The Orphan's Daughter by Jan Cherubin

Author:Jan Cherubin [Cherubin, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950154166
Publisher: The Sager Group
Published: 2020-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

Tuckahoe

A week passed with no one asking me to shimmy up the flagpole or sleep in a coffin. Nothing happening except me looking over my shoulder every time I lined up to piss and brush my teeth or marched to class, or trudged up to the farm to muck out the stalls, until finally I was approached, just like Jesse said.

“Hey, Aronson.” A column of sunlight slanted into the barn between the slatted timbers. Stanley Hirsh stood at the entrance illuminated, his meaty fists on his hips.

“What?”

“I got a proposition for you and Chick Scheiner. A way for you saps to make some dough.”

I dropped my shovel and stepped out of the stall. This was it.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Charlie the porter. He has a job.”

“A feat of bravery?”

“Huh?” said Hirsh. “Listen, Aronson, you up for it?”

“What is it?”

“Whatever it is?”

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever.”

“Go see Charlie when you’re done here.”

My heart raced. I prayed the swimming hole was frozen, and I prayed for Shorty’s death. I saw Chick. “Wait up.” We headed down to the cottage that Charlie the porter shared with Carl Grimm and Hymie the handyman.

“Aronson. Scheiner. Been waitin’ on youse.” Charlie handed each of us a gunnysack. “Go to the barn. Collect as many kittens as fit. Bring ‘em back to me.”

Kittens? I looked past Charlie to see if Mr. Grimm was inside the house. I wondered what he would think. Whatever it is, Jesse had said.

On the way up to the barn we passed Harry and Pinky coming from the opposite direction.

“Hey small fry, where you headed?” said Chick.

“Candy store,” said Harry.

“Oh shit,” I said. “Where’d you get that nickel?”

“I found it.”

“Better not be from Shorty Lapidus.”

“I told you,” said Harry. “I found it.”

“You better have found it. Now scram, the both of youse. Go get your candy.”

We had a job to do. Here kitty, kitty. Alice’s new litter, and others. Her grandchildren. Great grandchildren. She’d been around a while. I plucked a kitten clinging to Chick’s pant leg and dropped the cat into my sack. Big old Pussy Alice lay on her side and licked her paws. A gray fuzz ball slept next to her. The runt. Whatever it is, do it. I peered into my bag. I had four or five already. Chick had the same. It was enough. I let the fuzz ball sleep.

Charlie the porter tied the sacks shut with twine. “Take the path down to the creek over toward the aqueduct side. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Yeah, we know.” We stood in the driveway.

“You put the sack in the water, you hold it under.”

“What?”

“It ain’t frozen over. I seen it.”

“But the kittens . . . They’ll drown,” said Chick.

“That’s the idea.”

Chick and I kicked at the gravel. We were only nine, going on ten.

“We got too many on the grounds here. It’s a threat to the public health.”

We shrugged and stared at our feet.

“Far worse starving to death,” said Charlie.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Then go. Get on with it.

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