Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel (19 page)

You should see the papers … the front page is all about Claude Pistal. They even ran a picture of Jimmy Snow pointing to the spot where he discovered the body. Jimmy sure looks like an albino in that picture. The article said that ten bullets from three different guns had been used and that three bullets from a .22 caliber pistol were found in his liver. Somebody was a good shot unless they had been aiming for his heart. Claude’s real name was Claude Piastelia and he had been in jail on all kinds of things, including manslaughter. Boy, I am glad he is dead. The only thing I can’t figure out is how Daddy knew Claude was dead at 9:30 that morning when the paper said Jimmy Snow didn’t discover the body until 10:08.

Today Harold Pistal brought Angel down to the house to say good-bye. They are moving away because of all the stuff that was in the papers about Claude. Thank goodness Angel can’t read yet. She had on a Davy Crockett hat that she is just crazy about. I don’t think she even knows that Claude is dead. When we all took a walk on the beach, I told Harold I was sorry his brother
had been killed. Because I wasn’t going to lie, I also said that since Claude was trying to kill me, I wasn’t as sorry as I should be, and after all, I was an only child and was needed at home. Harold thought maybe it was better he was dead. Angel was making a crooked sand castle and couldn’t hear, so he confessed to me that Claude had killed his wife in a jealous rage and was never the same after that. I wasn’t surprised to hear it. When I asked him if Claude had killed Ruby Bates, he said probably. What’s more, Harold already knew from Claude about me seeing Ruby and him together. I almost fainted on that one. Claude had remembered after all. I said, “I knew he was trying to kill me that night up at the fair.”

“He wasn’t trying to kill you, Daisy.”

“He wasn’t?”

“No, he was just looking for Angel and thought she might be with you.”

“I think he was out to kill me.”

“He would have never killed you. Because he couldn’t is one of the reasons he left the country. He thought you might remember seeing him and Ruby.”

“I still think he was out to kill me.”

“He would never have hurt you, you saved Angel’s life.”

“That didn’t stop him from hating me.”

“He didn’t hate you, he just didn’t think you should be hanging around the nightclub talking to those friends of his. He didn’t trust them.”

“Well, anyway, he never thanked me for saving Angel’s life.”

“He couldn’t, he didn’t want anyone to know …”

“Know what?”

“That Angel was his little girl. We took her after her mother was killed when she was about six months old.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Harold made me swear not to repeat anything he had told me to anybody, and I promised I wouldn’t. I asked him if he had any idea who had killed Claude and he said no. I am beginning to have an idea, but I don’t want to think about it.

Angel hugged me good-bye and promised to write when she
learned how. I couldn’t help thinking how lucky for me it was that she fell out of the boat that day. Poor Angel. I will miss her. Just think she has to go through life with big ears and on top of it she doesn’t even know she is an Italian person.…

I’m Mother Goose in the Christmas play! I am so mad. Everybody in my class gets to be in their own play, but I have to be in the first and second graders’. I have no choice because Mrs. Underwood told them I would. I wanted to do my imitation of Vaughn Monroe singing “Racing with the Moon.”

When the curtain goes up, I say, “I am Mother Goose, and I am in a tizzy. It is almost time for me to take all my little Mother Goose characters to the manger to see the Baby Jesus, who has just been born under the Star of the East.”

Then the Star of the East walks across the stage and takes a bow.

The first-grade teacher, Miss Florence, rings a bell backstage, and I say, “There goes the magic bell.” I go up to where they are going to have this big papier-mâché book and after I say, “Oh, look, here are Jack and Jill,” these little first and second graders walk out of the book, all dressed like whoever they are supposed to be. I have to announce all of them.

When Tom, the piper’s son, the last one, comes out, I say, “Now, children, we must be off to Bethlehem to see the Baby Jesus, who has just been born under the Star of the East.” Then the Star of the East walks by again and takes another bow and we all walk off in the same direction as the Star. At the end of
the whole pageant we are discovered standing in the manger.

That’s stupid. Mother Goose didn’t even live at the same time as Jesus.

Mrs. Underwood is having a problem casting the manger scene. She is trying to be democratic and let everybody vote who they want to be Mary and Joseph. I can’t even vote because Kay Bob Benson said I shouldn’t because I wasn’t going to be in their part of the show.

