Thanksgiving morning broke as cold as the day before. Kloppman's voice was
even more abrasive as usual. I hadn't had as much sleep as I would've
liked, having stayed awake half the night thinking of one scheme after
another to get what we'd need for the winter.
I had come up with one plan to get clothes for the littler kids. Problem was, it would probably make Jack mad. He'd understand why I did it, but he'd be mad all the same. It would put a dent in his pride, with people whose opinion of him meant more than ours.
I didn't have that problem and, as far as I was concerned, keeping the boys warm this winter was more important than Jack's pride.
I'd remember that later, when it was my pride that took a knock.
Anyways, I woke up and went through the usual morning ritual with the other guys. After I got my papes, I headed over to Grand Central Station to sell again with Skittery. Snipeshooter went with us, though, the little thief. I'd been missing one of my cigars that morning and I was pretty sure who'd taken it.
It was even harder than the day before to sell my papes. Especially with a bunch of us tryin' to sell. Me, Snipes and Skittery weren't the only newsies to seek shelter in the station. It was after one o'clock when I finally sold my last pape to a guy who probably bought it so's he'd have an excuse to ignore his nagging wife. I told Snipes and Skitts I'd see them back at the lodgin' house for dinner then went to put my plan into action.
The building I was headed to wasn't the Waldorf-Astoria, but it was better than ours. Shirts and long underwear hung from clothes lines strung from building to building. I knew more lines hung on the roof. To me, that always made me think of mothers. We didn't have clothes lines at the lodgin' house. Most of us only had one spare set of clothes, anyway, and hung them from our bunks to dry.
I knew which flat was theirs since I'd been there a coupla times before. Forgoing the fire escape this time, I went in through the front door of the building and climbed the stairs.
The walk from the train station had been cold, but it was slightly warmer in the hallway and I could feel my cheeks tingling as they warmed. I stopped a moment to orient myself and went over to the right door. I wiped my dripping nose, rehearsed my speech a coupla times then took a deep breath and knocked.
Even though I'd been there twice before, she'd been out both times. This was the first time I'd met her. Mrs. Jacobs opened the door, wiped her hands on her apron and smiled when she saw me.
"You must be one of David's friends. Come on in, young man."
She put her hand on my shoulder and sort of pulled me into the room. I took off my cap and shoved it into my pocket. Dave looked surprised to see me. Not that I could blame him. I'd never been there without Jack.
"Hey, Davy. Les."
Les was his usual hyper self, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me further into the room. "Mom, this is Racetrack. Remember me tellin' ya about him? Hey, Racetrack, play your harmonica for us."
I gently untangled myself from the kid, wondering what he'd told her about me, and kinda smiled at his mother. She was looking at Les and smiling sort of fondly at him, and I could see how much she loved him just from the look on her face. For a moment, I wondered if my own mother had ever looked at me that way.
"Well, Racetrack, you look chilled to the bone. Come sit over here by the stove. For heaven's sake, child, where is your coat?"
I seemed to have lost my voice, and my throat tightened with something I didn't remember having felt before. I sat where she told me to and only broke from my trance when Dave's worried voice sounded right next to me.
"Is something wrong with Jack?"
I shot him an annoyed look and shook my head. You'd think Jack was the only newsie in Manhattan. "Jack's fine, Davy. I ain't here 'cause of Jack."
"Why are you here?"
I turned to look at his mother, and felt my face heat up. Suddenly, I didn't want to ask what I'd come there to ask. Gathering my courage, I launched into my story.
"I came to ask your mother if she kept any of Les' old clothes. Ya know, stuff he can't wear no more. Winter's gonna be brutal this year and we're gonna have more newsies than we can handle. We're tryin' to come up with clothes and blankets for 'em. If ya got any of Les' old stuff, they'd fit some of the littler kids."
There. I'd said it. I was, basically, begging clothes from a fellow newsie's family. Jack was gonna kill me.
Mrs. Jacobs smiled at me a little sadly and patted me on the arm. "Why, of course dear. I do believe I have a trunk with some clothes that Les has outgrown. Sarah, will you give me a hand?"
Until that moment, I hadn't even realized Sarah was in the room. Oh, boy. She was sure to tell Jack, even if Dave didn't. I was a dead man.
Sarah and her mother went into another room to look for the clothes. Les was tugging on my sleeve, babbling away about school or something. Dave grabbed him by the back of his shirt and told him to pipe down, then he sat down in the chair next to me and gave me a look I couldn't quite place.
