The Death of Sherlock Holmes & Other Stories by Mark Conte

Author:Mark Conte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, mystery, literary
Publisher: Mark Conte

When the song ended, everyone bowed their heads and said a last prayer for Danny. Jim O’Connor then stood up and thanked his neighbors and said, “I will never live anywhere else but the Devil’s Pocket.”

The next day the O’Connor home was quiet and civil. The children were polite and said “Please” and “Thank you” and “Would you mind,” and everyone came to the dinner table on time, and went to bed on time, but no one smiled or made jokes or laughed. It was as if someone had stolen the light from Jim O’Connor and his family.

Donovan and Bernadette became the best of friends and stood by each other always. They told each other secrets that they told no one else and walked home from school together every day.

Christmas that year was sad and quiet. Bernadette got Donovan in a Pollyanna and gave him a blank book to write all the stories he made up for her every day.

“Someday,” she said. “You’re going to be a famous writer and make a lot of money, and everyone will know you and everyone will know your life and what the Devil’s Pocket meant to all of us.”

“I hope so,” he said. “ I want to write so bad, Bernadette. There are so many things I want to write about.”

“You will,” she said. “And love poems too.

“And poems about courage and death,” Donovan said.

“And you’ll dedicate your first poem to me, because I’m your best friend.”

“It will say, ‘For Bernadette, my best friend’” Donovan said.

Bernadette spent Christmas Eve with the O’Connors that year, helping to make Christmas cookies, and roasted chestnuts and popcorn, and later she and Donovan sat together near to the radio listening to A Christmas Carol.

“You two could be brother and sister, you look so much alike,” Mrs. O’Connor said. “You’re both thin as rails.”

“Except for her freckles,” Donovan said.

“And that I’m six months older,” Bernadette said.

Summer of 1949 was a long string of heat waves and the kids played under the fireplug all day, every day. Bernadette had her 12th birthday in July and everyone told her she would be a woman next year, but she felt she had already gained her womanhood because of her early menstrual. She never told Donovan, afraid he would start thinking of her as a Sissy. But when school started in September, Bernadette wore a pretty blue taffeta dress with matching patent leather shoes. Donovan had never remembered seeing her like that before.

In November, they held a school dance at Saint Anthony’s and Bernadette asked Donovan if he would take her to the dance, because she didn’t want all those goofy boys asking her to dance. Mrs. O’Connor bought Donovan a tweed suit with a blue shirt and a red striped tie for the dance. He picked Bernadette up at her house and everyone there made a big fuss about the dance.

At the dance, there was a rotating ball in the middle of the ceiling that reflected color dots all over the dance floor and the dancers.

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