I didn’t even get to take part in the Thanksgiving parade. I didn’t have anybody to make me a Pilgrim outfit. It was a dumb parade anyway. They had a float that was supposed to be Washington crossing the Delaware, but it wasn’t nothing but George Crawford wearing a black hat, sitting in a rowboat his daddy had put in the back of their pickup truck that said “Crawford’s Septic Tanks.” This boy named Jimmy Beck was a float, but he was just riding a bicycle with crepe paper on it, with a dog in the basket. Kay Bob Benson was the Statute of Liberty with a silver cardboard crown. The Magnolia Springs High School Marching Band was there, too, but they are terrible. Not a one of them can march in a straight line and they have too many trumpets. The best thing in the parade was the Mississippi Maidens, Mr. Curtis Honeywell’s all-girl army.

At Jr. Debutantes, we are painting magnolia leaves oleander pink and seafoam green to decorate this Christmas tree that Mrs. Dot has sticking in a sand dune to beautify the beach for the holidays. We have to pin the decorations on because they keep blowing off. The whole tree blew over the other day.

I got a real nice letter from Momma. She is going to try and visit me at Christmas. I can’t wait to see her. I wish I could get her that silver fox fur.

We drew names in school and we have to get whose ever name we got a present. We are not to spend over a quarter. I drew Reba Quigley, but I swapped it with Patsy Ruth Coggins, who got Vernon Mooseburger’s. I wonder who got my name! I hope it wasn’t one of those potato farmers’ children. I don’t want anything homemade. I am going to get Mrs. Underwood a bowl for her fish so she can take it out of the pickled pig’s feet jar Peachy Wigham gave me.

Michael and I were in Elwood’s Variety Store yesterday shopping for our presents. We were in the back of the store in the boys and girls’ ready-to-wear department when I saw a little boy dummy they had dressed up in a checked suit. He had on a blond wig that would be just perfect for Vernon Mooseburger’s head. It has a part in it and everything. He wouldn’t ever have to comb it because it was all stuck together, real neat like. If I could get him that wig, then he wouldn’t have to wear that brown leatherette hat when he played the shepherd.

I asked the manager, Mrs. Hilda Jinx, how much that blond wig was, but it was not for sale. I told Michael I had it in my mind to snatch that wig off of that little boy dummy’s head when nobody was looking. Vernon Mooseburger could get a lot more wear out of it than that dummy and needed it much worse because that dummy wasn’t going to be in a Christmas play. Michael says he won’t help me get that wig because he doesn’t want to spend Christmas in jail. I told him he wouldn’t go to jail. I was the one who was going to take it. Robin Hood used to steal from the rich to give to the poor, and this way we were stealing from a dead dummy and giving to the living, so it would be all right. I reminded him about Tawney the Tassel Woman. If he was being so honest, it was my duty to tell his mother the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I hated to do this to Michael, but I was forced to. When we got home, I made Michael practice having an epileptic fit all night, until he got it right.

Today after play practice, I said to Miss Florence, “I’m going to walk around in this Mother Goose outfit a little and I’ll be right back.”

She said, “Don’t you dare go outside and get that Mother Goose dress dirty.”

I was stuck, so I said, “OK, but I have to go to the bathroom,” and took off before she could stop me.

Michael was outside waiting on me. We headed downtown, and on the way we went over the plans again. He went into Elwood’s and started shopping while I waited in the Big B Drugstore. Then I followed him into Elwood’s.

Michael was walking around the store, talking out loud, saying, “Let’s see, who can I buy this for?” and picking up stuff
and putting it down again. Then he’d say, “I wonder if my mother would like this?” He always overdoes things.

Mrs. Hilda Jinx looked at me funny. I got back in the children’s department without her stopping me and waited for Michael to have his fit. Pretty soon he fell on the floor and yelled, “I’m having an epileptic fit. Help. I’m having an epileptic fit.” He wasn’t supposed to say anything! Everybody ran over to see him and I snatched the wig, but somebody had glued the stupid thing to the dummy’s head. I finally peeled it off and got out the door without anybody seeing me.

I met Michael back up at the school and he was bragging on himself about how good he threw fits. When I got home, the wig was a mess from being in my geography book all afternoon. I worked on it for hours and then stuffed it with newspaper to keep its shape.

