Ride a Cockhorse Read Free Page A

asked.
    â€œTerry Sugrue.”
    â€œIs that the family with the murderer?” she asked.
    â€œMurderer?” He looked at her.
    â€œThere was a Sugrue who killed somebody years ago.”
    â€œI never heard anything about that,” said the youth.
    Mrs. Fitzgibbons was improvising. “A man named Sugrue killed a bookmaker on a farm out in Granby and buried his body in the woods. He owed the man money.”
    â€œNo fooling.” He kept his eyes on the road.
    â€œDo you know anything about carpentry?” She advanced an altogether new subject.
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œYou take shop classes, don’t you?”
    â€œI used to. A long time ago—in junior high.”
    â€œYou can nail two boards together.”
    Terence laughed but continued staring at the road. He affected a keen listening attitude toward the engine, as he gradually speeded up the car. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was not watching the road. She was surprised by her own brazenness.
    â€œI need a couple of boards nailed together,” she said.
    â€œEngine sounds okay to me.”
    â€œIt’s not.”
    â€œI think you’d have to ask a mechanic.”
    â€œYou’re doing fine. There! Did you hear that? It skipped. Now,” she said, “it’s going to stall.”
    The boy looked perplexed. “It’s nice and smooth.”
    â€œAre you sure?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons assumed a doubtful air. “Ever since Larry died, I get a little paranoid.” She sat back. “How is it you’re still in high school?”
    â€œI’m a senior.”
    â€œBecause you don’t look it.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons addressed him in the way a school principal might. “You look about twenty. Did you stay back?”
    â€œMe? I never stayed back in my life! I’m first honor roll.”
    â€œYou are? I’m glad to hear that. Turn left on Northampton Street,” she said, “and go a little faster. You’re poking.”
    â€œSometimes,” he suggested, “it helps to gun the engine.”
    â€œThen gun it.”
    Terry shifted into neutral and raced the engine hard.
    â€œThat sounds better,” she said, after Terry released the accelerator. “I think you did it.”
    â€œI didn’t do anything.”
    â€œThat sounds normal. What did you do?”
    â€œI gunned the engine.”
    â€œThat did the trick.”
    â€œI think you’re worrying about nothing, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.”
    â€œFrankie,” she said.
    â€œFrankie.”
    â€œGun it again.”
    â€œIt doesn’t need it.”
    â€œGun it, sweetheart. Do what I tell you. I think you corrected it. Do you have a car of your own?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œWhat do you do on dates?”
    â€œDates?”
    â€œDates,” she said. “You can’t go out without a car.”
    â€œMaureen, my girlfriend, has a car. Actually, it’s her brother’s car, but he works evenings at the junior college.”
    â€œWho is Maureen?”
    â€œMaureen Blodgett.”
    â€œI know Maureen Blodgett,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons lied. “ She’s your girlfriend?” She made a face.
    â€œWell, sort of.” Terry faltered, visibly disconcerted by the perplexed expression on the woman’s face. They had stopped at a traffic light.
    â€œShe’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”
    â€œMaureen? Maureen’s nineteen. She’s older than I am.”
    â€œMaureen Blodgett? Not the Maureen Blodgett I know. She looks like a kid.”
    â€œShe looks a little young,” Terry allowed, “but she’s out of high school.”
    â€œI can’t believe what I’m hearing. You ,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, “and her? That is a surprise. If you had asked me to guess, I’d’ve picked somebody completely different from that. Somebody like that Salus girl, the pianist, the redhead, the one who goes to school in New