The Alley (25 page)

Connie had not put up signs in the Alley, the way Ray Arp and Hugsy—Brother Stuart, too—did, on every gate, when they were going to have a sale of old soldiers, toys, and comics in their back yard. She had put up just one sign on her own gate, which said, "Please do not ring the bell and ask to swing because there is a piano recital going on, (signed) Connie Ives." Now, that is not exactly an invitation to a recital, is it? It is simply a request for there to be no interruptions, no bell ringing, while a recital went on. But the children all came, anyway, and the mothers—invitation or not.

Connie's heart sank. Katy, June, Judy, Laura, everybody! All the big and all the little children. All the lovers of the swing and all the non-lovers, or rather, the one non-lover of the swing—Katy. At the sight of Katy coming into the yard, Connie became really scared. Goose flesh popped out all over her. Yet, why should it?
She
wasn't going to play. She was just going to be the teacher, looking on, giving smiles of encouragement, her hands folded calmly over her stomach. Now Connie knew what her piano teacher, Miss Fannie Moore, must go through every time she gave a recital for her pupils. Ts! Connie had always thought that it was only
they,
the ones who were in the recital, who got scared, not the teacher. Not so.
She
the
teacher
was the most scared. Her knees wobbled, but she found chairs ... Mama helped ... for the mothers. Connie did not mind the mothers. But the sight of the entire child population of the Alley—approximately thirty-three, not counting babies in laps—rather unnerved her. However, they made themselves at home on the floor; they had to—there were not that many chairs in this house, and no one could sit on the George Washington chair, unroped off though it was.

Nicky was the first to perform. Connie had meant the pupils to perform according to age, but Notesy would not come out from under the table. So Nicky was first. Connie wound the piano stool up higher and higher. Katy said, "Oh, how cute!" What a relief! Had Katy said, "Ugh! How boring!" that would have been the end of the recital. Everyone would have left with a whoop and a holler.

"It wobbles," said Nicky of the stool.

"Never mind," said Connie. "Wobbling sometimes helps music."

Nicky was anxious to get over with "The Burly, Burly Bear," and also "On the Sand," which he had gotten in his head from listening to Winifred. He played well. Some might not think this easy, either, with his rope in his left hand. But he did very well. He concentrated on where C was, a little to the left of the gold letters, and since he played only with his right hand, why shouldn't he have a rope in his left? It did not interfere much and gave confidence. He was through in about one minute.

Danny was next—on the xylophone. After their solos, Connie had hoped that the two boys would play a duet, Nicky on the piano, Danny on the xylophone. She now had little hope of this, though, for the boys could see by this time how terrible recitals were. Danny was in a black mood—he had not liked the clapping and he longed for his gun. Nicky held his head in his hands. He had not liked the clapping, either. Well, neither had Connie ever liked clapping or bravos. (Who does like clapping and bravos? "Only great prima donnas," she thought. They are the only people who love clapping and stamping, whistling plain or whistling through the fingers. They—some of these great people—even employ—
pay
—people to come and clap, they like it so much. Connie's father had told her this ... her mother also. It must be so.) However, Nicky, slowly unfolding his head from his hands, surprised her. He said, "Now for the duet."

It would be hard to name the duet that Nicky and Danny played ... he on the piano, Danny on the xylophone. It was a blend, but they played it thoughtfully. It lasted forty seconds, and they received some more loud applause. "Really," thought Connie. "Mrs. Goode should be more quiet. That laugh!" Then the two little boys sat down on a big, tall dark-red armchair with petit-point embroidery all over it. This chair was known as Uncle Ham's chair. Unlike the George Washington chair, it could be sat on. The boys were being very good, and the chair, though weak, did not break.

Next on the program came Winifred. She was supposed to be last, but she asked to be next—get it over with—and Connie let her. Since Winifred did not want to talk, Connie announced her first piece. "On the Sand," Connie said. By mistake, Winifred played "The Burly, Burly Bear" first. Then she played "On the Sand." She played both of them as fast as she could, not making any error other than getting the wrong piece first and playing them skippity-skip instead of burlily (for "The Burly, Burly Bear") and pensively (for "On the Sand"). And since she was in a hurry to get through, and since she did get through, everybody clapped and said, "Yay-o-o-oh!" The audience was not tired of hearing the same pieces played by everybody in the conservatory because everybody played them differently, and they sounded like different music. Winifred looked pleased. Her shining face was pretty, and she sat down on the big armchair next to Hugsy, who said she had been the best yet; his husky voice really meant it.

After all the other pupils had played, the big girls, Laura, Katy, and June, who had not said "boring" once, all asked if, even though they were not pupils of the Alley Conservatory of Music, they could play something. Connie was not sure that this was the right thing to do, for non-pupils to play at a recital given just by real pupils. Still, it was very nice of them ... especially as the whole real part of the recital, the eight-pupil part, had lasted all told only ten minutes. Later, Mama said she thought it had been fine, everybody joining in and having a good time.

Connie said, "You're not supposed to be having a good time. You're supposed to be having a recital."

"Excuse me," said Mama.

Still, in the main, Connie agreed with her mother. Join in. Naturally you would not do this if you were in a big hall and listening to a great player. Then, naturally it would not be the thing to do ... join in, say, may I do something now? But it was all right here, and Mama was right. It stretched things out ... perhaps, today, it had stretched things out too long.

