The Undertaking of Tess by Kagen Lesley

Author:Kagen, Lesley [Kagen, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress (a BookSparks imprint)
Published: 2014-07-24T05:00:00+00:00

I’m worried that when the owner of the drug store told Birdie that Daddy was really dead that she started wailing. I can only hope she didn’t do that really loud and in front of one of the gossipy ladies from the Pagan Baby Society because they would talk about her at their next Monday night meeting, and then Louise will know for sure that Birdie has gone around the bend.

That was so stupid of me to send her up there in the first place. Selfish. I needed her out of the way, and knowing that she can’t resist a brown cow, or me, I lied and told her that I wasn’t feeling good and gave her a dollar from my piggy bank so she could get herself a float and me some Tums, even though I knew that wasn’t the ginchiest idea because she’d probably just stand in that air-conditioned store and stare at that stupid picture postcard taped up to the cash register for an hour. It was a gamble, and I lost. But who knows? Maybe it’ll turn out okay in the long run because at least she knows now that Daddy really is at the bottom of Lake Michigan and not catching pointy-nosed fishes in Boca Raton.

Once Birdie skipped far enough down the block yesterday that I was sure she wasn’t going to double back, I checked to make sure that Mrs. Klement was at confession and couldn’t spy on me some more from her stool in the back window, and I hopped over the cemetery fence to do another one of what the cavalry calls scouting missions. Birdie hasn’t been coming with me to look for Daddy’s pretend grave because she didn’t want to face the truth, but I’ve been sneaking away when she was busy cleaning or doing something else for Mother, like giving her a foot rub, so when the day came that she finally did believe that he really is dead—like she does now—I could take her straight to him.

I looked and looked until I bumped into Mr. McGinty not far from the pond where Daddy and me used to fish. That was odd, because Mr. McGinty usually only digs graves, mows, and pulls weeds right after the sun comes up or close to when it’s about to set, so there is less chance that he’ll run into visitors because he is very shy except around Birdie and me. He doesn’t get out of the cemetery much, only to early Mass, and he buys food, but I have never seen him at the grocery store. Secretly, I think that he takes care of more than just the cemetery. I think he keeps his eye out for, and on, the Finley sisters. Did Daddy ask him to do that in case anything happened to him because our mother is 100% Irish and it’s a well-known fact that they are not good with kids? That seems possible because Daddy really liked Mr. McGinty. “Pipe down, Louise.

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