Sirens and Spies by Janet Taylor Lisle

Author:Janet Taylor Lisle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781453271834
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-12-13T23:43:00+00:00

12

ABOUT NOON THE FOLLOWING day, which was a Wednesday, the sky over Millport turned rat gray. By 3 P.M., snow was falling, the kind of small swirling flakes that bode large storms of evil intent.

Jimmy Dee, skulking on a bench outside the public library, saw it coming before anyone. Without a second thought, he headed over to the Millport Pizza Palace to stake out cover in a flanking alley. He knew from experience where the vents for the big ovens opened through the wall. He knew which corner caught the heat, which metal trash container retained it, which rotten eave of which rotten roof broke the down draft. He sat on a piece of packing crate, lit the end of a well-chewed cigar and watched the sky.

“Looks bad. Real bad,” Mrs. Mott told Mrs. Cruikshank on the phone from her house. “I hear New York City is going to get hit right smack on the head.”

“Serves it right,” replied Mrs. Cruikshank. “Are you calling off our bridge game tomorrow?”

“Well, I can hardly see to the street already!”

Mrs. Mott hung up and went down to the cellar to hunt for the snow shovel.

In the kitchen of the Potter house, Mrs. Potter was taking stock of her food supplies, and groaning.

“Wouldn’t you just know it?” she told Roo. “The very afternoon I was planning to go to the market and here comes more snow. We’ve got spaghetti, I see. And these canned lima beans.”

“Ugh,” said Roo.

“A spring snow’s the worst snow,” Mrs. Potter went on, glancing out the window. “All those poor little animals just coming out to get warm; all the buds getting ready to grow, and then, snap, the freeze buckles them right down under again.”

“This isn’t spring,” Roo pointed out. “This is just more freeze on top of freeze that was already there.”

In her room at the top of the house, Granny Colie pulled down her shades. She turned her reading lamp up on high. She took her sunglasses out of a drawer in the table next to her chair. Then she sat down to bask and wait for the arrival of tea. It felt just like Florida.

Mary came down the front stairs buttoning her coat. She tied a scarf around her neck.

“I’m going out,” she called to her mother. “I’ll be back for dinner.”

“Out! But you’ve only just come in. And this snow!”

“It’s not so bad. I’ve got to go see Miss Fitch,” Mary called, louder than she needed for her voice to reach into the kitchen. She turned around and looked up the stairs. Nothing stirred. Down at the end of the hall, Elsie’s door stayed firmly shut.

“Goodbye!” shouted Mary. But she stood before the hall mirror pulling her woolen cap this way and that. She put on her gloves, took one off again, inspected some loose stitching in one finger, then put it back on.

“I’m going now!” cried Mary toward the second floor.

Roo shot out of the kitchen wearing a white milk mustache.

“You’ve been saying that for ten minutes,” she said, severely.

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