The Alley (6 page)

Today Billy and Connie were among the meece. They had a wonderful time, and they were glad they had joined in. Then, with everyone tired and hot from the game, the children began to go their ways. A number, Billy and Connie among them, sat down on the curbing and talked. Katy said something behind her hand in June Arp's ear.

"I wish they would not do that," said Billy as he and Connie settled themselves back in the swings, "talk in each other's ears."

"Well," said Connie. "They have a club, you know. And if you have a club, you have to whisper in ears. It's a rule. Not to let the others know what is in the club. It's a girl's club," she added, in case Billy wished that he were in it.

"Hugsy is in it. Is he a girl?" asked Billy Maloon sarcastically.

"No, that's true," agreed Connie. "But a club," she said, "has to have at least one boy in it to be a good club. And, anyway, they hold the meetings in Hugsy's hidy-hole, so he has to be in it. Greggie Goode isn't in it, just Hugsy."

All the houses that faced on Larrabee Street had little hidy-holes under the dining-room windows to let light into the cellars. The hidy-holes were quite deep—it was a wonder no little one had fallen in and hurt himself. Hugsy's hidy-hole was the favorite one because squash vines grew over it, and no one would know you were in there. When more than two were down there, it was quite crowded. The club consisted of four, but they managed all right and could play "sardines."

Hugsy Goode (his real name was Hugo Goode) was one of Connie's favorite people in the Alley. She liked him next best to Billy Maloon. But Hugsy was terribly afraid of Nanny. He didn't like to have to get past her when she was in the kitchen—where she usually was—cutting up kidneys for the cats or cooking some good soup. But this he must do if he wanted to get into the living room where Connie was. Hugsy couldn't sit in a chair, any sort of chair, without a great deal of squirming around, tilting it, and winding his legs around the rungs. He couldn't help it—he often broke a chair. Practically all the chairs in his own house were broken one way or another; even his bed had to be balanced on bricks. This sort of sitting in chairs turned Nanny against Hugo. She knew that someday he would break the George Washington chair, which had come down through the ages in Nanny's family. She just knew it.

Billy Maloon was just as afraid of Nanny as Hugsy was. When he came in, he looked directly ahead. If there was mud on his shoes, he hoped Nanny would not comment on his feet. He wiped them carefully a long time, whether there was mud or not, to make a favorable impression; and he stalked straight past her, saying in a low voice, scarcely audible, "H'lo." Sometimes Nanny answered, sometimes not. How Billy brightened when he made it to Connie's room, where he and she could play! However, now and then Nanny surprised Billy and Hugsy by speaking to them in her gracious, Southern-lady manner—usually after she had had many letters from Chester. But how could Hugsy or Billy know the reason?

"You see," Connie said to Billy, although he had never complained. "You see, Nanny just does not like boys. She doesn't really like girls either, except for Clarissa in Washington, and little girls, like Linda May, who are related to her. Of course, she must have liked Papa," said Connie, "in spite of his being a boy. Still, she tells him not to eat that much raw food. 'That much salad,' she says, 'is not good for anybody.' You should see the amount of celery Papa eats at one time! Nanny tells him not to, and Papa does not like to be told. She says she does not like to hear the crunching sound, and he says, 'How can anyone eat celery without a crunching sound?' I've tried it, Billy, and it is true. To eat celery, one must crunch, but, of course, with mouth closed. Nanny says, 'Well, crunch somewhere else, not here in the kitchen where I am fixing the dinner. How can I think what I am doing?' Papa does not go, though. He just continues to crunch celery and lick salt and prowl around the kitchen. He loves to lick salt. It all sounds good to me. And it looks good. But Nanny pounds pot covers on the pots and bangs the stirring spoons on them, too, to show she's outraged."

Billy was silent for a while. Then he said, "Connie, that was quite a long story."

"Thank you," said Connie.

