have a lot of money sometimes, Nanny. You are always giving me a dollar. Every chance you get, you give me a dollar, even on Valentine's Day. So you must have quite a lot of dollars. And Uncle Laudy gives you some money sometimes, doesn't he, Nanny?"

"Yes, darling," said Nanny. "He certainly does. Search the world over, you will never find as high-principled a man as Laudy."

"Well, I was glad that Mr. Leep did not get mad at me for popping a nickel out of the pavement where it had been for centuries. He likes things to stay where they always were. Once I broke off a great big icicle that was hanging outside our classroom window. He pretended to get mad at me. 'Oh, my nice icicle!' he said. 'Gone!' he said. 'Shattered!'"

"He did?" said Nanny.

"Yes," said Connie. "It was a very cold and bright clear day. The temperature had been way down, way way down below zero for days. Well, this made a huge icicle grow on the ledge outside the window of our classroom. Well, I didn't know that Mr. Leep was fond of this icicle and that all the kids called it, 'Mr. Leep's icicle.' I just hadn't happened to have heard the story. So, I opened the window and I knocked it off. I just couldn't resist it; I just happen to like to knock icicles off places, hear them crash—and did it crash! Crash it went!"

"Yes?" said Nanny.

Connie saw that Nanny, although still interested, was beginning to cast glances at the clock. "Oh, of course," thought Connie. "Soon time for Lyle Van and the four o'clock news." No one else in this house ever knew what was going on in the world and had to ask Nanny what was. The rest of the people didn't even know that the Russians had seen the other side of the moon until Nanny told them. They never knew the weather—or even what time it was.