War and Millie McGonigle Read online

  “I’ll telegraph the president and ask him to hold off on declaring war for a hundred years. That do?”

  I nodded.

  Mama rummaged in the icebox. “Want one?” she asked, and she handed me a carrot.

  Pete came skidding in. “I’m hungry. Not carrot hungry. Really hungry.”

  Mama ruffled his hair. “How about I make you half a peanut butter sandwich?”

  “Skippy with lettuce and mayonnaise.”

  “Weird but okay.”

  Pete took a couple of bites. “That’s enough.” He burped, and his face was pale and pinched. “I feel seasick.”

  “You don’t look too well,” said Mama. She felt his forehead and his cheeks.

  “Maybe it’s the worms,” Pete said.

  “What worms?”

  “Millie said you’d charge me five cents a roll for the two rolls of toilet paper I used, and I didn’t have two nickels.” Mama frowned at me. I shrugged. “Billy Martin said he’d give me a nickel for each worm I ate. I ate three.” He handed Mama three nickels. “You can have the extra nickel, too.” Then he took a deep breath and vomited peanut butter, lettuce, and bits of worm over my bare feet! Christopher Columbus!

  Mama took Pete on her lap. “No more worm eating. You’ve paid enough for your foolishness.” She looked at my bespattered feet. “Both of you.”

  Rattling windows woke me way too early. It was a Santa Ana, the hot, dry wind that heats the land and stirs up the ocean, leaving folks edgy and jumpy. My skin was itchy and my head ached. I lay in bed grumbling until—holy cow! With the wind whipping up the waves, the surfers would be out! Especially one particular surfer, Rocky Boynton.

  I pulled on my bathing suit, grabbed a bucket in case I found dead things for my book, and raced out the door before anyone could wake up and want me. The wind tossed my hair and the blowing sand stung my face. The washing that the Dexters across the alley had on the line danced crazily in the wind. A green shirt blew off and did cartwheels across their yard.

  My eyes filled with sand. I tiptoed back into the house and found some swimming goggles. Fastening them around my head, I hurried back outside. That was better. I tore through the alleys and across Mission Boulevard to the ocean-side beach near Queenstown Court, where the lifeguards and surfers hung out.

  And there they were. Or more important, there he was. The tall fellow with wavy hair and a smile like a toothpaste ad. The one called Rocky. It was hard to believe he and Pete and Icky were the same species. Rocky was no skinny, pimply-faced kid. He was a dreamboat. I could feel my pulse pounding in my throat as I watched him.

  He carried his heavy wooden board under one arm as easily as if it were a loaf of bread. Such muscles. I shook my head. “Get hold of yourself, Millie,” I muttered.

  Rocky strode to the water and plunged in, working his way through the waves. Far from shore, just before the waves were breaking, he climbed onto the board, belly down. When a large wave rolled up behind him, he paddled hard, caught the wave, and pushed himself up as the face of the wave lifted his board and carried it at top speed toward the shore. Flying on the crest of the wave, he looked like some Greek god walking on the water. Over and over he paddled out and rode in again, the sun glinting on his wet skin. Between the hot wind and Rocky’s magnificence, the air felt electric. I swore I could feel my hair frizz.

  There were other surfers in the water, but once Rocky left, I stopped watching. What was the point? Instead I walked the beach, gathering dead things in my bucket for my book: sand crabs, sea snails, and what looked like the skull of a bird or a snake or a very small dragon.

  “Out of the way, McGargle.” It was Icky, and he kicked sand at me as he passed.

  “Nincompoop!” I shouted after him.

  Icky dropped his shirt, shoes, socks, and towel on the sand and headed into the water, to annoy the surfers, no doubt.

  I grinned. I had a sudden, super idea. A genius idea. An Einstein of an idea.

  Taking handfuls of crabs and snails from my pail—the dragon skull I kept to draw later—I shoved them into the toes of Icky’s socks and packed them tight. Slimy, stinky shells crackled and oozed, and the smell was awful. I put the socks back with Icky’s other things, moved some ways away, lay down on the sand, and waited.

  I’d almost given up when Icky finally came out of the water. Put your socks on right here, I messaged him from my mind, but he just slipped his shoes onto his bare feet, wrapped his shirt and socks in his towel, and turned for home.

