The Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli

Author:Jerry Spinelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

36

Cap pistols snapping in the streets. Cherry bombs booming in stairwells. Whistlers in the sky. Sparklers in the grass.

But inside the women’s yard the Fourth seemed like just another day. Deena sunbathing. Helen and Tessa squabbling over badminton. Cigarette tips kissing.

In the Quiet Room, Boo Boo’s story on this day was about the time she won the Fourth of July sack race at the park. She was ten at the time. Her partner was a little boy named Raymond. She snatched him from the crowd. “Raymond was about five,” she said in a whisper, as if park officials were listening. “But even then he was small for his age. He looked three. And he weighed about as much as a peanut.”

His size was the key to her brilliant plan. She dumped him into the burlap sack, one leg in, one leg out, told him to hang on and took off with the “Go!” Raymond was so tiny it was as if she was racing alone. He just hung on to the finish line. The officials conferred. They decided she’d done nothing against the rules and had no choice but to declare her—and Raymond—the winners. “Miss Boo Boo Dunbar!” came out of the loudspeakers, and that’s how she replayed it to me on the concrete bench. The prize was a picnic basket full of Tastykake pies.

“I gave him the lemon,” she said. “I hated lemon.” She rubbed her massive stomach. “You know where the rest went.”

The brewery whistle announced lunchtime. As the women headed back inside…

“Day I’m out, what I’m bringin’?”

“Sweet potato pie!”

Many of the women asked if I was going to the fireworks that night. The sound in their voices, the looks in their eyes, told me the Fourth was not after all just another day to them.

—

My band of Jailbirds headed for the park, where every grill and picnic table was occupied. Blankets and bare feet and deviled eggs wherever you looked. Face painting. Sack race. Baby-crawl race. Uncle Sam on stilts. Barbershop singers at the band shell. Talent show.

No doubt people thought they were celebrating the 183rd birthday of the USA. They were wrong. The parades across the country, the fireworks, the picnics, the speeches—it was all really a celebration of Reggie Weinstein’s stupendous day at Bandstand. We roamed from band shell to zoo and everywhere heard the cries:

“Reggie!”

“I saw you yesterday!”

“Reggie!”

Thanks to our famous friend, we were all offered picnic food from a hundred blankets and tables. Every other minute another little kid asked for the celebrity’s autograph.

We happened to stop by the talent show as some kid was playing the clarinet. Reggie jabbed me. “Hey—that’s him.”

“Huh?” I said. “Who?”

“Him. The guy that likes you. From outside the jail that day.”

The boy was finishing his performance and taking the instrument away from his face, and—yes—it was the Roadmaster bike kid. He took a quick bow and waved and trotted off the stage as the audience applauded.

I jabbed her back. “You’re crazy. He doesn’t like me.”

“He just waved at you,” she crooned.

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