June and Katy and Laura each played "Heart and Soul" also "Chopsticks." This was not the sort of music that Connie taught her pupils. But what could she do? Then Laura played "Nearer My God to Thee," and Katy played the "Fifth Symphony" of Beethoven by ear. June played a piece that she had been practicing ever since she had moved into the house next door. It may not have been so tiresome to the audience as it was to Connie, who had heard it for three years. Then the people, big and little, said that Connie, the teacher, should play something now. Connie really didn't want to ... not at her first recital. It is strain enough to be in charge of a recital, let alone playing a selection besides. She considered giving the sort of little speech her piano teacher, Miss Fannie Moore, gave at the end of her recitals—before the cookies and the Dixie Cups. Miss Fannie Moore always said, her hands clasped neatly over her stomach to depict relaxation, "Well, it's true some of us made some little mistake or other, didn't we? But after all, we are all human, aren't we? And we all make some little mistake sometime or other, don't we? And the important thing, the most important thing, is that we did, each and every one of us did, reach the end of our piece; and that was the important thing, to reach the end, wasn't it?"

Ah, Connie couldn't say it. Vividly though she remembered her teacher's after-recital speech, she could not say it. So she neither played anything nor said anything, and everybody went out into the garden, where Mama was spreading the picnic table, borrowed from Mrs. Carroll. Papa, of course, was still at the faculty luncheon. Nanny had gone next door to Mrs. Harrington's to play bridge. Tired from her exertions, Connie stretched out on a long garden chair, unable to eat anything. It was as though in a dream that she noticed Bully Vardeer and Princey on No-Name Street. In Connie's yard, everybody was having a wonderful time, talking, laughing. The gaiety really and truly made this day a day as important as the day of the alumni lunch under the tent. People were all sitting around, eating, talking about the recital, chatting about this and that, and then suddenly, just like on that other famous day, Alumni Day, the unexpected happened.

Who should appear at the back gate but Bully Vardeer! He looked haggard; but he spoke quietly, even more so than usual, the way a person does when he is tense and trying to hold back his excitement. Connie knew in a second what had happened. No one had to tell her. Look at the time. Twenty minutes after twelve, the perfect time of the day for robberies ... the perfect time, the perfect day ... the day of the recital of the Alley Conservatory of Music, with all the people here, not in their own homes, and the chief, the main counter-caser, Billy Maloon, sick in bed with a cold. What day could be more perfect for burglars to make a burglary than a day like this with the chief counter-caser of the casers sick?

"Could I use your phone?" asked Bully Vardeer. "To call the police? My phone is out of order. My house has been broken into."

"Oh, gracious!" cried Mama. "Certainly, go right in!"

The people crowded around to hear Bully's story. "What happened? What happened?" everybody asked when Bully came back out. Mama made the announcement; in dramatic tones she said, "The house of Joe Below has just been broken into."

Connie was the first out of the gate. She was going to be the first to tell Billy Maloon. Poor Billy! To miss first of all the recital and then the breaking in of Bully Vardeer's house that he and she had been trying to protect for days. All their watching, all their warning, their casing, all for nothing! She should not have had a recital. Then there would have been no burglary. But, pshaw! Life has to go on, burglaries or not. She ran to Billy's back gate. She couldn't get in. It was padlocked as usual. She looked up at Billy's window; it was wide open. Its bright yellow curtains were blowing in the breeze. Something told Connie that behind those bright yellow curtains Billy was not there.

"Billy," she called.

There was no answer; there was certainly no answer. Where, then, was Billy Maloon?

Getting no answer from Billy Maloon, Connie had to just guess where he might be. Since he wasn't anywhere in the Alley where he could be seen, he must be up in Mr. Bernadette's catalpa tree. He certainly would not have gone out of the Alley—would he?—not with burglars loose in the world and him with a cough.

People of the Alley were slowly leaving Connie's garden, some still nibbling on their hot dogs, wiping the mustard off their fingers. They made their way toward Bully's gate and excitedly discussed this latest Alley outrage, asking questions about how it had happened and reminiscing about all the burglaries they might ever have had or heard about. Connie was rather sorry that this burglary had been in someone else's house, not hers. She heard Bully say, "Well, I must hurry back into the house—the police will soon be here." He strode through his garden and up his back stoop and into his back door. His lips were pressed grimly together; his strong chest was thrust out; he was ready to fight burglars if he found any. "A brave man, Bully Vardeer," thought Connie. She hurried down the Alley to Mr. Bernadette's house, the very last end one on the top of the T of the Alley. There she hoped to discover Billy Maloon in the Bernadette lookout tree.

She did. She saw his bright-eyed excited face peering down at her through the thick early summer foliage.

"Hurry!" he said. "I thought you'd never come," he said impatiently. "You and your old music! On the very day of a burglary, you have to go and give an old piano recital."

Connie was grieved. "Well, Billy," she said. "It was really the other way around. No recital, no burglary. Then where would you be?" Being a good climber, she swung herself up the steep wall on the Waldo Place side of Mr. Bernadette's garden. Only the end houses had these pretty red brick walls. Then she swung herself up beside Billy inside the dense deep tree called catalpa. Billy lost no time giving her the details.