  What a fizzle. No fun at all. It was getting way too hot anyway. Going to be a scorcher. I picked up my empty pail, wrote McGONIGLE in the sand twice for luck, and then headed back home against the sharp and sandy wind that burned my cheeks and clattered on my goggles.

  Back on Bayside Walk I saw a girl standing in front of the Fribbles’ house. She was a bit older than me, red-haired and pale, and a stranger. Suddenly she shouted, in a voice like a bullhorn, “I hate Dicky Fribble!”

  “Who doesn’t?” I told her. “But call him Icky. That really irritates him.”

  She grinned and bellowed, “I hate Icky Fribble and Dicky Fribble, too!”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “He locked me out of the house.”

  “You live here? With the Fribbles? Who are—”

  “Rosemary Fribble, get yourself in here!” shouted Mrs. Fribble in her thin, shrill voice. “Stop shouting like a loon. What will the neighbors think?”

  “I guess she made Dicky open the door,” said the girl, who was apparently Rosemary Fribble. “See you.” And she ran for the house.

  I was speechless. Rosemary Fribble. This was Mrs. Fribble’s niece? Was Rosemary as bad as the rest of the Fribbles, or was she trapped like a princess in a house full of ogres? I wondered if I could find out without having to talk to a Fribble.

  The others were finishing breakfast when I got home.

  “I just saw the Fribble girl,” I said, picking at the toast crusts on the table.

  “That’s nice,” said Mama. She slurped her coffee and added, “You’ve missed breakfast. We’ve eaten everything.”

  “Here, Millie, have some of my special raisin toast.” Pete handed me a cold slice spread with something thick and red.

  “What’s this on it?”

  “Jelly,” said Pete.

  “Looks funny,” I said, and took a bite. “It’s ketchup! Christopher Columbus, that’s awful!”

  “Ketchup is tomato jelly,” Pete said. “I like it.” And he scowled.

  “No squabbles.” Pop stood up from the table and stretched. “Who wants to go fish from the bridge?”

  “I do! I do!” said Lily and Pete together.

  I shook my head. “Not me. As soon as I brush the tomato jelly out of my mouth, I have homework.”

  I retreated to the bedroom, where Edna was tying a scarf into a turban around her hair and whistling. “I have a date,” she said.

  I flopped onto the bed. “Is it Moe, Larry, or Curly?” I apparently was speaking to her again.

  She snickered. “That would be fun, but it’s none of the Stooges. I’m seeing Albert, and he’s not a bit of fun. Pretty funny-looking, too, but he does buy a good lunch, and he’s nuts about me.” She winked and turned for the bathroom.

  She was back not a minute later, pot of rouge in her hand. “I forgot where I’m going.”

  “You’re seeing Albert.”

  “Why?” Edna asked.

  “He’s buying you lunch.”

  Edna snapped her fingers. “That’s right!” And with a grin, she returned to the bathroom.

  Ever since Harold had been a no-show and a disappointment, Mama worried about the type of guys Edna was encouraging. Now Mama insisted that Edna’s dates pick her up at home so Mama could look them over and make sure Edna would be all right. Even if they were relatives of neighbors like Albert was. Mama trea
ted Edna almost like a daughter, an older daughter, and I felt a familiar stab of jealousy.

  When Albert knocked, I let him in. “Albert,” Mama said as she entered. “I’m Lois McGonigle, Edna’s cousin.” She didn’t seem at all surprised or amused at Albert’s appearance, which was just as odd as I remembered.

  “Pleased, ma’am,” Albert said with a nod. His voice was deep and soft and filled the room.

  “Leave us, Millie, please,” Mama said. “Albert and I have to talk.”

  “But, Mama…”

  “Go, Millie.”

  I stomped into the bedroom. Gee whiz! I never got to be in on interesting talk.

  “And close the door,” Mama called after me.

  Even with the door closed, I could hear murmuring and a word here and there: no sense, forgetful, vulnerable from Mama. And in Albert’s soft rumble: simple, fresh, shelter, and protect.

  Albert must have passed Mama’s test because I heard her knock on the bathroom door and say, “Enough primping, Edna. Albert is waiting.”

  With muted laughter and more murmured words, Edna was off on her date.

