Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny
- Автор: Мерфи Ширли Руссо
- Язык: английский
- Год: Ad Stellae Books
- Жанр: Фэнтези
Электронная книга - «Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny». Краткое содержание книги:
“Who cares? Make up the couch in the living room. You and Bingo can sleep there.” Mama found an extra blanket and covered Crystal with it.
Jenny lay in the darkness thinking she couldn’t possibly sleep. She did sleep, but she woke suddenly. Some noise had awakened her. She sat up in bed and listened. Had she heard a door close? She switched on the light and pulled her robe around her.
She stood in the doorway to the bedroom and stared at the empty beds. Crystal and Clayhill were gone.
She went to wake Mama, shaking her frantically. “Mama, Crystal’s gone!”
“Where she gone?” Mama mumbled.
“I don’t know. With Clayhill, I guess. But she’s stoned.”
“She’s probably at Clayhill’s. Go see if she’s at Clayhill’s, Jenny.”
“At three in the morning? You go.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Jenny.” Mama turned on the lamp and sat staring at Jenny angrily. Then she flung her wrapper around her, dug under the bed for her slippers, sighed, and stumbled out. Lud snored. Jenny turned, then stopped and stared. Beside the bed stood Mama’s three suitcases, open and packed. Her shoes, filled with nylon panties, were stuffed on top of the clothes.
Why hadn’t she told them to pack?
Maybe she had meant to tell them in the morning. What would one expect after the way Mr. Knutson raked her over! I never want to know, I never want to face it. Jenny thought, Oh, I don’t want to go this time. She felt shaky in her middle. Well, she can’t go without Crystal. I bet Mama’s fit to be tied, I bet that’s why she went to look for Crystal. I hope she doesn’t find her. Then we can’t go.
Crystal was not at Clayhill’s, nor was Clayhill. When Mama came back she roused Lud out and made him help search the building.
She’s worried because we can’t leave, Jenny thought cruelly. She’s not worried about Crystal. When Bingo woke, confused at the commotion, Jenny told him Crystal was gone. He put on his glasses and said very matter-of-factly, “Well, where did she go?”
“I don’t know!” she screamed at him. Then Mama got back and sat down in a hard chair and clasped and unclasped her hands, and Jenny thought of Mama holding Crystal on her lap and trying to rock her. She watched Mama silently, waiting to see what she would do next.
Finally Mama said, “Crystal can take care of herself,” then repeated uncertainly, “She can take care of herself.” Lud came in shaking his head stupidly, still half asleep, and Mama followed him into the bedroom and shut the door. They could hear her nervous voice but not the words.
“She’s all packed to leave,” Jenny said.
Bingo stared at her, then threw his covers back and reached for his pants.
“No, stay in bed. We don’t need to go anywhere in the middle of the night. If we’re not packed they’ll have to wait for us. Anyway, they can’t go until Crystal gets home.” She got under the covers, then sat up again and stared at him. “If she doesn’t come back in the morning, what will Mama do?” She could feel the tension in Mama, the tight quickness that meant only one thing: Mama had to get away.
Jenny did not sleep; she lay waiting for something. And pretty soon she heard it, she heard Mama set something heavy down by the front door. She opened her eyes and watched Mama moving around with her coat on, and then saw the suitcase. Mama came and sat on the bed. “Lud’ll run me to the Greyhound, there’s a bus in half an hour. You can pack up the rest of the stuff tomorrow and get the car loaded. I’ll have a nice apartment all picked out.”
“You’re going tonight? You’re going to leave Crystal?”
“She’ll be back in the morning. If she’s not she can stay at the landlady’s until Lud can come get her.”
“Oh, Mama!”
“Well I didn’t ask her to run off in the middle of the night, Jenny. I didn’t ask her to get me in trouble with Knutson, either, coming in here stoned.” Mama pulled nervously at her skirt. “Lud’ll just run me to the bus. It won’t take long, you’ll be all right with Lud. He’ll buy you a nice breakfast.”
Before the door slammed shut, Bingo was running for the bathroom, heaving.
Jenny lay staring at the front door.
After a while she went into the bathroom. Bingo was kneeling with his head over the toilet. She knelt beside him and touched his arm gently. He pushed at her and gasped, “Go away, go away!
She went into the living room, sat down, and clenched her hands in front of her. We’re not going without Crystal. We won’t! And then as if someone shouted the words inside her head, We’re not going anyway. We’re not going even if Crystal does come back in time. We’re not ever going to run any more. She sat there quite still. Then she picked up the blanket and began to fold it.
Bingo heaved once more, loudly, and Jenny thought, It must be awful to be sick every time something happens to us. When he came out he was pale. He sat down next to her.
“Do you feel better? I have something to tell you.”
He nodded.
“We aren’t going to stay with Lud until morning. We aren’t going to run away any more. We’re through running.” Her face was perfectly calm but tears were streaming down her cheeks. “We’re going back to J.D.H.”
“And leave Mama?”
“Mama left us.”
“She’ll be mad.”
“We have a right to be mad. Don’t you see that? Mama has jumped bail now. She’ll be running from the police. Even if we followed her, it wouldn’t be for long. When she’s picked up she’ll go to jail. There’s nowhere for us to go then, we’d be put in a home. And it might not be as nice as J.D.H. Do you want to keep running and running, moving every few days with the police looking for you?”
Bingo thought about it. The lamplight reflected on his glasses. Finally, “Go call the cops, then. Before Lud gets back.”
She was afraid in the dark halls. She hurried for fear Lud would come. It was dark by the phone too, and the door to the trash room stood ajar. She could barely see the print on the phone book, and somehow she missed the page with the police number on it. Then when she found it she dropped her dime and had to fish for it on the dark, greasy carpet. When finally she had the police operator she could not say what she wanted, she could not get the words out. Do something, she thought, do something. Finally she gave the address. That came out well enough, and after that she was able to make herself understood.
When she got back to the apartment Bingo was packing. She helped him stuff their clothes into a suitcase. Then they sat down to wait for the police. It was four o’clock in the morning, February twenty-third. Jenny’s sixteenth birthday.
Chapter 9
Jenny sat in her room at J.D.H. the next afternoon and waited to hear what Mrs. Dermody had to tell her; she had been summoned the minute Mrs. Dermody came on duty.
“Jenny, Sammy was picked up this morning for questioning about that pot party, and about your sister’s disappearance.”
“Where is she?”
“According to Sammy, she and the two boys came back last night as your mother was leaving. They watched her put her suitcases in the car, and they watched you and Bingo get into the patrol car. When everyone was gone, Crystal threw quite a tantrum, Sammy said. Then she packed her things, and left with Clayhill. Sammy says he doesn’t know where they went, but Crystal said, ‘The farther the better.’ That’s all the police learned, Jenny. It isn’t much or very good news. I’m sorry.”