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Sister Sponza, then Sister Margaret Mary
her replacement, then Sister Mary Elizabeth always asked before we made
confession, those are the ones I hate, hate. They just get about everything a
kid can think to do.
    But
I can’t let Abigail May go riding off into the night with a boy from Scutter
Road now can I?
    So
Easy is pumping his legs off behind me and I wonder how he can be so strong,
but the arms either side of me have muscles and smoking has not stunted his
growth at all.
    But
it’s so dark and scary along these tracks. Many’s the time Abigail May and I
have looked back here during hide-and-go-seek and said, “Not back there, compadre .”
    And
here I am now and Easy don’t seem to know he’s supposed to be scared of the
bums that run along here. He’s pretty brave. Well strong and brave but I’m
still so wide-eyed I wouldn’t blink if a bug hit me in the eye.
    Finally
he goes around the house on the corner and hits the sidewalk and my teeth can
stop rattling. He hits the street like he knows where he’s going.
    “Where
we going?” I say.
    “Trestle,”
he says.
    The
trestle bridge? Is he out of his mind?
    “Where’s
Abigail May?” I say.
    He
don’t answer for a minute and I let my hair go and grip that bar cause Lord a
mercy I’m being kidnapped and I suddenly want Granma so powerfully.
    “Whoa,”
Easy says cause I sit up some and I hear his shoe slap the ground a couple
times, then he’s got it again. Even if he’s kidnapping me I pretty well knew he
wouldn’t let us fall.
    “Take
me home!” I say.
    He
slows to a stop and we’re there near the curb and I hop off and it makes my arm
ache. Facing him is harder than I thought. He’s a really big boy and I don’t
know what I’m supposed to do but I’m trying not to cry.
    “Are
you afraid?” he says.
    “No!”
I say too loudly.
    “Get
on. I’ll take you back.”
    He
has the kindest eyes. If he had a bath and some new clothes he could be in the
movies maybe or in the Mickey Mouse Club for sure. But then he’d meet Annette
Funicello and so long Easy.
    “Little
girl?” he says.
    Well
he shouldn’t call me that. I ain’t so little I can’t answer to my real name.
    “Where
did your brother take my friend Abigail May?” I say ruffling my feathers like I
do when Granma calls me Missy and says something about my high horse.
    “The
trestle,” he says and he’s got a half smile. Just one side. It’s very
interesting and I’m afraid I do the same thing just to see what it feels like
cause I generally lift both sides at the same time if I smile at all. But I do
not show my pearly whites. I hate to look like a beaver.
    Wait
a minute. We’re solving a mystery here. This is number one in our notebook
even. Well that makes everything so much better.
    “Is
that where you boys go every night?”
    He puts his hands
behind his head like he’s in a hammock or something instead of this street in
the pitch black of nightness.
    He
has hair under his arms. Ain’t he eleven? Lord a mercy what am I doing with a
man?
    Then
we hear, “Caghan.” It’s Ricky on his bike. He’s mad which is pretty much like
usual.
    “Get
on,” Easy says, and I do, and Ricky is saying not to, yelling that, but Easy
says get on, and I just do.
    And
I am telling you it is the ride of my life after that, that’s for sure.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Darnay
Road 10

 
    Ricky
does catch up eventually, but I know that’s because we hit rough ground again
and Easy just doesn’t seemed worried about a thing. You can’t get to the
trestle without going over hill and dale. So I tell Easy, “Let’s walk it,” and
that’s when Ricky catches up, his scowling self that is, cause he takes this
world very, very seriously Abigail always says.
    “You
and Abigail May are going to get in so much trouble,” he tells me moving off
his bike while it’s still going. He don’t even care, he lets it go off by
itself and just fall over and it’s an almost brand new ten-speed