  I curled up on the bed to start my homework. For history, the sixth grade at Mission Bay Elementary was studying Europe in the Middle Ages. Hitler was breathing down our necks, and I had to spend time in the eleventh century, when England was being invaded by marauding Vikings. Skippy Morrison, who was obsessed with fire, said Vikings burned whole towns and all their inhabitants, put their own dead in boats set afire, and sent them out to sea.

  Murder and fighting, towns destroyed, people dead. Just like now but without the bombs. Christopher Columbus! Was history nothing but war and death? My only escape was a nap.

  When I woke, it was nearly dinnertime. Mama was washing lettuce, and the radio was broadcasting the latest war news. The destroyer USS Kearny had been torpedoed by German U-boats near Iceland. Although Iceland was far, far away from San Diego, the war seemed closer every day. My face grew cold, and I began to gnaw on my thumbnail.

  Mama frowned, but said only, “Stop biting your nails, and I’ll change the station. No more war talk.” She twisted the dial and from the radio came the story of the Barbours of San Francisco—One Man’s Family.

  Yes. A soap opera. Just the thing. These pretend troubles were much easier than real troubles. At the commercial, I asked Mama, “What’s for dinner?”

  “Your pop had good luck fishing today.”

  I poured myself a glass of milk and flopped into a chair. “Fish again? I’m going to develop gills. Shouldn’t dinner mean roast beef or chicken sometimes?”

  “Well, when you earn enough money to keep this family in roast beef and chicken, we’ll eat it. Until then we’re grateful for what the bay provides and your pop catches.”

  “What is it tonight? Bass? Corvina? Anything but perch, I hope.”

  “Perch,” said my mother.

  Of course. I banged my head onto the table.

  “If you want other fish, go and catch some. You can do more than just sit and whine,” Mama said. “There’s small halibut out there, flounder and bass, mullet and sculpin. Clams and scallops and oysters. The bay offers us plenty to eat besides perch, if you’d just make the effort. Do something to contribute. You catch our dinner for tomorrow.”

  “It’ll still be fish.”

  Mama huffed. “Just do it. I mean it.” She put the lettuce in a salad bowl with celery and tomato chunks. “Here’s something you’ll enjoy. I just saw Bertha Fribble at Bell’s Grocery. She said Dicky came home from the beach this morning stinking worse than the bay at low tide, so she threw his clothes into the washer with the other laundry. When she ran them through the wringer, pieces of smashed crab and various vile things were stuck everywhere, in the towels and sheets and Mr. Fribble’s work shirts.”

  My belly filled with silent laughter.

  “Dicky said he had no idea how that happened, but he had to scour the washer and the wringer and then wash all the clothes again. And they still smelled.” Making her voice loud and squeaky just like Mrs. Fribble’s, Mama added, “Poor Richard is in a heap of trouble.”

  Icky in trouble? This was too much for me. I snorted, and milk spewed out of my nose. Then I was in trouble. But it was worth it.

  It was early but the sun was up and so was I. I was on a mission. “Good morning, Cap, I’m Millie McGonigle,” I said when he opened the door to the fishing shack out near the jetty that was his home.

  Captain Charlie looked like Roy Rogers’s sidekick, Gabby Hayes, bewhiskered and scrawny, except Gabby Hayes needed a haircut and Captain Charlie was bald as a baby bird. What I could see of his face under his whiskers was as wrinkled as his clothes, and his clothes were plenty wrinkled. I’d heard he’d been living here since he got out of the army after the Civil War, which would make him very old and the shack even older.

  “I know you,” he said, leaning against the porch rail. “You’re Martin McGonigle’s kid. Seen you around but never formally made your acquaintance. How d’ya do.” He stuck out a rough, gnarled hand and we shook.

  “I hoped you might help me with something, Cap. My mama wants me to fish for our dinner but I’m sick of fish. Baked fish. Fried fish. Fish cakes. Fish stew.”

  “Seems to me, you have to catch what’s in the water, lass,” and his mustache twitched. “Never heard of a soul baiting a hook and catching a T-bone steak in Mission Bay.”