"How many kids do you expect this year? I didn't realize you got so many in the winter."
Well, it's not like Dave had been a newsie that long. Why would he think about it?
"We'll probably get twenty more by Christmas. Maybe more. Hard to tell. Might be as bad as '92, when we had a dozen kids sleepin' on the floor."
From the look on Dave's face, I could tell he'd forgotten I'd been there that long.
"Why didn't Jack come with you?"
That question came from Les, who'd managed to get between me an' Dave. I didn't quite know how to tell the kid that Jack would probably soak me for comin' here.
"He, uh, he had to help Kloppy with Thanksgiving dinner."
Dave tilted his head and gave me a surprised look. "You guys have Thanksgiving dinner at the Lodging House?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't we? We're poor, Dave, but we usually manage to have a good dinner Thanksgiving and Christmas."
Besides, Kloppman helped us pay for it. But, Dave didn't need to know that. It bugged me that Dave thought we was too poor to feed ourselves a good dinner. But, then, I was there to bum some old clothes off his family.
"I didn't mean anything by it, Race."
I shrugged, feeling a little bad about the sarcasm that had dripped from my words. "Sorry, Dave. It just hasn't come up before, I guess. Kloppman cooks a turkey or a few chickens, depends on how much money we got. Me, Mush and Blink make the potatoes and corn. Boots bakes the bread. Don't know where he learned it, but it's great. Skittery, of all people, makes us a pie. Medda comes and eats with us some years. Spot usually comes over after he and his boys do their thing."
"Somehow, I can't picture Spot Conlon cooking a turkey dinner."
I had to laugh at that. Just imagining Spot standing over a stove wearing an apron, was too ridiculous to believe. "Nah, Spot don't cook. The old guy that runs the lodgin' house over in Brooklyn does most of the cookin'. They usually play poker to decide who helps him. We used to do that, 'til we realized we actually wanted to eat ours."
Personally, I think that's why Spot always came over to our place. He wanted edible food. I was about to say as much, when Mrs. Jacobs came back into the room carrying a burlap sack. Sarah trailed behind her. The sack was fairly stuffed with clothes.
Les was jerking on my sleeve again. "Racetrack. Hey, Racetrack."
"What, kid?" Man, that kid could ask a million questions, given half the chance.
Les pointed to my face and asked, "How'd ya get the shiner? Did ya get into a fight? Did ya win?"
See what I mean? I shook my head and smiled a little ruefully. "Nah. Well, sorta. I got run over by a bike messenger, then we got in a little fight 'cause he wanted me to pay for the damage to his bicycle."
"You didn't give the scamp any money, did you?"
For some reason, it made me feel good when Mrs. Jacobs asked me that. She obviously didn't think I should have. "No, ma'am. A cop came and broke us up. We had a little misunderstanding over whose fault it was, so I took off. That's how I lost my coat."
Mrs. Jacobs tut-tutted over the injustice and leaned down to give me a comforting hug. I...I can't explain the feeling I had. It stirred up memories I'd long forgotten and, for a moment, I couldn't speak. She must've sensed my reaction, because she patted me on the back and let me go. She handed me the sack and I stood up to leave. Sarah caught me by the arm as I turned to go.
"Racetrack, tell Jack he's welcome to join us for dinner if he'd like."
Still confused by what I was feelin', I just nodded at her. I stuttered my thanks to Mrs. Jacobs, unable to form a complete sentence for once in my life, and hurried out the door. Slipping my cap back on, I ran down the stairs in a hurry to leave that place. Once I was back outside in the cold, I stopped. Looking up to the window I knew belonged to their flat, I had the strange urge to go back. Just to feel her touch again.
The touch of a mother.
I walked back to the lodgin' house, but didn't realize I was there until Mush yelled down to me from the bunkroom window. Guess I wasn't much payin' attention to anything after I left the Jacobs' building.
"Hey, Race, hurry up! We need help peelin' all these potatoes."
I waved up at Mush to let him know I'd heard and went in the front door. Kids were running around, up and down the stairs, wrestling around on the floor and generally getting on Kloppman's last nerve. The old guy shot me a frazzled look when he saw me.
"Racetrack! For the love of Mike, would you get these kids to settle down before I throw you all out into the street?"
