Edenville Owls

Chapter 27

I was walking Joanie home from school. I knew Nick saw us. And I was pretty sure he didn’t like it. But I had to talk with her. And I couldn’t wait. I felt as if my skin were stretched too tight over the rest of me. I talked all the way to the corner of her street and down, and stopped outside her house and kept talking. Joanie listened and nodded and listened.

Finally she said, “Let’s go down to the bandstand, I don’t want to go in yet.”

I could have kissed her. The thought startled me a little in the middle of my long talk. I could have kissed her. I wanted to kiss her. I had never really kissed a girl before. A few on the cheek at spin the bottle games. But real smoochy kissing, no. I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. Besides, if I kissed her, it would change everything. She might get mad. And even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be my best friend anymore. She’d be... I wasn’t sure what she’d be. It made me feel strange.

The bandstand was empty as usual. And the harbor was where it always was, empty in winter, only a few boats at mooring.

“So I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or not,” I said. “I have to do so many wrong things to do it.”

“You think too much about things,” Joanie said.

“You have to,” I said. “I mean a man has to. How else can he be a good man?”

“Maybe he just is a good man,” Joanie said.

“And I haven’t even told you yet about the guy,” I said.

“Is he bothering you?”

“In a different way,” I said. “Wait’ll you hear.”

“Finish telling me about what’s bothering you so far,” Joanie said. “Then we can talk about Oswald whosis.”

“Well, so far I’ve lied and broken my word and skipped school and broken into Miss Delaney’s house,” I said. “I mean, am I a good guy or a bad guy?”

“You’re a good guy, Bobby. You know it and I know it.”

“How do I know it?”

“You know,” she said. “Sometimes you have to do bad things to do good things. It’s bad to kill. But my uncle John killed people and he’s not bad. What he did was good. He had to kill people to defend us. All the soldiers did. During the war it was right to kill. Nazis and Japs.”

“But now it wouldn’t be,” I said.

“That’s right. Things change. You know you’re trying to do a good thing, because you’re a good kid who will grow up to be a good man.”

I felt my eyes start to fill. I went and leaned on the railing of the bandstand and looked down at the harbor. I nodded my head for a while. But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Joanie came and patted my shoulder.

Finally I said, “The Reverend Oswald Tupper is some kind of crazy man.”

I told her about the youth meeting.

“That was really brave,” Joanie said. “To go up there like that alone.”

I nodded.

“He talks like that,” I said. “And yet he’s got a Medal of Honor.”

“He says.”

“I saw it,” I said. “He was wearing it on a ribbon around his neck.”

“If it really was one,” Joanie said.

“You think he’s lying?”

“My uncle John got some kind of medal too,” Joanie said. “I don’t know what. He never shows it to anyone. He never talks about it, and he never ever wears it.”

“You think he stole it?”

“Maybe,” Joanie said. “Or maybe he bought it from somebody who needed the money. Or maybe he won it for being a hero. I’m just saying that you don’t know yet, just because he wears it and says he won it.”

“How are we gonna find out?” I said.

“I’ll ask my uncle John,” Joanie said.

“Don’t tell him about me.”

Joanie smiled.

“No,” she said. “We’re friends. We keep each other’s secrets.”

“And you think I should sneak in there next time he shows up and listen in.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I dare.”

“I’ll do it with you,” Joanie said.

“You?”

“Me.”

“You’d sneak into the house with me and spy on them?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You’d have to climb a tree,” I said.

“I can climb a tree,” Joanie said.

“And you’re not scared to?”

“Not as long as we do it together,” she said.

“Same with me,” I said.