Penny Dreadful (17 page)

“What’s so funny?” asked Luella. When she saw what Penny was giggling at, she said, “Oh,
that
. Yeah. The Fugate family ran the feed shop, a regular old feed store, but then Mr. Fugate married Noelle. Noelle was a regular seamstress, but she’d always dreamed of making wedding dresses. So since they already had the store, she just moved her nicest dresses on in. Now everyone in town goes there for their dresses
and
their oats. Noelle does other kinds of sewing too. Last year she made me a Halloween costume. I was Furious. Mom traded her a painting for it.”

“Neat,” said Penny, though she couldn’t really imagine what a Furious costume might look like. Lots of red, she guessed.

After that the girls passed a store called the Praise God the Lord Hot Dog Shack. The front of the building was decorated with extremely happy sausages wearing halos, and the tables in the front window were full of people munching away.

Luella whispered, “Ramona Smith is superstrict. You can’t talk on a cell phone in there, or interrupt, or fight, or cuss, or anything like that. If you do, she’ll kick you out! One time my mom got thrown out for not saying grace before she ate. But wow, does Ramona make a good slaw dog. The recipe came to her in a vision!”

Penny stared through the window. The inside walls of the shack were covered in colorful scribbles. What the words said Penny could not quite make out, but she did see a very skinny woman with her hair in a tight little bun stirring a boiling kettle and beaming into the steam. The woman looked up and waved. Penny waved back.

Behind the hot dog shack was a playground made of old traffic lights and street signs, wrapped and planted around lots of huge tires. Some kids were climbing and jumping around on the lampposts, and Penny thought it looked like lots of fun. But Luella kept walking and said, “Baby stuff,” with a wave of her hand. So Penny ran to catch up and made a mental note to come back later.

Next to the playground was the reason for their trip—the General Store.

“Look! We’re here!” cried Luella, tossing a hand in the air and climbing the three steps to the door.

Penny followed, noticing that each stair was painted a different color. Red, white, blue.

Luella pushed open the door, and a bell rang out in a nice chingy way. “Hey, Mr. Milstein!” she called out.

Penny found herself in a wonderful room, surrounded by a wild array of
stuff
. There were bins of nails beside bolts of fabric, bottles of perfume and very old greeting cards, sprinklers and red bandannas. Everything was jammed together in any old order, and it all smelled vaguely of peppermint gum and rust and old paper and years and years of dust.

Penny was mesmerized. She knelt to examine the large bins of candy under the front counter. Then she looked up to find herself staring into the gentle, lined face of Mr. Milstein.

“What’ll it be, gals?” the old man asked, handing each of them a brown paper bag before they could even answer. “Penny candy, I’m guessing?”

“You got it,” said Luella. “And maybe a double deluxe Moon Pie or three, if we’ve got enough money. We need to fortify ourselves if we’re going to walk to the caves and look for Blackrabbit’s gold. I’m feeling lucky today.”

“
Gold? Caves?
” Penny asked Luella. This was the first she’d heard of either.

Luella shrugged. “I figured we’re already halfway there, might as well.”

“I suppose,” said Mr. Milstein with a wink at Penny, “
somebody
has to find it, right?”

Luella scoffed. “Not
somebody
. Me!”

“All right. All right,” said the old man. “
You.
”

Mr. Milstein turned his attention to Penny. “Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said. “Who might you be?”

“That’s Penny,” said Luella.

Mr. Milstein smiled. “Good to meet you, Penny. Though I had a wretched neighbor named
Miss
Penny when I was little. We used to call her Miss Penny Dreadful behind her back, on account of the fact that she swore like a drunk pirate.
You
aren’t a Dreadful, are you?”

Penny shook her head shyly.
She
certainly didn’t swear like a drunk pirate.

“What’s a penny dreadful?” asked Luella.

“Oh, naturally, you girls are too young to know,” said Mr. Milstein. “Penny dreadfuls were—”

“A kind of magazine!” said Penny eagerly. “I found some that used to belong to Aunt Betty. They’re full of adventure and excitement.”

“Oho!” said Mr. Milstein, amused. “So you’re familiar, are you? Maybe you
are
a bit like a penny dreadful, after all. You seem pretty adventurous yourself.”

Penny blushed.

“You know who likes adventure, don’t you?” said Mr. Milstein suddenly. “Jasper!”

“Jasper!” cried out Luella, looking quickly around the shop. “Is she here?”