'Course I knew he didn't mean it, but I did want our dinner to be edible and it wouldn't be if Kloppman was distracted all afternoon. I dropped the sack of clothes by the desk and waded into the wrestling match. I grabbed Snitch by the back of his pants and hauled him off Snipeshooter.
"Knock it off, ya bums. Make yourselves useful and get the rest o' these idiots outta Kloppy's hair."
Snipeshooter glared at me and asked, "Why should we?"
"Ya wanna eat tonight's dinner, don't ya?"
They saw my point and split up to settle things down, or at least make the other fellas take their energy outside. I picked up the sack of clothes and went upstairs. The bunkroom was peaceful compared to the racket from downstairs. Jack was putting on a clean shirt, Mush and Blink was sittin' on my bunk, peelin' potatoes.
Jack tucked his shirttails in and looked curiously at the sack I was carrying over my shoulder. "Whatchya got there, Race?"
"I...well, it's just..."
I was saved by Dutchy, who came up behind me and gave me a shove toward my bunk. "Whatever it is, it can wait. I've peeled all the potatoes I'm gonna peel. It's your turn."
Grateful for the interruption, I laughed a little nervously and hurried over to my bunk. I dropped the sack on the floor and shoved it under the bed with my foot. "Hey, guys, sorry I'm late."
Kid Blink made room for me and handed me a knife as I sat down. Mush pushed the bucket of potatoes closer to me and as I reached down to get one a shadow fell over the bucket. I looked up to see Jack standing there, tying a clean red bandana around his neck. He had this sort of amused smile on his face. I could tell he was curious about what was in the sack...and about why I was hiding it.
"C'mon, Race. Why were you late, and what's in the bag?"
I started to peel my potato and shrugged it off. "I was just getting some clothes for the kids that'll be comin' to stay here this winter."
Tuggin' on the bottom of his vest, Jack gave me a funny look. "Glad you're thinkin' ahead, Race."
But he thought I was actin' a little strange, just the same. I could tell. To try to change the subject, I pointed my knife at the clean clothes and asked Jack, "So what're you getting all dressed up for?"
Jack ran a hand through his hair and smiled broadly. "After dinner, I'm headin' over to Dave's."
And Sarah.
That reminded me. "Oh, Sarah..." And then the brain kicked in. "Sarah, uh, will probably be happy to see you."
Jeez, I'd almost told him what Sarah had said to me. Then he'd wonder where I'd seen her. Then I'd hafta tell him. Then he'd kill me. Sure, he'd find out later when he went to see the Jacobs family. But, hey, why borrow trouble before I had to?
Jack smiled sorta stupidly for a minute then wandered off to the washroom. To look at himself in the mirror some more, no doubt. Mush started to giggle and Blink nudged me with his elbow, rolling his eyes. "Man, Jack's got it bad."
"You ain't foolin'."
We peeled potatoes in silence for a minute then Blink looked at me and asked, "I don't look that stupid when I'm goin' to meet a girl, do I?"
Keeping a perfectly straight face, I nodded solemnly. "Blink, you look that stupid all the time."
That, of course, set Mush off. He was rolling on the bed, holding his stomach and laughing his head off. I smiled at Blink and went back to peeling. We needed to hurry up and get them on the stove if we were gonna have mashed potatoes for dinner.
As Jack's footsteps echoed down the stairs, Mush sat up and cleared his throat. "So, where'd ya get the clothes and why's it such a secret?"
Craning my neck to see if Jack had really left the room, I sighed and glanced at my friends. "I got 'em from Mrs. Jacobs."
"Mrs. Jacobs, as in Sarah's mother?"
"Yes, Blink, Sarah's mother."
"Jack's gonna kill ya when he finds out."
I knew that, of course. "I know, Mush, but where else was I supposed to go? Knock on some stranger's door and ask for old clothes? I didn't know who else to ask."
After a few minutes, Blink dropped his last potato in the bucket. "Jack'll see the reason behind it, but you might wanna try to avoid him tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Problem was, Jack'd be lookin' for me tonight when he got back from the Jacobs'. And maybe it wasn't fair to let Jack go over there without knowing what I'd done. "I think I should tell him before he goes over there."
Mush looked at me like I'd grown another head. "Are you nuts, Race? I don't want blood on my dinner."
"Jack ain't gonna hit me. Yell at me and maybe push me around a little, but he ain't gonna hit me." I hoped.
"Yeah, but he'll be mad all through dinner and it'll ruin it for everybody."
Well, I couldn't argue with Blink on that one. "Okay, okay. I'll do it after we eat."
