The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen Read Free Page B

Cissy?” Behind her glasses, Tibbie’s blue eyes rolled, like those of a horse smelling smoke. Everyone in Class Three was more afraid of Mrs. Sissney at the store than they were of the diphtheria. Nobody would want to stay over at the store.
    The silo, lying flat along its rollers, pointed at the three children like heavy artillery.
    Not wishing to go inside the shop, Tibbie also began to talk about the new letter from Miss Loucien. She could remember parts Kookie had left out.
    Fuller Monterey, on his way home from school, shouted something vile and kicked a can at them. It hit Cissy in the ankle, then spun to a standstill. Their eyes trailed after the scowling, blaspheming Fuller. “Miss May says we got to make allowances since his brother’s sick,” said Tibbie. “Peatie might be dead, even this minute!” she added, wide-eyed.
    â€œMad coot,” said Kookie uncharitably. “Fuller don’t need an excuse to be nasty.”
    â€œYou coming back to school tomorrow, Ciss?” said Tibbie.
    â€œNo, she ain’t!” crowed Mrs. Sissney from inside the shop. “So unless you got something to buy, Hosea Warboys, I’ll thank you to git off home!”
    Oh, couldn’t she even have gotten Kookie’s name right? Cissy wanted to be at the bottom of the sea with Miss Loucien, cooking pancakes over the vent of a volcano.
    â€œYou never coming back to school then, Ciss?” said Kookie with open jealousy.
    â€œLooks that way,” said Cissy, trying not to cry.
    After supper, she crept away out of the back door of the store. Her father was plying Tibbie Boden with kindly questions: “What’s your favorite subject at school? Which books do you like to read? You wanna help me hang up a hammock for you alongside Cissy’s?”
    The only person she passed on the street was Mr. Powers, who explained he had just been checking the wedges. He had one wrist plastered and the other in a sling; clearly he had been out testing another prairie sailboat.
    The schoolhouse was not locked, but Cissy climbed in at the window anyway, so as not to be seen going in. Two flies were following each other around the center of the room, flying in perfect squares as if they were using a ruler. She could see her story about Chinese dragons still pinned to the wall. When she slid open Miss March’s drawer, a smell of Parma violets and chalk came up at her. She stabbed her finger on the tines of a comb. But not one of the homemade envelopes bearing Miss Loucien’s big, wild handwriting lay among the chalk and confiscated playing cards, the coffee beans Miss March chewed on for her complexion, the pencils and red ink bottles. Had Miss May taken it home, then? Was it, like dear Miss Loucien, gone forever?
    No. One page at least was in the bottom of the wastepaper basket, along with some peanut shells and a dead mouse.
    . . . be wonderful to reflote it and werk the river, putting on shows all the way from here to Saint Looee? Teribal waist just rotting here but I spose it keeps the rain of our heds. Por Curly. He was only tawkin Shakespeare, the way he does, giving out with some purple passedges. Don’t think the pasters wife had herd much Tyoodor Powetry bifor.
    Lor I do miss you fokes. Lifes indoobitably grand but it would be grander with out the rats and with out feeling so sick all the . . .
    A clammy dread swept over Cissy. Her diaphragm quaked. Miss Loucien, if she was feeling sick, must have diphtheria! Rats were nibbling the glittering sequins from the costumes in the property box! The Bright Lights Theater Company was breathing its death rattle among heartless, soulless people who thought quoting Shakespeare was a crime! And Cissy, in the Olive Town Store, was in prison, as surely as Curly was in Salvation town jail.
    She slipped the page into her scratchy apron pocket. Her mother wore a Bible against her stomach (to let the holiness soak through). Well, Cissy would