“Sure is! Koko’s at some kind of summer camp for musical toddlers because when she hangs around here, she gets into the nail bin, but Jasper’s in the back somewhere playing jacks, I think. I bet she’d rather go to the caves. Oh, Jasper! JASPER!” he yelled, and his bellow was surprisingly loud for such a gentle old man.

“Who’s Jasper?” asked Penny, counting out gumdrops. “Who’s Koko?”

“They’re my granddaughters,” said the old man. “Jasper’s about your age. You’ll like her. Everyone does.” He winked and then yelled again, “JASPER!”

“Oh,” said Penny.

Luella smiled and nodded in agreement. “She’s in my class at school. Jasper’s great! The best!”

When Luella said this, Penny suddenly felt strange—grumpy in a greenish kind of way. It took her by surprise because for days and days now she’d been feeling sunny and good. There was no reason why she should feel this way. And she
did
want to make more new friends. But …

Penny was new to jealousy, so she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what her grumpy, snaky feeling was.
She only knew she did not want to meet this Jasper girl.

“Jasper’s fun!” added Luella. “She made up her very own secret code. She has a pet skunk!”

Penny pretended to be absorbed in filling her bag with licorice whips. “That’s weird,” she said quietly.

Luella scowled at her cheerfully, in a way only Luella could manage. “Only because
you
haven’t met the skunk!”

When Jasper emerged from the storeroom, Penny was instantly certain she didn’t want to make friends. Jasper, in her faded sundress, red sneakers, and long auburn braid, was none other than the Possum Girl, and while Penny was growing to appreciate things like tangled hair and bare feet and trouble, she was pretty certain that she would never think it was fun to play with a squashed possum.

Penny sat and rooted through some brightly colored jawbreakers as Jasper and Luella high-fived each other. She fingered chocolate coins as they chattered about which teacher each of them was hoping to have when school began in the fall.

Penny had nothing to contribute since she had no idea what any of the teachers’ names were. As she listened to their chatter, a thought struck her—what if she wasn’t in Luella’s class? Or what if she didn’t like her teacher, or her new school?

Suddenly Penny—who had been perfectly happy a few moments before—had a great number of things to worry about, and all of them had arrived with Jasper.

After a few minutes Luella finally bothered to introduce Penny and Jasper to each other. Penny said a quick “Hey” and then looked back down at her candy as if there were something terribly interesting hiding among the gumdrops. Neither Luella nor Jasper noticed her lack of interest, which only made Penny feel worse.

Of course
Jasper wanted to join them for a walk.
Of course
she’d come along to the caves. Penny felt tight in her chest. She held up her candy bag and nudged Luella, who had the money. “How much?” she asked Mr. Milstein.

“Oh, no charge today!” said Mr. Milstein, waving the girls out the door. “Have a nice day, ladies!”

“Hey, thanks! That’s great!” said Luella. “Isn’t that great, Penny?”

“Great,” muttered Penny. She shoved a caramel into her mouth.

There was nothing for Penny to do but follow the other girls from the store. She chewed in frustration and listened to Luella and Jasper giggle. The sidewalk wasn’t wide enough for three, and it was Penny who fell behind.

BOOK FOUR
P
LIGHTS AND
G
RIPES

M
ORE
C
OUNTRY
C
OOKING

W
alking behind Luella and Jasper gave Penny plenty of time to think cranky thoughts. She wondered if Luella knew that her friend played with dead animals. She guessed not, and wondered if Luella would still be friends with Jasper once she found out. After that she wondered what Jasper had
done
with the possum when she got to wherever she’d been going. Penny couldn’t imagine. She noticed that Jasper’s braid, bouncing along ahead of her, was lopsided and fastened with a dirty rubber band. One of her red high-tops was untied.

Penny no longer found the birds and flowers so lovely. She noticed that the store windows were dingy. The people they passed on the street all looked angry. One man was grumbling out loud as he tried to start his car. The paint on the buildings looked peelier than before.

The farther they walked, the more grouchy Penny became. She wasn’t sure if she was more mad at Jasper for horning in on her day with Luella, or more disgusted by the general idea of a dead possum. The two feelings had gotten all tangled together so that she didn’t know what she was feeling anymore. In any case, it was not good, and she did not want to hunt for gold with Jasper, or do anything else with her either. Penny kicked a rock.

Sooner, rather than later, Penny
might
have been won back by the sunny day and the pleasure of eating a bagful of candy. Her jealousy and her disgust
might
have faded quickly into the landscape around her. Despite herself, Penny was intrigued when Jasper began to talk about her pet horse, Mr. Clop, and about how the three of them could all go riding one day. But then the three girls happened upon a squashed mouse lying in the road.