I can’t wait until Vernon Mooseburger sees his present. He is going to have the best Christmas. At Jr. Debutantes, Mrs. Dot said when you get someone a gift, make sure it is something that they can enjoy and something that fits their personality. What could be more perfect for a bald boy than a wig? He needs eyebrows, too, but the dummy’s eyebrows were painted on. Too bad. Maybe I can get him eyebrows next year.

We exchanged presents today in school. I gave Mrs. Underwood a goldfish bowl and a box of Mary Ball candy and some Blue Waltz perfume. George Crawford drew my name. He gave me five packs of Wrigley’s spearmint gum … twenty-five cents … cheapskate! You should have seen Vernon Mooseburger’s
face when he got his wig. He ran into the bathroom and put it on. It looks great, except it pokes out at the back and on the sides, but I told him he could glue it down or put Scotch tape on it and then it will be perfect. Everybody loved it except Kay Bob Benson, who said it looked cheap, but I’ll bet it is worth a lot more than a quarter.

Just after we had opened all our presents and Mrs. Underwood was reading us
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
, Chapter 1, “A Clue for Nancy,” someone knocked on the door. She went to see who it was and came back with a big smile on her face and said, “Daisy Fay, there is someone to see you.” I thought, I’m not going to go through that again. I asked Mrs. Underwood to find out who it was and get a positive identification. Mrs. Underwood said, “Daisy, it’s a surprise.” I told her I was not interested in any surprise visitors. She said, “All right, I’m not supposed to tell you, but it’s your mother.”

I said, “Does she have green eyes and funny eyebrows?”

Mrs. Underwood said, “Daisy, I know your mother.”

I went out in the hall and there was my momma, all the way from Virginia. Boy, was I glad to see her. Yeah! She is going to be here with me until the day after Christmas, staying at the Magnolia Springs Hotel because she still isn’t speaking to Daddy. She will come and see me in the Christmas play tomorrow night.

I’m home getting my pajamas and things and she is up visiting Velveeta Pritchard in the colored quarters. Momma still thinks Velveeta is wooonnderfullll. I feel sorry for Daddy. He is very upset that Momma is here and won’t even see him. He and Jimmy Snow are in the other room, tying one on. I hope they sober up in time to see me in the play.

Momma told me all about her job in Virginia. She is not a waitress anymore, she got a promotion. She is now the Official Hostess in a very important pancake house in Charlottesville called the Pancake House and she can wear her own clothes instead of a waitress uniform. When I come to Virginia, I can eat all the free pancakes I want. I like every kind except buckwheat. They taste like nails.

We are in the “Dashes from Dot” column. It says that: “Mrs. William Harper, Jr., and her darling daughter, Daisy Fay, are
wintering at the Magnolia Springs Hotel.” We are only going to be there four days.

Momma left this morning. I hated for her to go. For Christmas, Momma got me a new outfit, some underwear, socks and a picture of her she had made in a department store. My present to her was some new Merle Norman makeup. They have a card down there with the color Momma wears, natural beige. She said that she had been running out and it was the perfect present. I must have a natural talent for picking out gifts.

Grandma mailed me some crocheted doilies and she and Aunt Bess sent me $5 apiece. Momma said Daddy was lazy because he gave me a $20 bill instead of going shopping. I got a box of handkerchiefs from Jimmy Snow. Blah! I gave him a six-pack of Budweiser, his favorite, and I gave Daddy Pabst Blue Ribbon. I had to buy the beer from Peachy Wigham. Nobody will sell beer to a child in Mississippi even for a present. Peachy and Ula Sour bought me a big Bible with pictures of Jesus and Mary and Joseph as colored people. I felt real bad because I didn’t have anything for them.

The play went OK except when I came out on the stage. I was looking in the audience to see where my momma was sitting. Daddy and Jimmy Snow were standing in the back. So were Mr. Curtis Honeywell and his all-girl army, but I couldn’t find Momma. When I did locate her, she was sitting right beside Mrs. Hilda Jinx from Elwood’s Variety Store! It made me forget my lines because Michael and I had gone to the movie
I Was a Shoplifter
with Mona Freeman right after we had stolen that
wig. You should have seen what happened to her! But when Miss Florence rang the magic bell backstage, I said, “Oops, there goes the magic bell now,” and I remembered my words. Jack Be Nimble’s candle blew out before he got two steps through the storybook, so he started to cry; and little Miss Muffet pulled her dress up over her head, but other than that, it went OK.