  “Sure wish you could, but no, I want to catch abalone like you used to.” I’d show Mama I didn’t just sit and whine. She’d have to admit that. But I wasn’t going to catch just any old fish. “I remember Pop coming home with abalone once in a while, saying you’d caught too many and were sharing them with us. They were yummy and not fishlike at all.”

  “Ahh, them days are as gone as my hair.” He rubbed his head. “So what can I do you for?”

  “Tell me where and how to catch them.”

  “Well, young Millie, you’re a tall drink of water but a deal too slight to be fighting ocean swells and diving down to cut abalone off rocks.”

  “I could try, and I’d be very careful. Where would I start?”

  He pulled on his whiskers and hmmmed a moment. “La Jolla Cove was always lucky for me. The big rocks out beyond the breakers should have plenty of abalone clinging to them. If the tide is low enough, you might be able to reach some without having to dive down into the deeper water. Then you’d have to cut them off the rocks with a fish knife and pry them from their shells.”

  “Would a steak knife do? We certainly don’t need it for steak.”

  “Mebbe, but I don’t like it. Don’t seem a suitable pursuit for a girl.”

  I shrugged. This girl was going to try anyway.

  “What’d your folks say?”

  I shrugged again. I didn’t know what Mama or Pop would say, so I didn’t ask them.

  Pop was gone when I got back and Mama was hanging laundry outside. Lily and Pete were arguing over a coloring book. Pete refused to color inside the lines. “It cramps my style,” he said. Who knew where he got these things?

  I put a coat on over my bathing suit and grabbed Pop’s fishing waders, goggles, a steak knife, and a sack to carry my catch home. My mouth actually watered as I thought of us pounding the abalone meat thin, coating it with egg and flour, and frying it up. And the big shell lined with colorful mother-of-pearl was just right for keeping sea glass or hairpins or pennies in, if you had pennies. Which I didn’t.

  I did have two dimes, change from getting groceries last week, which was just enough to get me to La Jolla and back. I caught the bus at the amusement center and climbed aboard, juggling the wading boots, goggles, knife, and burlap sack. A piercing squeak called, “Millieeee!” and a hand grabbed the sleeve of my coat. Good gravy. Mrs. Fribble, mother to Icky and the dreadful Dwayne!

  “Millie!” she squeaked again. “Sit here. I’ll shove over.”
/>   So I did, crowding in with my equipment, resigned to sharing the bus ride with Mrs. Fribble.

  “Where on earth are you off to this morning?” she squealed, and people turned around to look. “I myself am going to Dunaway’s Pharmacy in Pacific Beach for Mr. Fribble’s sister’s medicine. Lillian has used hers up and the Mission Beach Pharmacy is out, so I have to take myself up to Pacific Beach. Lillian is ailing, poor thing—weak lungs, terrible, terrible, like your sister, terrible. She and my niece Rosemary will be with us awhile. The house is so crowded, but she’s family, so what can I do? Makes too much work for me and my poor suffering feet.”

  She paused to take a breath and I jumped in. “I think I saw your niece once. Tall with red hair?”

  “Yes, that’s her. Big-city girl with big-city ways. She doesn’t get along with my Richard and Dwayne. Too citified and surly. One house, one family, I say. No freeloading relatives. Like that cousin of yours. Edna. Spouting German and acting suspicious. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she wasn’t some sort of spy or…”

  Blah blah blah, she went, while I stared out the window, trying to decide whether to jump through it.

  “Pull the cord for me, Millie,” she said at last. “This is my stop. I have to get off and take my poor suffering feet to the pharmacy, as if I had nothing else to do.” I pulled the cord happily. Mrs. Fribble climbed over me and got off the bus, still muttering, and lumbered away on her poor suffering feet. I sat back and rested my poor suffering ears! And what did she mean about Cousin Edna being a spy? If Edna had secret spy information, she’d forget it in a second. Some spy.

  As we left Pacific Beach, the small houses and empty lots gradually became green parklike sites with large deep-roofed bungalows covered with flowers like cottages in a fairy tale. High jagged cliffs behind and between them rose from the sea. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Mission Beach anymore, I said to myself.

  The farther we drove into La Jolla, the bigger the houses and more numerous the hotels and fancy shops and big buildings in the same sort of Spanish style as the museums in Balboa Park. I got off on Prospect and walked along the winding road and over the massive rocks between the town and the sea.