"Remind us to run for cover before you do."
"Very funny, Blink. Very funny."
I had come up with one plan to get clothes for the littler kids. Problem was, it would probably make Jack mad. He'd understand why I did it, but he'd be mad all the same. It would put a dent in his pride, with people whose opinion of him meant more than ours.
I didn't have that problem and, as far as I was concerned, keeping the boys warm this winter was more important than Jack's pride.
I'd remember that later, when it was my pride that took a knock.
Anyways, I woke up and went through the usual morning ritual with the other guys. After I got my papes, I headed over to Grand Central Station to sell again with Skittery. Snipeshooter went with us, though, the little thief. I'd been missing one of my cigars that morning and I was pretty sure who'd taken it.
It was even harder than the day before to sell my papes. Especially with a bunch of us tryin' to sell. Me, Snipes and Skittery weren't the only newsies to seek shelter in the station. It was after one o'clock when I finally sold my last pape to a guy who probably bought it so's he'd have an excuse to ignore his nagging wife. I told Snipes and Skitts I'd see them back at the lodgin' house for dinner then went to put my plan into action.
The building I was headed to wasn't the Waldorf-Astoria, but it was better than ours. Shirts and long underwear hung from clothes lines strung from building to building. I knew more lines hung on the roof. To me, that always made me think of mothers. We didn't have clothes lines at the lodgin' house. Most of us only had one spare set of clothes, anyway, and hung them from our bunks to dry.
I knew which flat was theirs since I'd been there a coupla times before. Forgoing the fire escape this time, I went in through the front door of the building and climbed the stairs.
The walk from the train station had been cold, but it was slightly warmer in the hallway and I could feel my cheeks tingling as they warmed. I stopped a moment to orient myself and went over to the right door. I wiped my dripping nose, rehearsed my speech a coupla times then took a deep breath and knocked.
Even though I'd been there twice before, she'd been out both times. This was the first time I'd met her. Mrs. Jacobs opened the door, wiped her hands on her apron and smiled when she saw me.
"You must be one of David's friends. Come on in, young man."
She put her hand on my shoulder and sort of pulled me into the room. I took off my cap and shoved it into my pocket. Dave looked surprised to see me. Not that I could blame him. I'd never been there without Jack.
"Hey, Davy. Les."
Les was his usual hyper self, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me further into the room. "Mom, this is Racetrack. Remember me tellin' ya about him? Hey, Racetrack, play your harmonica for us."
I gently untangled myself from the kid, wondering what he'd told her about me, and kinda smiled at his mother. She was looking at Les and smiling sort of fondly at him, and I could see how much she loved him just from the look on her face. For a moment, I wondered if my own mother had ever looked at me that way.
"Well, Racetrack, you look chilled to the bone. Come sit over here by the stove. For heaven's sake, child, where is your coat?"
I seemed to have lost my voice, and my throat tightened with something I didn't remember having felt before. I sat where she told me to and only broke from my trance when Dave's worried voice sounded right next to me.
"Is something wrong with Jack?"
I shot him an annoyed look and shook my head. You'd think Jack was the only newsie in Manhattan. "Jack's fine, Davy. I ain't here 'cause of Jack."
"Why are you here?"
I turned to look at his mother, and felt my face heat up. Suddenly, I didn't want to ask what I'd come there to ask. Gathering my courage, I launched into my story.
"I came to ask your mother if she kept any of Les' old clothes. Ya know, stuff he can't wear no more. Winter's gonna be brutal this year and we're gonna have more newsies than we can handle. We're tryin' to come up with clothes and blankets for 'em. If ya got any of Les' old stuff, they'd fit some of the littler kids."
There. I'd said it. I was, basically, begging clothes from a fellow newsie's family. Jack was gonna kill me.
Mrs. Jacobs smiled at me a little sadly and patted me on the arm. "Why, of course dear. I do believe I have a trunk with some clothes that Les has outgrown. Sarah, will you give me a hand?"
Until that moment, I hadn't even realized Sarah was in the room. Oh, boy. She was sure to tell Jack, even if Dave didn't. I was a dead man.
Sarah and her mother went into another room to look for the clothes. Les was tugging on my sleeve, babbling away about school or something. Dave grabbed him by the back of his shirt and told him to pipe down, then he sat down in the chair next to me and gave me a look I couldn't quite place.
"How many kids do you expect this year? I didn't realize you got so many in the winter."
