The Alley Read Free Page A

Carrolls wanted to be garbage collectors when they grew up. The most interesting times of the week for them were the mornings when the garbage truck arrived. "Here it comes! Here it comes!" they yelled. They helped the men roll the trash cans down the Alley and were grateful for the privilege.

    Then, the minute the truck went out, the gates were locked again. This made the Alley safe. The children couldn't get out of the Alley, and no wicked people could get in. There had been two burglaries in the Alley, though—one in the end house on Larrabee, the house of the Bernadettes, who had no children, and the other in the house of the Langs, who had no children, either. But the burglars did not get in through the Alley; they got in through the front doors. They just broke down the doors when no one was home, went in, and took what they wanted. These burglaries were long ago, historic burglaries, rarely spoken of now, mainly forgotten.
    But sometimes, when she was swinging, Connie thought about those burglaries. From the swing she could glimpse the police station, a medieval-looking building—Precinct Number 9999. With all the houses torn down next to the Alley to make room for the athletic field, the police of Precinct 9999 could see the little houses in the Alley and foil a burglary now.
    Even so, "Never leave the outer green door open," Papa always said. "Leaving it open is an invitation to burglars," he said. "They can get inside the outer green door, close it behind them, and then easily break down the inner door, with no one being able to see what they are doing. Always keep that outer green door locked!" Papa repeatedly warned Connie, Mama, Nanny—everybody. Still, Nanny often would keep the outer door open—she just would. "For the mailman," she said, so he would not have so much trouble getting her Chester, South Carolina, paper in the slot—it was too big, it and the Sunday
State
, to squeeze through the small mail slot in the outer door. "Tear them to shreds," said Nanny. "Tear them all to shreds." The Chester
Reporter
and the Columbia
State
were like home to Nanny. Then, the minute the mailman left, she tried to remember to lock the outer green door, not to be inviting burglars, as Papa said.
    "Don't you worry, child," she'd say to Papa. (Though he was forty-eight, she still called him "child.") "No burglar is coming in while I am here."
    Connie wondered if Nanny would think to use the tall Tiffany vase, which stood on the little marble-top table near the front door, to bop a burglar over the head with if one did break in. Connie doubted it. The vase was a famous one, given to Nanny at the time of her marriage by her dear friend, Becky Coker, Charleston, South Carolina. If a burglar appeared at the front door, Connie decided that Nanny, probably on account of the sentiment, would not use the Tiffany vase in this way. What would Nanny do in case of burglars? She would scream, probably, just scream. How Nanny could scream! She would scare the burglars away with just one scream, that's what Connie thought. In sorrow and in joy, Nanny was apt to scream; and when Micky Mantle hit a homer, you could hear her way down at the Carrolls' end house, for she loved the drama in life.
    Opposite the Carrolls', next to the other iron gate, there lived an artist named Joe Below—nicknamed, Bully Vardeer. This artist had painted the portrait of almost every child in the Alley and of one or two out-of-the-ordinary-looking grownups. Katy Starr's father was one, because of his beard, and the President of Grandby College was another, painted with hand on stomach, mortar board on head—its tassel over his executive eye. If you were led blindfolded into any of the little houses and then allowed to take a look, you could tell which house you were in by the Bully Vardeer painting on the wall. The nickname "Bully Vardeer" stemmed from the French word
boulevardier,
meaning an artist who strolls along the boulevards near the River Seine in