Connie wanted to excuse Nanny, to have Billy like her in spite of the way she treated him and all boys—even some girls. Oh, how she wished that Nanny would be nicer to Billy Maloon and Hugsy Goode, for otherwise, she was the greatest grandmother in the world. Sometimes, before she could think, Nanny would snap at the tiny ones. "Don't pick that flower!" she would say.

"They are not from South Carolina," Connie informed Billy. "That is the main thing wrong with the children here."

"You mean if I were from South Carolina, she'd like me?" asked Billy incredulously.

"And if you were a girl," Connie added.

"Zooks!" said Billy.

Nanny came out just then to air a mop—no one, none of the cleaning girls, did this properly. Connie and Billy gazed straight ahead—not seeing her. Nanny didn't care whether she was or wasn't seen by them—and went back in.

Then Hugsy came along by himself. Evidently the club had not lasted long. "The name of their club is the G.G. C.," said Connie. "I don't know what it means."

"I'd say it means 'Girls' Goofy Club,'" said Billy. "Except that Hugsy is in it."

Hugsy had overheard this comment. "Nope," he said. "That's not what it is."

"What is it then?" Billy demanded.

"I forget what it is," said Hugsy.

"In a club and forgets the name of it! That's brilliant, really brilliant, I must say," said Billy.

Hugsy looked dejected.

Connie did not like arguments. She said, "Want to swing, Hugsy?"

"Well..." said Hugsy hesitantly. "I would like to come in."

"You can come in," said Connie.

Hugsy had something on his mind. At last it came out, and it had nothing to do with the G.G.C. "I didn't go to the club. I had to go to Myrtle Avenue. And I was robbed! My mother gave me a five dollar bill—in a little leather purse—and three kids came along, and they took it. I was robbed!"

"Hugsy!" exclaimed Connie.

And Billy said, "Describe them!"

Hugsy couldn't. He was still very shaken. "It happened on Story Street. I was almost to Myrtle Avenue. Suddenly I was surrounded."

"So you surrendered," said Billy. "I'd do the same thing. Better be a live chicken than a dead duck."

Hugsy smiled gratefully. Then Katy came along, and she had to hear the story. This was the first modern burglary any of them had had—the other Alley burglaries being the old-time, ancient ones of the Bernadettes and the Langs.

Soon, Hugsy and Billy had to go home to lunch, and this left Connie and Katy. Katy sat in a swing, not swinging, though, and not saying anything—not even saying "boring" once. "Perhaps," thought Connie, "Katy is going to be a friend now and say, 'Want to join the G.G.C.P' Perhaps this great lawmaker girl, Katy, and I will become real friends." The idea had never occurred to Connie before.

Katy jumped down. She swung out the gate and she left it open, and she still had not said anything, not said, "Be friends," or, "Not be friends," and no mention of the club. Connie thought of impressing Katy with something, capturing a burglar, perhaps, bopping one over the head with the Tiffany vase that stood in the hall. Or maybe she should do something grand, be a prodigy of the piano; and she, too, went in to tell Mama about Hugsy's five-dollar-bill burglary and to have her lunch.

If only outside-the-Alley people abided by outside-the-Alley laws as well as inside-the-Alley people did by inside-the-Alley Katy laws, then there would not have been a burglary like Hugsy's five-dollar-bill one, or like the one about to happen in Connie's house.

The Ives's burglary happened suddenly and unexpectedly. In the morning, the Ives had not had burglars; yet by noon, burglars had come and gone. Looking back, Connie—all the Ives—could see that the burglary really had not been so sudden and unexpected after all. Looking back to the burglary, they could see that it was bound to happen. But going toward the burglary—
before
it had happened—one would not suspect that such a thing was going to occur in the Ives's family. These were the steps that led to the noontime burglary of Connie Ives's house in the Alley.

One day Connie and Mama were walking Wags up by the athletic field. Mittens and Punk were following along after them in the way that cats do—first running ahead a little, galloping, and then, lurking behind, furtively ducking under cars, making sure the path was clear, no enemies about. They'd crouch under the cars, their ears turned back, because they knew, and humans didn't, that trouble was always afoot. Then suddenly they'd gallop ahead, and just as suddenly they'd stop in their tracks, nervously clean a paw or their stomach for a second, and then go crouching on. They might be thinking that their enemy cat, the lizard cat, from blocks away, might be watching them—pounce out at them.