Well, it's not like Dave had been a newsie that long. Why would he think about it?
"We'll probably get twenty more by Christmas. Maybe more. Hard to tell. Might be as bad as '92, when we had a dozen kids sleepin' on the floor."
From the look on Dave's face, I could tell he'd forgotten I'd been there that long.
"Why didn't Jack come with you?"
That question came from Les, who'd managed to get between me an' Dave. I didn't quite know how to tell the kid that Jack would probably soak me for comin' here.
"He, uh, he had to help Kloppy with Thanksgiving dinner."
Dave tilted his head and gave me a surprised look. "You guys have Thanksgiving dinner at the Lodging House?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't we? We're poor, Dave, but we usually manage to have a good dinner Thanksgiving and Christmas."
Besides, Kloppman helped us pay for it. But, Dave didn't need to know that. It bugged me that Dave thought we was too poor to feed ourselves a good dinner. But, then, I was there to bum some old clothes off his family.
"I didn't mean anything by it, Race."
I shrugged, feeling a little bad about the sarcasm that had dripped from my words. "Sorry, Dave. It just hasn't come up before, I guess. Kloppman cooks a turkey or a few chickens, depends on how much money we got. Me, Mush and Blink make the potatoes and corn. Boots bakes the bread. Don't know where he learned it, but it's great. Skittery, of all people, makes us a pie. Medda comes and eats with us some years. Spot usually comes over after he and his boys do their thing."
"Somehow, I can't picture Spot Conlon cooking a turkey dinner."
I had to laugh at that. Just imagining Spot standing over a stove wearing an apron, was too ridiculous to believe. "Nah, Spot don't cook. The old guy that runs the lodgin' house over in Brooklyn does most of the cookin'. They usually play poker to decide who helps him. We used to do that, 'til we realized we actually wanted to eat ours."
Personally, I think that's why Spot always came over to our place. He wanted edible food. I was about to say as much, when Mrs. Jacobs came back into the room carrying a burlap sack. Sarah trailed behind her. The sack was fairly stuffed with clothes.
Les was jerking on my sleeve again. "Racetrack. Hey, Racetrack."
"What, kid?" Man, that kid could ask a million questions, given half the chance.
Les pointed to my face and asked, "How'd ya get the shiner? Did ya get into a fight? Did ya win?"
See what I mean? I shook my head and smiled a little ruefully. "Nah. Well, sorta. I got run over by a bike messenger, then we got in a little fight 'cause he wanted me to pay for the damage to his bicycle."
"You didn't give the scamp any money, did you?"
For some reason, it made me feel good when Mrs. Jacobs asked me that. She obviously didn't think I should have. "No, ma'am. A cop came and broke us up. We had a little misunderstanding over whose fault it was, so I took off. That's how I lost my coat."
Mrs. Jacobs tut-tutted over the injustice and leaned down to give me a comforting hug. I...I can't explain the feeling I had. It stirred up memories I'd long forgotten and, for a moment, I couldn't speak. She must've sensed my reaction, because she patted me on the back and let me go. She handed me the sack and I stood up to leave. Sarah caught me by the arm as I turned to go.
"Racetrack, tell Jack he's welcome to join us for dinner if he'd like."
Still confused by what I was feelin', I just nodded at her. I stuttered my thanks to Mrs. Jacobs, unable to form a complete sentence for once in my life, and hurried out the door. Slipping my cap back on, I ran down the stairs in a hurry to leave that place. Once I was back outside in the cold, I stopped. Looking up to the window I knew belonged to their flat, I had the strange urge to go back. Just to feel her touch again.
The touch of a mother.
I walked back to the lodgin' house, but didn't realize I was there until Mush yelled down to me from the bunkroom window. Guess I wasn't much payin' attention to anything after I left the Jacobs' building.
"Hey, Race, hurry up! We need help peelin' all these potatoes."
I waved up at Mush to let him know I'd heard and went in the front door. Kids were running around, up and down the stairs, wrestling around on the floor and generally getting on Kloppman's last nerve. The old guy shot me a frazzled look when he saw me.
"Racetrack! For the love of Mike, would you get these kids to settle down before I throw you all out into the street?"
'Course I knew he didn't mean it, but I did want our dinner to be edible and it wouldn't be if Kloppman was distracted all afternoon. I dropped the sack of clothes by the desk and waded into the wrestling match. I grabbed Snitch by the back of his pants and hauled him off Snipeshooter.
