Darnay Road Read Free

goes over. I almost die. Seeing her put her butt on that
marble fence top and lift her legs and flash her underwears and then be on the
other side, I can’t believe it. We’re going to get burned at the stake for
this.
    But
I go right over after. Lord Almighty I nearly faint. We are standing in here
and it’s so different. “It’s too holy,” I say and I say it so loud my words
echo.
    But
Abigail is already moving up the marble steps closer to the altar. I can’t
believe her nerve but I follow her skinny white legs and her ankle socks and
her Mary Janes.
    She
goes up the second set of steps and my knees are weak and I have to pee. That
altar is so, so tall I can’t even look up at all the saints crouching in the
little spaces because I know they would give me teacher looks and I would have
to faint.
    She
is at the altar now and I’m biting a knuckle.
    “C’mon
Georgia,” she says and I wish she wouldn’t have told all the saints my name.
    So
I get next to her and she goes around the side and there’s a door cut into all
that gold and she unlatches it and pulls it open and gasps at what she sees.
    I
look over her shoulder cause I am a spy at heart and great balls of fire. Mops
and buckets.
    She
closes the door and sets the latch and I am already going over the fence. She
calls for me to wait but I don’t stop. I see that confessional and I know I’m
going to be in there once school starts in the fall and I’m going to have to
come up with something to tell Father Anthony but for now we’ve solved our
second mystery and it feels…great.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Darnay Road 4

 
    Disbro
Peak has a withered arm. He was born with it. He holds it against his chest
like a broken wing.
    He’s
skinny. And he’s mad. Sometimes he goes with the Hardy Boys, sometimes he’s
with two younger boys my and Abigail’s age, Mike and Bobby. I hate them.
    Thing
is Abigail May says she saw Jennifer at the five and dime and her mother was
buying her a bra.
    I
can’t believe my ears. Abigail May and I still wear undershirts. My Granma
wouldn’t even believe she has to get me a bra cause I’m flat as a board.
    “Was
she embarrassed?” I ask meaning Jennifer.
    “I
was,” Abigail says.
    Well
I’m embarrassed just hearing about it.
    “Imagine
your Aunt May buying you a bra in the five and dime and along comes the Hardy
Boys,” I say, barely able to.
    Abigail
squeals and kicks her feet and her flashlight goes rolling off her lap. We’re
in the bomb shelter by the way. We’re lying back on the blankets rolled up.
It’s cool down here.
    Granma
yells down then. What is going on down there, and I say nothing. “Come on out
of there and go play in the sunshine,” she says.
    “Yes
ma’am,” I say and we sigh and get up.
    Later
on we are wearing our new sunglasses from Moe’s. He got some in in pink and
blue and Abigail May wanted to buy the pink ones too, and I got mad and said
fine I just won’t get any, and she gave in and got blue and I’m telling her
they are real nice as we skate along. Oh yeah we’re skating and we got our new
shoe skates on, our Roller Derby Street Kings we both got last Christmas. No
more keys and clamp-ons for us.
    Hers
have yellow pom-poms and mine have pink. I wanted red but Granma got mixed up
so I got pink.
    Anyway
we skate at Moe’s most evenings after supper. That way we don’t terrorize the
shoppers, as Moe puts it, cause we take that corner where the stoop and the
door are located pretty fast and mean. Luckily he closes at five so it’s a
pretty dead corner and paved without cracks, just one big L of smooth, smooth.
    So
we get pretty fancy and folks are used to the two of us going back and forth
around Moe’s.
    Now
catty-corner to Moe’s is the other store Mac’s. Granma and Aunt May don’t deal
there except after Moe’s closes if we want ice cream or we get desperate for
something.
    Mac
is real nice to kids if they got a big person with them, but if a kid goes in
to