On this particular day—it was a sunny one in early May; Connie and her mother couldn't remember exactly which—there occurred a series of unusual incidents.

Connie and Mama were standing near the fence around the athletic field. They were laughing at Wagsie, who kept running up and down the fence trying to get into the field, a useless idea because, unless it was being used, it was always kept locked. But Wagsie remembered a certain time when she had seen a quail in the field—where it had come from no one could guess—and Wagsie hadn't been able to get into the field to chase it that day either; but she had never forgotten that quail and looked for it every time she was taken for a walk. Connie and Mama were also laughing at the two cats, who listened to Wagsie's anguished whining with disapproval and contempt, their ears flattened down. They did not like her noisy, emotional outbursts.

Suddenly up the Mall toward the athletic field strode Mr. de Gaulle, one of the campus guards whom the Alley people were supposed to call in case of burglary, fire, or any trouble. Mr. de Gaulle was not the real name of this man. The Alley children had nicknamed him de Gaulle, because in his gray-blue uniform, tall and handsome, he looked, stood, and talked like General de Gaulle. However, not really being de Gaulle, this guard spoke always in English, never in French. Paying no attention to Connie or Mama or the interesting animals, Mr. de Gaulle marched across the Mall, unlocked the gate to the athletic field, pushed it wide open, stepped inside, and said, "Get out! Get out!"

There was no one in the field at all, not even the long-ago lost quail. Mr. de Gaulle stood sternly within the gate, a few paces from Connie and Mama, who had gotten Wagsie back on his leash, just in the nick, and he repeated to the vacant field, "Get out! Get out!"

Connie and Mama were spellbound; they stood respectfully still. They need not have bothered. Mr. de Gaulle did not notice them at all. All he did was to address the empty field with his "Get outs!" Then he turned abruptly, put the key in the lock, banged the gate to, and strode away again—finishing his rounds.

"Just practicing," Connie said to Mama. "Imagine putting imaginary people, children probably, out of the athletic field!" she said. "Probably pretending the field is full of the Gregory Avenue kids—they do sometimes climb over the fence, bobb wire and all."

"I know," said Mama.

Connie and Mama slowly sauntered on their way when along came a lady, a poor old lady. Her stockings were black cotton and twisted in loose folds around her thin old legs. The skin of her face fell in loose folds, too, and was rather dirty. "Don't blame her, though," Connie admonished herself. "You know Brooklyn—all dirt and soot!"

Unlike de Gaulle, this lady had her eyes on Connie and Mama, and she came right up to them. She asked where Mark Street was. Mark Street used to be one block below Connie's street—Story Street—but since the Mall had been laid out, there weren't any streets inside the campus gates any more, just walks, and except for those on the Alley, there were no houses on the campus either. So Mama said, "What part of Mark Street are you looking for? What number are you looking for? A house outside the campus on Larrabee or a house on General Street?"

The lady said, "I ask a simple question, and I expect a simple answer."

Taken aback, Mama explained that there were four gates onto or out of the campus, that Mark Street on the campus used to be a block below where they were standing now—she pointed down the Mall—but that now it was nothing but a little walk, and that she had asked the lady the number in order not to send her over in the Myrtle Avenue direction if where she really wanted to go might be toward General Street—in the opposite direction on the other side of the campus.

"I don't understand you at all," said the lady. "What you are saying makes no sense at all. I don't want people asking me numbers."

"Well," said Mama gently, "well, you know you can go out either of those two gates, the one on Larrabee or the other on General, and proceed to your destination on Mark Street—wherever it is. I thought I might save you some long blocks."

"You don't save blocks!" said the lady in disgust. "I ask a simple question—where Mark Street is—and you tell me to save blocks."