The Alley (21 page)

One thing about Connie, she did not like to hurry. But she realized that she would have to wind up the story of the nickel and the icicle, for there were just two minutes to go before Lyle Van. She would not be able to go into the pencil part of the story, which was very important, too, until after the news. On she went, rapidly.

"...so, Mr. Leep, well, he was pretending, Nanny, to be angry about his icicle—he was not
really
angry. 'Oh,' he groaned when he came back into the room. 'My icicle! My great big icicle! I've been watching it every day to see how big it would grow,' he said, 'and to see rainbows in it. And now it is gone! Who did it?' he asked sternly. You know, Nanny, he was not really angry—he was just pretending.

"I had to say, 'Me—I did it.' I almost cried because I thought he might, just might, be really mad. But he wasn't, Nanny. Not at all."

"Not at all," said Nanny.

"Yes. No. Anyway, Nanny, his saying that I could keep the nickel and not saying one word about it being his nice nickel that he could look at whenever he came in or out of school, or that it belonged to the street, where he could watch it, made it all right that my tennis ball had popped it out. That is why, Nanny, I have this nickel now. He was not mad about the nickel, and he had not—he really had not—been mad about his icicle. Did you think he had been mad, Nanny? Oh no, he just wanted to see, probably, whether it would reach all the way down to the ground, three stories down, like a stalectite, or stagelite—which is it, Nanny?—that comes down from above?"

"Land, child. It's years since I went to school. Or been in caves."

"Oh. So, I said to Mr. Leep, 'Mr. Leep, should I keep it—the nickel—or should I put it back ... glue it in?'"

"Glue it in?" said Nanny.

"The street. Yes. But, 'Keep it, Connie,' he said. 'You might get one hundred on the test ...' and he went on up the line to look at Vinnie Free, who had started sneezing again. She sneezes every second. It is so distracting. Vinnie is going to the hospital to find out why she sneezes. Anyway, now, in line, she had begun to sneeze. So Mr. Leep had to go and see if she would faint—she did once."

"Faint..." said Nanny. And she went to the radio and turned it on. "Connie," she said. "That was a very interesting day you had. And now I must listen to Lyle Van. Do excuse me, please, darling."

"No time for the pencil part," thought Connie—the most important part. She settled herself in the little red rocker to read, while Nanny listened to the news. Connie opened her book. It was
Floating Island,
which she was reading for about the tenth time. "I love you, book," she had written in the front of this book along with a picture she had drawn. She always drew a picture in the front of the books she loved. She sighed contentedly. How peaceful it was here in the kitchen! Despite Nanny's comments about the latest calamities, even though they were the same calamities she had heard on the radio an hour ago—nothing new—no new crash or quake somewhere, and with Nanny saying often, "Ts, ts," or "Uh-umm!" in pleasurable horror—despite these kitchen sounds, Connie became lost in her book.

Suddenly, someone arriving at the back door jogged her out of her book. Billy Maloon at the back screen door, looking scared, the way he always did when he saw Nanny in the kitchen! Connie beckoned to him to come in, silently, not to interrupt Lyle Van. Billy tried to open the screen door noiselessly and gulped when it did squeak a little. Then, giving as wide a berth as was possible in the crowded kitchen—Wags and the cats were there, too—to Nanny, who glowered at him all the same as though he might have been responsible for the potatoes sticking, Billy reached the dining room. There he stood, out of sight of Nanny. Even so, "Don't touch my newspapers, my Chester papers," she sternly warned him.

"Oh, he won't, Nanny," said Connie impatiently. She put her marker in her book and joined Billy where he was lurking.

"Can you come out?" he said. His eyes were wide and bright. He knew something, that was certain.

"Nanny," said Connie. "I'm going out."

"All right," said Nanny sweetly. "Better put your sweater on, darling; there's a little wind."

Connie got her sweater and followed Billy out. Both had news. But since this was Connie's yard, Billy said she should talk first. That was fair. First Connie swiftly told Billy the story of the found nickel—after all it was the second telling of the day, and she wound it up in a hurry to get on to part two, the pencil part of the story. "And then, Billy," she said. "You know what I saw in Sergeant Rattray's—Ratty's—hand?"

