Blue Vengeance (15 page)

 

“Quick. Get on your bike,” Janine said as she steered hers into the backyard.

“Why?”

Danny was sitting on the grass, patting Pearl, who was on her side with her eyes closed.

Janine dumped her groceries on the stoop.

“Hurry up. They're still there. We have to follow them and find out where they live.”

Danny stood up. “I should really go home and make lunch for my mum.”

“Are you insane?” said Janine. “Come on.” She was back on her bike and heading out of the yard.

“Why do we need to know where they live?” Danny had caught up, and they were careening side by side through the streets.

She didn't answer; he knew she heard him.

“I really should go home and make my mum some lunch,” he said again.

“What will happen if you don't?”

It wasn't the first time Danny wondered that himself. She often didn't eat much of what he presented to her anyway. What would happen if he didn't take a tray to her three times a day? Would she get up and make something for herself? Would she starve? Would she die?

“She'd get skinnier and skinnier, and I'd probably get taken away from her. Not by the Children's Aid Society, but by Aunt Dot.”

“I like Aunt Dot,” said Janine.

“Me too. But I don't wanna go and live with her.”

“I get it. This won't take long.”

She sped ahead of him, and he pushed to catch up.

They wheeled into the parking lot as Miss Hartley and her sister were loading their groceries into the trunk of the dark blue Beetle.

“Hide,” said Janine.

There wasn't a lot to hide behind, so Danny crossed Marion Street to Anderson's Animal Hospital and went inside. The cacophony was such that no one noticed him standing sentry at the window. He waited till the women were on their way down Marion before he emerged and shouted across at Janine. They headed after the Volkswagen.

It wasn't much of a trip.

“Hardass drives like an old lady,” Janine said over her shoulder. “Slow down a little.”

“You're tremendously bossy today,” said Danny.

They followed the two women to a big old house on rue Valade in the old section of St. Boniface where people spoke French. Miss Hartley dropped her sister off and gunned the car as she drove away.

“I guess she only drives slow when her sister's in the car,” said Danny.

He watched as Janine wrestled her bike behind a tree.

“We don't need to hide anymore,” he said. “I'm not sure why we had to hide in the first place.”

“If we do something to the sister, we don't want her to have seen us beforehand.”

“Why would we do something to the sister?”

Janine didn't answer him so he asked again.

“I don't know, do I?” she said.

It was a corner house. The sister had two bulging paper bags full of groceries. She fought with the latch on the gate and then struggled up a staircase at the back of the house. She entered a doorway on the second floor.

“You'd think Miss Hardass could've helped her with her bags,” said Danny.

“She's not that kind of person.”

A plump brown wiener dog walked up to them and began to bark.

“
Tais-toi, maudiss
e
!” said Janine. “
Vas-t'e
n
! Go away!”

The dog stayed where it was and kept barking.

“Go and check the mailbox.”

“Why?” said Danny.

“Just do it. And then we should get out of here. This dog isn't going to stop barking.”

“What am I lookin' for?”

“Anything.”

Danny found three mailboxes lined up next to the front door. They had nameplates attached. The first one said Roger Dubois, the second one, Mrs. Randolph Flood, and the third one, Miss Gretchen Hartley.
Miss
Hardass?
Danny didn't know her first name. Could there be a third sister? The discovery that Miss Hartley lived in the house (if indeed it was her) felt like an over-the-top gift, if for no other reason than it gave him something fabulous to report to Janine.

Next to the door there were three doorbells, also with names attached to them. Miss Hartley was on the top floor. by the looks of it, Mrs. Randolph Flood in the middle, and Roger Dubois on the main floor.

He rang the bottom bell just because, and ran back to where Janine stood behind the tree.

“I've got some news,” he said. “Let's go to the park.”

“What?” said Janine. “What news?”

“Wait'll we get there.”

He hopped on his bike. “Let's stop at the Spanish Court on the way and get something to eat, my treat, and then I'll tell you.”

When they got to the monument in Coronation Park they concentrated on their Fudgsicles for a few minutes. Janine licked hers from the bottom up to keep the ice cream from running down her wrist. Danny's caught the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt.

“Okay, what?” said Janine.

“What's Miss Hardass's first name? Do you know?”

“Gretchen.”

“'Kay. She lives on the top floor, and her sister lives on the second. Her name is Mrs. Randolph Flood.”

Janine was as excited as he was.

“Jeez, if she lives there too, it was lucky she didn't come back while we were still there.”

“Yeah. She couldn't have gone far. She'll be needin' to get her frozen stuff in the fridge.”

“Mrs., eh?”

“What?”

“Mrs. Randolph Flood, you said.”

“Yeah. Why are we excited about this? What does knowin' where they live have to do with anything?”

“I don't know yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.”

“Our plan is still gonna take place in the school parking lot, isn't it? You haven't changed your mind about that, have you?”

“Parking lot?”

Danny realized in all the excitement that he had forgotten what he had set out to tell her in the first place.

“That's good,” said Janine when he told her of his discovery. “That's very good. But we have to wait till fall for that, when school's back in. We might want to do something minor before then, to shake them up a little. Not a lot, just a little. And it could involve knowing where they live.”

“I'm not sure why the sister needs shakin' up,” said Danny. “Maybe we should do the big thing before fall now we know where they live. What if Miss Hardass changes schools or something?”

“We'll monitor them,” said Janine. “We'll dog their every move.”

“What if they move to France?”

“Then we'll quit dogging their moves. Don't borrow trouble, Danny.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means don't worry about things that may never happen. In this case, things that more than 99.9 per cent for sure won't happen. I wonder if the sister has a husband.”

“Well, she is a Mrs.”

