Me and Fat Glenda (13 page)

“What's she got to do with it?” I asked.

“Oh boy,” Bruce said. “How dumb can you be? Didn't you even know she was the one who started that petition against you? She cooked up the whole idea, calling people on the phone and getting them all worked up about it. Then she got a couple of
other
people to go door to door with it, getting folks to sign. But everybody around here knows it was her baby.” Bruce paused and looked
straight at me. “I'll bet that fat pal of yours never even told you.”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. “No. No, she never did.” Then I thought I had the answer. “If Mrs. Waite did start the petition, I'm absolutely sure Glenda didn't know anything about it.”

“You're sure, are you?” Toby challenged.

“Oh yes, Toby, I am.”

I could see that Toby didn't believe Glenda was innocent

“All right,” I said, “I'll just go right in the house and phone Glenda and ask her. Is that okay with you?”

Toby and Bruce both looked at me. They didn't say anything. Then they turned away and started fishing around silently in the junk again.

The minute I heard Glenda's voice answering the telephone I knew she was very upset but it was hard to tell about what or at whom.

“What's the matter?” I asked her.

“Nothing. Why'd you call?”

“Listen, Glen. Toby said he's sorry about what he said.”

She didn't say anything. I went on. “I know that doesn't help much. He shouldn't have said it.”

Still no answer.

“Well, listen Glenda, don't be angry at
me
. I didn't
say it. Or is there something else you're angry about? Oh, come on, Glenda. It's not the first time somebody said something rotten to you. Don't be so sensitive.”

“Oh,” she said sullenly, “what would
you
know about it?”

“Plenty. I've been hit on the head, too, you know. In fact, there's something I have to ask you right now and please tell me the truth.”

“I don't tell lies!” Glenda snapped.

“Okay. Calm down. I didn't say you did.”

“You made it sound like I did. And I don't!”

“Okay, okay. What are you getting so steamed up about? Glenda,
please
, just tell me this. There's some kind of talk going around that it was your mother who started the petition. You know, the one that said how we'd have to get out of the neighborhood.”

“Who told you that?” she said suspiciously.

“Well, it really doesn't matter because everyone around here seems to know and we only just found out. So all I'm asking you is was it really your mother who started it and, if it was, did you know that she was doing it?”

It was dead quiet at the other end of the wire. I could hear my heart pounding louder and louder. But still no answer from Glenda.

“Glenda,” I said hoarsely, “I asked you a question. You're supposed to be my friend and you said you'd tell
me the truth. So tell me, can't you?”

I didn't think she was ever going to answer me and then her voice came over the wire, twisted and nasty. I'd never heard it like that before.

“You know what
I
think,” Glenda snarled. “I think that from now on you'd better stick to
your
family and I'd better stick to
my
family!”

And, with that, she hung up on me.

11

Inez and Drew were getting ready to leave for the Halloween dance at the college. They were going early because Pop was on the committee to decorate the gym where the dance was going to be held.

Mom was wearing a black leotard with a high neck and long sleeves. She was just fastening a floor-length skirt of bright orange-and-red wool, which she had woven herself, around her waist. And she had lots of jangling gold jewelry around her neck. She looked really great and not too spooky at all in spite of the fact that it was Halloween.

“Sara love, are you really going to stay home tonight? No trick-or-treating? No party?”

“That's right,” I said. I was sitting, all crumpled up, on a straw mat on the floor of my room. That was how I felt inside, too. Crumpled up. Like a sheet of fresh white tissue paper that somebody had taken in their fist and squashed into something the size of a ping-pong ball.

Mom crouched down beside me. “It's a pity. You had
such a good idea for a costume. And you worked so hard on that Statue of Liberty crown.”

I shook my head. “Doesn't matter.”

“Couldn't you still arrange to go out trick-or-treating with some of the other kids, maybe some of the kids who are going to be at the party? Or Toby could go trick-or-treating with you and then take you over to Roddy's party and we'd pick you up when it's over. Toby won't mind getting to his party a little later. He feels sort of responsible for this mess between you and Glenda.”

“No,” I interrupted irritably. “I can't do that. Don't you see, that's exactly what Glenda's going to do. She'll probably go trick-or-treating with those kids and then
she'll
go to Roddy's party. Oooh, I have a good mind to phone her right this minute and tell her they never wanted her there in the first place and only invited her at the last minute because they knew I wouldn't come without her!” And I began scrambling to my feet, thinking that was exactly what I'd do.

But Inez put a firm hand on my shoulder. “No Sara. Don't do that. Telling Glenda the truth about Roddy's invitation would be very cruel and hurtful.”

“But look how she's hurt me! ‘You stick to
your
family; I'll stick to
my
family.' And all the time I thought we understood and even liked each other's families. I really
did
like her family. Going over to her house to make alphabet-burgers in her mother's kitchen was like stepping
back into Aunt Minna's kitchen in Crestview. I even told Glenda how I felt because I thought she was my friend. And she used to tell me how interesting she thought you and Pop were and how she admired the clever way we did things at our house.”

Inez just kept watching me with a worried frown.

“And now,” I went on, “I see that she only pretended to understand what it was like for me, because she needed to have a friend. Because nobody else in the whole neighborhood would have anything to do with her. Now she'll have plenty of friends and she won't need me. And she'll never even know that the only reason she got them was because of me.”

Mom put her arm around my shoulders. “No Sara, it won't work that way. If there is some reason they didn't want her before, they won't be so quick to accept her now.”