"The ring?" asked quiet Billy Maloon.

"Not the ring, Billy, no. You're warm, though. After all, Mama's ring is a lady's ring, you know. In the first place, it wouldn't fit on a policeman's big hand, and in the second place—well, did you ever see a diamond ring on the hand of an everyday policeman?"

"No," said Billy, sheepish over the mistake.

"Well, what I did see, Billy, and it is as important as the ring, was the..."

"The pencil case!" said Billy excitedly.

"Warmer," said Connie.

"The pencil itself!" said Billy.

"Yes!" said Connie. She was proud of this electrifying news and of its effect on Billy. Why not? The pencil was as important a clue in proving whether or not there had been a policeman burglary as the Mura butt, the screwdriver named "Stanley," and the piece of curtain were in the case of the five real burglars. "Yes," Connie repeated. "The pencil itself! The J. I. pencil—Papa's pencil!"

"Tell!" said Billy.

"Tell it," said Billy. "You say you saw the pencil. How did you know that the pencil you saw ... and, anyway, how did you see it? How did you get so close up to a policeman that you could see his pencil? And how did you know that it was your father's pencil, the one that your mother saw as in a vision through the policeman's pants' pocket?"

"I'll tell you,
I'll tell you,
" said Connie. "If you'll only listen!" she screamed. Why did no one ever listen? Why did they always keep interrupting? After Billy had been silent for a couple of seconds, she said, "Billy. You know that after, I say
after,
the policemen saw me pop the nickel out of the street and heard Mr. Leep say it was all right for me to keep it—it was mine now—they began to study me. Every time I looked at them, they were studying me. They were studying me and I was studying them. Only it's a funny thing about grownups. You can always tell,
always,
when a grownup is studying
you.
But grownups never know when
you
are studying
them.
"

"Dopes," said Billy. "That's why."

"Well, the way I studied them without their knowing it was this: I went close up to their police car, bouncing my tennis ball near and all around it..."

"That was brave of you, Connie, since they may be robber policemen—we don't know yet—and probably they were trying to remember where they had seen you before. It was
very
brave of you."

Connie's heart nearly exploded with love for Billy. What praise! "Well, Billy. On one of my bounces around the car ... and I kept my eyes on the policemen—and yet
not on
them. Sidewise, I looked at them ... like this." Connie showed him. She got off the swing and gave a sidewise example...

"That is the way to do," he said.

"Yes," said Connie, getting back on the swing. "So," she said, "while I was bouncing my ball and looking sidewise out of my eyes, I noticed that the policeman at the driver's wheel, that is Officer Ippolito, Ippy, had taken a little notebook out of his pocket, and he began to write in it. I couldn't help noticing the pencil he was writing with because it was not a regular yellow wood one, but a silver one. Well, naturally, since the pencil that had Mama's diamond ring on it is one of the most important..."

"
...the
most important," corrected Billy.

"Yes,
the
most important clue that we don't have but that we'd like to have to go on about the two policemen—that is, to know whether they were burglars or not—I bounced my ball a little closer and sidewise myself, and with my eyes sidewise, sidewise I looked ... still bouncing and with the found nickel still in my pocket (it may be lucky, though I did not get one hundred on the arithmetic test; still I did get eighty-eight ... very good for me, very good). Well, with a found nickel in my pocket to give me luck, I had the courage to get closer and closer, and I did, slantwise but accurately, see the pencil that Officer Ippolito, Ippy, was holding. This pencil was marked with the initials J. I. And what does J. I. stand for? John Ives. And that is Papa. J-John. I-Ives."

Billy's jaw hung open. "Yikes," he said, gulping.

"It was a Christmas present from the people who work for him. Papa said a boss should not expect presents or—take them. That's probably why he hadn't used the pencil yet ... had left it in his drawer. Embarrassed."

