She learned a lot about music during these free nights in the summer-time. When she walked out in the rich parts of town every house had a radio. All the windows were open and she could hear the music very marvelous. After a while she knew which houses tuned in for the programs she wanted to hear.
There was one special house that got all the good orchestras.
And at night she would go to this house and sneak into the dark yard to listen. There was beautiful shrubbery around this house, and she would sit under a bush near the window. And after it was all over she would stand in the dark yard with her hands in her pockets and think for a long time. That was the realest part of all the summer--her listening to this music on the radio and studying about it ‘Cerra fa puerta, senor’ Mick said.
Bubber was sharp as a briar. ‘Haga me usted el favor, senorita,’ he answered as a comeback.
It was grand to take Spanish at Vocational. There was something about speaking in a foreign language that made her feel like she’d been around a lot. Every afternoon since school had started she had fun speaking the new Spanish words and sentences. At first Bubber was stumped, and it was funny to watch his face while she talked the foreign language. Then he caught on in a hurry, and before long he could copy everything she said. He remembered the words he learned, too. Of course he didn’t know what all the sentences meant, but she didn’t say them for the sense they made, anyway. After a while the kid learned so fast she gave out of Spanish and just gabbled along with made-up sounds. But it wasn’t long before he caught her out at that--nobody could put a thing over on old Bubber Kelly.
‘I’m going to pretend like I’m walking into this house for the first time,’ Mick said. ‘Then I can tell better if all the decorations look good or not.’
She walked out on the front porch and then came back and stood in the hall. All day she and Bubber and Portia and her Dad had been fixing the hall and the dining-room for the party. The decoration was autumn leaves and vines and red crepe paper. On the mantelpiece in the dining-room and sticking up behind the hat rack there were bright yellow leaves.
They had trailed vines along the walls and on the table where the punch bowl would be. The red crepe paper hung down in long fringes from the mantel and also was looped around the backs of the chairs. There was plenty decoration. It was O.K.
She rubbed her hand on her forehead and squinted her eyes.
Bubber stood beside her and copied every move she made. ‘I sure do want this party to turn out all right. I sure do.’
This would be the first party she had ever given. She had never even been to more than four or five. Last summer she had gone to a prom party. But none of the boys asked her to prom or dance, she just stood by the punch bowl until all the refreshments were gone and then went home. This party was not going to be a bit like that one. In a few hours now the people she had invited would start coming and the to-do would begin.
It was hard to remember just how she got the idea of this party. The notion came to her soon after she started at Vocational. High School was swell. Everything about it was different from Grammar School. She wouldn’t have liked it so much if she had had to take a stenographic course like Hazel and Etta had done--but she got special permission and took mechanical shop like a boy. Shop and Algebra and Spanish were grand. English was mighty hard. Her English teacher was Miss Minner. Everybody said Miss Minner had sold her brains to a famous doctor for ten thousand dollars, so that after she was dead he could cut them up and see why she was so smart. On written lessons she cracked such questions as ‘Name eight famous contemporaries of Doctor Johnson,’ and ‘Quote ten lines from ‘The Vicar of Wakefield.’ She called on people by the alphabet and kept her grade book open during the lessons. And even if she was brainy she was an old sourpuss. The Spanish teacher had traveled once in Europe.
She said that in France the people carried home loaves of bread without having them wrapped up. They would stand talking on the streets and hit the bread on a lamp post. And there wasn’t any water in France--only wine.
In nearly all ways Vocational was wonderful. They walked back and forth in the hall between classes, and at lunch period students hung around the gym. Here was the thing that soon began to bother her. In the halls the people would walk up and down together and everybody seemed to belong to some special bunch. Within a week or two she knew people in the halls and in classes to speak to them--but that was all. She wasn’t a member of any bunch. In Grammar School she would have just gone up to any crowd she wanted to belong with and that would have been the end of the matter. Here it was different.
During the first week she walked up and down the halls by herself and thought about this. She planned about being with some bunch almost as much as she thought of music. Those two ideas were in her head all the time. And finally she got the idea of the party.
She was strict with the invitations. No Grammar School kids and nobody under twelve years old. She just asked people between thirteen and fifteen. She knew everybody she invited good enough to speak to them in the halls--and when she didn’t know their names she asked to find out. She called up those who had a telephone, and the rest she invited at school.
On the telephone she always said the same thing. She let Bubber stick in his ear to listen. ‘This is Mick Kelly,’ she said.
If they didn’t understand the name she kept on until they got it.
I’m having a prom party at eight o’clock Saturday night and I’m inviting you now. I live at 103 Fourth Street, Apartment A.’ That Apartment A sounded swell on the telephone. Nearly everybody said they would be delighted. A couple of tough boys tried to be smarty and kept on asking her name over and over. One of them tried to act cute and said, ‘I don’t know you.’
She squelched him in a hurry: ‘You go eat grass!’ Outside of that wise guy there were ten boys and ten girls and she knew that they were all coming. This was a real party, and it would be better and different from any party she had ever gone to or heard about before.
Mick looked over the hall and dining-room one last time. By the hat rack she stopped before the picture of Old Dirty-Face.
This was a photo of her Mama’s grandfather. He was a major way back in the Civil War and had been killed in a battle.
Some kid once drew eyeglasses and a beard on his picture, and when the pencil marks were erased it left his face all dirty.
That was why she called him Old Dirty-Face. The picture was in the middle of a three-part frame. On both sides were pictures of his sons. They looked about Bubber’s age. They had on uniforms and their faces were surprised. They had been killed in battle also. A long time ago.
Tm going to take this down for the party. I think it looks common. Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bubber said. ‘Are we common, Mick?’
‘I’m not.’
She put the picture underneath the hat rack. The decoration was O.K. Mister Singer would be pleased when he came home. The rooms seemed very empty and quiet. The table was set for supper. And then after supper it would be time for the party. She went into the kitchen to see about the refreshments.
‘You think everything will be all right?’ she asked Portia.
Portia was making biscuits. The refreshments were on top of the stove. There were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate snaps and punch. The sandwiches were covered with a damp dishcloth. She peeped at them but didn’t take one.
‘I done told you forty times that everthing going to be all right,’ Portia said. ‘Just soon as I come back from fixing supper at home I going to put on that white apron and serve the food real nice. Then I going to push off from here by nine-thirty.
This here is Saturday night and Highboy and Willie and me haves our plans, too.’
‘Sure,’ Mick said. ‘I just want you to help out till things sort of get started--you know.’