"Knock it off, ya bums. Make yourselves useful and get the rest o' these idiots outta Kloppy's hair."
Snipeshooter glared at me and asked, "Why should we?"
"Ya wanna eat tonight's dinner, don't ya?"
They saw my point and split up to settle things down, or at least make the other fellas take their energy outside. I picked up the sack of clothes and went upstairs. The bunkroom was peaceful compared to the racket from downstairs. Jack was putting on a clean shirt, Mush and Blink was sittin' on my bunk, peelin' potatoes.
Jack tucked his shirttails in and looked curiously at the sack I was carrying over my shoulder. "Whatchya got there, Race?"
"I...well, it's just..."
I was saved by Dutchy, who came up behind me and gave me a shove toward my bunk. "Whatever it is, it can wait. I've peeled all the potatoes I'm gonna peel. It's your turn."
Grateful for the interruption, I laughed a little nervously and hurried over to my bunk. I dropped the sack on the floor and shoved it under the bed with my foot. "Hey, guys, sorry I'm late."
Kid Blink made room for me and handed me a knife as I sat down. Mush pushed the bucket of potatoes closer to me and as I reached down to get one a shadow fell over the bucket. I looked up to see Jack standing there, tying a clean red bandana around his neck. He had this sort of amused smile on his face. I could tell he was curious about what was in the sack...and about why I was hiding it.
"C'mon, Race. Why were you late, and what's in the bag?"
I started to peel my potato and shrugged it off. "I was just getting some clothes for the kids that'll be comin' to stay here this winter."
Tuggin' on the bottom of his vest, Jack gave me a funny look. "Glad you're thinkin' ahead, Race."
But he thought I was actin' a little strange, just the same. I could tell. To try to change the subject, I pointed my knife at the clean clothes and asked Jack, "So what're you getting all dressed up for?"
Jack ran a hand through his hair and smiled broadly. "After dinner, I'm headin' over to Dave's."
And Sarah.
That reminded me. "Oh, Sarah..." And then the brain kicked in. "Sarah, uh, will probably be happy to see you."
Jeez, I'd almost told him what Sarah had said to me. Then he'd wonder where I'd seen her. Then I'd hafta tell him. Then he'd kill me. Sure, he'd find out later when he went to see the Jacobs family. But, hey, why borrow trouble before I had to?
Jack smiled sorta stupidly for a minute then wandered off to the washroom. To look at himself in the mirror some more, no doubt. Mush started to giggle and Blink nudged me with his elbow, rolling his eyes. "Man, Jack's got it bad."
"You ain't foolin'."
We peeled potatoes in silence for a minute then Blink looked at me and asked, "I don't look that stupid when I'm goin' to meet a girl, do I?"
Keeping a perfectly straight face, I nodded solemnly. "Blink, you look that stupid all the time."
That, of course, set Mush off. He was rolling on the bed, holding his stomach and laughing his head off. I smiled at Blink and went back to peeling. We needed to hurry up and get them on the stove if we were gonna have mashed potatoes for dinner.
As Jack's footsteps echoed down the stairs, Mush sat up and cleared his throat. "So, where'd ya get the clothes and why's it such a secret?"
Craning my neck to see if Jack had really left the room, I sighed and glanced at my friends. "I got 'em from Mrs. Jacobs."
"Mrs. Jacobs, as in Sarah's mother?"
"Yes, Blink, Sarah's mother."
"Jack's gonna kill ya when he finds out."
I knew that, of course. "I know, Mush, but where else was I supposed to go? Knock on some stranger's door and ask for old clothes? I didn't know who else to ask."
After a few minutes, Blink dropped his last potato in the bucket. "Jack'll see the reason behind it, but you might wanna try to avoid him tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Problem was, Jack'd be lookin' for me tonight when he got back from the Jacobs'. And maybe it wasn't fair to let Jack go over there without knowing what I'd done. "I think I should tell him before he goes over there."
Mush looked at me like I'd grown another head. "Are you nuts, Race? I don't want blood on my dinner."
"Jack ain't gonna hit me. Yell at me and maybe push me around a little, but he ain't gonna hit me." I hoped.
"Yeah, but he'll be mad all through dinner and it'll ruin it for everybody."
Well, I couldn't argue with Blink on that one. "Okay, okay. I'll do it after we eat."
"Remind us to run for cover before you do."
"Very funny, Blink. Very funny."