Fools Errand by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-03T21:26:39+00:00

16—G-MAN

“Ruby… Ruby… Ruby —what’s—Ruby—”

She’s saying my name over and over again. And I’m saying hers, too.

“All right, you two! This is a library.” Jo-Jo’s standing right behind me, and I can see exactly what her face looks like even though I don’t turn around.

Etty gets up from her desk and I meet her halfway, holding on to Sophie’s hand so hard I almost feel like it’ll break. But she doesn’t complain.

“Sophie’s going to take us to her place,” I tell Etty, but then Sophie makes a sound like a kitten, and I turn to look at her.

“Not sure—”

“Why don’t you girls take a little walk and we’ll go to my place after three?” Etty says. “Then you can tell your mom to meet us there.”

“Can I not even see your house?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Sophie says, and then Etty says we’re better safe than sorry.

“I have to talk to you,” I say, and Sophie leads Jo-Jo and me outside to a shady bench in back of the library. We sit down and start babbling, both of us trying to catch up so fast I don’t think we even bother to listen to each other. Jo-Jo gives up and rolls her eyes.

Finally I realize I better stop talking. “Why don’t you start?” I say.

Sophie tries to fill in the gaps in her letters, telling me how her mom sometimes cries all night and how they talk to Uncle Max once in a while, and how sometimes they worry they’re being followed, but they can’t be sure. She also tells me about her landlord’s baby and how there are more rabbits and squirrels out here than she’s ever seen. I try to remember how many squirrels I see in a day on Bleecker Street. I don’t think we have rabbits, though.

When Jo-Jo says she wants to go back inside, Sophie and I decide to take a little walk around the neighborhood and she shows me a little bit of Hammond. It’s mostly hot, but we do pass the river, which is muddy and brown and not nearly as wide as the Hudson or the East River back home.

After a while, we go back to the library again, and Sophie finds a cookbook for her mom. Finally, it’s three o’clock and the library closes. We pile into Etty’s blue car, but the librarian tells Sophie to walk home and bring her mother by in a little while. I can barely stand having Sophie walk away from us, but Etty promises we’ll see her soon and drives us to a one-story white house like you’d see in a storybook, with a picket fence and dandelions on the lawn. She says she doesn’t have much time to pull them up, but I think they’re pretty and tell her I’d keep them. She laughs and says that shows I’m a city girl.

Etty brings us inside and gives us some water. She doesn’t have cookies or sweets, but cuts up an apple and some nuts and raisins for us.

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