For a while Connie and Billy swung high. Then, slowing down again, Billy said, "Connie. How did you get close enough to a pencil that a policeman was writing with to see initials on it?"

"Well, Billy. You remember why we were all out there in the street in the first place? A fire alarm that turned out to be a bomb scare. So the policeman, Ippolito (we might as well call him Ippy from now on) was making notes about it all with my father's pencil when along came Mr. Leep talking to another teacher, saying, 'Ts, ts—a bomb scare...' (There really wasn't a bomb, but they thought there might be.) And off they went. They hadn't been able to stop Vinnie Free's sneezing either ... you could still hear her up the street—'Tschoo! Tschoo!'—another worry for poor Mr. Leep ... bombs, sneezes."

"Once I read about someone dying from sneezing. ... Oh no, that was the hiccups," Billy put in. "Or was it laughing?"

"Well, when Ippy was reminded of the 'bomb,' he said, 'Bomb! Yikes!' Nervous, see? Shows what a coward he is! And he dropped the pencil in the street right where I was bouncing; it rolled right over to me. I picked it up, and, bless Maud (that's what Papa always says—he says, 'Bless Maud') it had the initials J. I. on it. The initials are engraved in scroll—you know what that is, don't you, Billy?"

Billy nodded. "Yes," he said. "Heigh-ho gryphics."

"Oh," said Connie. "Anyway, it was a little silver pencil like the one Papa had had and had shown Mama and me the night before it was stolen, the night Papa and Mama went to the alumni ball, the night Mama said to Papa, 'By the way, John. Where
is
my diamond ring?' And Papa had shown it to us on the clip of the pencil in its little case in his wardrobe."

"Wowie!" said Billy.

"I handed the policeman the pencil—I should have kep' it; it's Papa's."

"Did they give you a piercing glance?" asked Billy.

"No," said Connie, "nothing. I let my ball roll away, and I ran after it to get away from them. How do I know? They may have said to themselves, 'Hm. I remember that girl now. What's she doing watching us? Hm. Now she knows we have her pencil.'"

"Yes," agreed Billy. "You know, Connie, those policemen must have stolen the pencil, and so, of course, they got the ring that was on it. And if they knew that you knew that they had taken it—and your kind of knowing is real knowing; it's not like having a voice say to you that the pencil is in a certain policeman's pocket, the way your mother knew (although that was the most important
first
knowing ... otherwise, no one would have thought that anybody but the burglars had gotten the ring and the pencil!)—well, you know those policemen might just plain have arrested you?"

"Arrested
me!
" exclaimed Connie. "They're the ones should be arrested. How could they arrest me?"

"Say you took a nickel belonged to the street."

"Ah-h," said Connie in somber recognition of the perils.

"Well, go on," said Billy. "When you rolled away..."

"I didn't roll away," Connie said. "I let the ball roll away."

"Well, anyway," said Billy, smiling appreciatively. "What comes next?"

"Well, then the bell rang, and we all went in..."

"Had there been a bomb?"

"No. Some stupid joke. A boy was expelled. He can't ever come back. Has to spend his life in jail, probably ... real jail. Not a hidy-hole jail."

"And the police?"

"The last thing I saw was the two policemen riding off in their Presink 9999 car."

"Did they look at you, give you a piercing glance as they drove off? Do you think they took it in that you recognized the J. I. pencil as the pencil of your father?"

"I don't know. My knees were shaking. My hands, too. I could hardly make it up the stairs to the third floor, but I did."

"M-m-m," said Billy. "Well, did you tell your mother and father that you saw your father's pencil in the hand of Ippolito?"

"Ippy. No, not yet. I was going to tell Nanny, but it was time for Lyle Van with the four o'clock news. When Mama comes home, I'll tell her. She'll be glad to know she is right about voices telling her what's in pockets. And think! Those detectives telling Papa—and Papa almost agreeing with
them
—that Mama only had high sterricks. High sterricks, ha! / knew Mama was right. 7 know Mama! When Mama knows something, she
knows.
This proves it."