“I'm not sure if I want her to have a husband or not,” said Janine. “It confuses the picture.”

“What picture?”

“I don't know yet. You've got chocolate all around your mouth and all over your sleeve. Why are you wearing a long-sleeved shirt when it's a thousand above?”

Danny rubbed his arm across his face. He couldn't tell her that he wore long sleeves to cover up his weakling arms. He had never even considered his arms till he saw Rock Sand's muscles bulging out of his T-shirt. And Janine had admired them; she had touched a bicep.

“I'm thinkin' the husband is gone or dead,” he said.

“Why?”

“If you have a husband, you're unlikely to live on the second floor of an old house. You're more likely to live in an entire house.”

Janine smiled at him. It was the kind of smile she used when she tousled his hair and it made him feel as if he knew nothing. He stayed out of reach.

“It seems stupid that they live in the French part of town,” he said.

“Why?”

“'Cause they're not French.”

“So what? I'm French and I live in an English part of town.”

“You're French?”

“Yeah. What did you think?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Danny said, although he had been wondering where she'd learned her French swear words.

“Did you not think my name sounded kind of French?”

Danny realized that he didn't know her last name.

“Yeah. I guess.” It was way too late to ask her now.

“Why do you think people make fun of me for the way I talk?”

“I didn't know they did. I like the way you talk.”

He loved the way she talked, but he didn't want to say the word love in case she thought he loved her, which he did.

“My dad's name is really Jacques,” Janine went on. “But he didn't like the way English people pronounced it, like Jock, so he changed it to Jake.”

“Do you speak French?” Danny said.

“We spoke nothing but French for the first few years of my life. My dad and I still speak it sometimes around the house.”

It hadn't occurred to Danny before that the way she talked was because she had a hint of a French accent.

“I wish I could speak French,” he said.

“You take it in school, don't you?”

“School doesn't count.”

“Yeah, they don't do a very good job of it. They teach grammar and stuff, but not how to speak. I got a hundred in French last term.”

“Really?”

“Yup. It was the first hundred I ever got. I couldn't believe it. Let's get going.”

“Do I still have chocolate on my face?”

“
Oui
.”

“I know what that means.” Danny dragged his sleeve across his face again.

They rode down the back lane of Claremont towards Janine's house. Frank Foote was in his yard playing catch with another boy. His sister was sitting in her wheelchair on the patio watching them, or facing them, anyway. Frank waved at Danny and Janine, and they waved back.

“Frank doesn't make fun of me,” said Janine.

“No,” said Danny. “He wouldn't.” He didn't know if Janine knew that Frank had been the one to find Cookie. He suspected she did. Probably everyone in Norwood knew everything about what had happened that day.

“You know what's really stupid?” she said. “Speaking of things that are stupid?”

“What?”

“The way Mrs. Flood calls herself Mrs. Randolph Flood as though her own first name is Randolph.”

“Maybe it is.” Danny smiled so she wouldn't think he was a moron who didn't know that women weren't named Randolph and who couldn't eat without getting food on his face like a toddler.

“We could maybe use that to torture her in some way,” said Janine.

“How?”

“I don't know yet.”

Danny was concerned about the way Janine's ideas of revenge had taken a turn and begun to focus on Mrs. Flood. As far as he knew there was no reason to torture Mrs. Randolph Flood.

“Come inside while I put this stuff away.”

They were back at Janine's house where the groceries sat on the stoop where she had left them.

Danny followed her in and sat down at the kitchen table. A lot of the things she was putting away were the same types of things he bought when he went shopping.

“Oh, jeez, the ice cream has melted,” said Janine.

“What did you expect?”

“Let's eat it right now. We can just pretend it's soft ice cream, but better than usual because it Neapolitan.”

She opened up the carton, got a couple of spoons, and they set to.

“Cookie would have loved this,” said Danny. “In the olden days, I mean. First Fudgsicles and now soft ice cream.”

“Were you close to your sister?”

“Yeah, pretty close, I guess.”

“What was up with her, Danny? Why did she puke all the time?”

“You know about that?”

“Yeah, I heard her in the washroom at school. More than once. I know other kids heard her sometimes too. I saw her at the river once but I'm pretty sure she didn't see me.”

“So, does everybody know then?”

“Well, I never told anyone, but I can't say about the others. It probably got around. I heard a couple of them making gagging sounds as she walked by them one day. I told them to lay off, but it didn't help. No way were they going to listen to me.”

“I don't really understand it,” Danny said. “The way she was. I know she wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn. She was her idol. Ever since she saw
Breakfast at Tiffany's
.”

“Jeez, I don't blame her. Audrey Hepburn is beautiful.”

“I guess so. Cookie used to ask me if I thought she was fat. I'd say no, but I didn't know what more to say. I wish I'd known what more to say.”

“It wasn't your fault, Danny.”

“I'd hear her cryin' and I'd knock on her door, but she wouldn't let me in. Everything was a secret with her. I didn't get it, still don't.”

“Some things are beyond getting,” said Janine. She swirled the three flavours of ice cream together.

“My mum used to criticize her…tell her she took after the broad-beamed side of the family.”

“That wasn't very nice of your mum.”

Danny put down his spoon.

“Aunt Dot is worried that you're too mature for me to be hangin' around with,” he said.

“Screw Aunt Dot.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I do, but screw her anyway.”

“She eased up a bit when I told her you were Cookie's friend.”

“Good. That's good that you told her I was her friend. I hope Cookie knew that I was, or would have been, or something.”

“I hope so too,” said Danny. “I guess it looks weird from the outside lookin' in — you and me hangin' around together. People must think so.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. People. Others.”