“Yes, they will,” I insisted. “She'll tell them all how kooky we are. How you painted the guest room ceiling black and how none of us sleep in regular beds and how you and Drew eat raw meat with raw eggs on top. And they'll all make terrible fun of me. Oh, can't we move back to California?” I pleaded. “It's going to be awful here without any friends at all.”

“Sara,” Inez soothed, “please don't decide this minute how everything is going to be from now on. You're very upset—and you're mixed up, too.”

“All I know is I hate Glenda,” I exploded. “I just hate her!”

“Don't say that, Sara. Glenda really was your friend in many ways. But perhaps it took too much courage for her to be your friend all the way. Just remember that you were the one who told us to be patient because people around here weren't ready for changes. Maybe Glenda wasn't as ready as you thought she was. Maybe it was too hard for her to ‘understand'; maybe she always had too many problems of her own.”

I just sat there thinking bitterly that it was easy for Mom to be so understanding toward Glenda;
she
hadn't just lost her only friend.

It wasn't the same for Inez and Drew as it was for me. They had made lots of friends among the people who taught out at the college. Toby had it easy, too, because he liked a lot of the kids who worked on the school newspaper and who came to Havenhurst High from all over the surrounding area, not just from our part of Havenhurst.

Just then Drew stuck his head in the doorway of my room. “Ready to go, I? How's Sara?”

“I'm okay,” I said glumly.

“Not very,” Mom said, giving Pop a quick look. She turned to me. “Look, Sara. Toby will stay with you until nine o'clock. I'll phone from the college about ten, to see how you are. If you're still upset I'll come back before
Toby leaves. I wouldn't even go now except I've promised to do the special effects part of the decorating. Is that plan okay?”

I nodded. Mom touched her lips to the top of my head and went off downstairs to tell Toby the plan. Right after that she and Pop left.

It was still early, only about seven thirty. All afternoon the little kids had kept coming around, ringing the doorbell to get candy for trick-or-treat. They traipsed up the steps in their funny little costumes, lugging great big orange-and-black shopping bags for people to dump the candy in. Some of them were so small they couldn't even reach the doorbell. Most of them came with their mothers who waited for them out on the sidewalk. But now they had dwindled down to a trickle. Toby had been staying downstairs for the past half hour so he could answer the door.

I went downstairs slowly. Toby was sitting in the living room with a book in his lap. He looked up as I came into the room.

“Hi, Sara,” he said. “Are you sore at me?”

“Why should I be?”

“Well, I'm afraid my bringing Bruce over here this afternoon had a lot to do with busting up your Halloween plans.”

“No, Toby. It isn't your fault—it's Glenda's. Or maybe
it's just the way things are. Anyhow, Toby, what I came downstairs to tell you is that I'm okay. So why don't you go on over to your party now?”

Toby shook his head. “I told Inez I'd be here till nine o'clock.”

“Look Toby, that's stupid. I'm as okay now as I'm going to be at nine. When Mom phones, I'll tell her I made you go even though you didn't want to. Except I know you really do. I mean it, Toby. Please don't hang around on my account.”

“Nope. Nothing doing.”

But I could tell Toby wasn't going to hold out for long. I went back up to my room and about ten minutes later he came up and said if I was
really
okay maybe he
would
leave.

“Boy,” I said, “you're harder to get rid of than the itch from a whole can of itching powder.”

“Okay,” Toby cautioned, “but one thing I want you to promise.”

“What's that?”

“No opening the door to any trick-or-treaters who come around from now on.”

“What should I do? Suppose they get sore and pull a trick?”

“I already took care of that. I put all the Halloween candy in a big brown bag and attached it to the outside doorknob with a sign that says, ‘Please take some and
leave the rest for others.' That ought to do it.”

I nodded.

“Take care now, Sara, and be good.”

“You, too,” I called after him as Toby bounded down the stairs and out the front door.

I sat in my room for about fifteen minutes mulling the whole awful mess with Glenda over and over in my mind. Every now and then my eye fell on my Statue of Liberty crown. It was really beautiful, each spike perfect, and exactly the same number of spikes as on the real Statue of Liberty crown. I got up off the floor and put it on and looked at myself in the mirror.

“Well, why not?” I thought. “It's Halloween and I've got my costume and my mask ready. Why shouldn't I have a little fun just going around and trick-or-treating by myself.” I didn't need Fat Glenda. I didn't need her or anyone else.

So I began to get dressed in my costume, putting on a pair of warm slacks and three sweaters under my bed-sheet-robe because it was really getting chilly out now. I could hear the wind rattling the bare branches of the big tree outside my window and making them scrape and scratch against the glass like wild things trying to get in.

At last I was ready. I took my flashlight, which was supposed to be my Statue of Liberty torch, and a small paper shopping bag for candy and stuff, and a UNICEF
canister to try to collect some money in. I took my house key, too, so I could get back in before the others returned.

I went out and closed the front door, and the first thing I did was to trip on the front steps because of the long, loose bedsheet and the mask over my eyes, which made it hard to see where I was going. That made me lose my balance, and my crown got knocked crooked. I felt so stupid. But after I straightened out my crown and hitched up my bedsheet a little higher under my sash, I was okay.

I started down the street. It was now dark outside and there weren't many people around. The little kids had all been taken home for supper a long time ago and maybe the big kids hadn't started out yet.

After the first doorbell I rang, where they put a whole quarter in my UNICEF canister, I began to feel much better. People were really nice. They all seemed to have lots of candy around and after they gave me a nickel or a dime for UNICEF, they said I should take some candy, too, as my “reward” for the “good work” I was doing.