Part 15 (1/2)

'Not right now,' she said.

'Rain, rain, it's going to rain!' Franny went off dancing.

Ronda shook her head at me - but nicely - and then shut her door.

I chased Franny outside into Elliot Park. We could see Mother and Father at the window by the fire escape in 3E. Mother had opened the window to call to us.

'Go get Egg and Lilly at the movies!' she said.

'What are you doing in that that room?' I called back. room?' I called back.

'Cleaning it!' said Mother.

'Rain, rain, rain!' Franny screamed, and we ran downtown to the matinee.

Egg and Lilly came out of the movies with Junior Jones.

'It's a kids kids' movie,' Franny said to Jones. 'How come you you went?' went?'

'I'm just a big kid,' Junior said. He held her hand while we all walked home, and Franny took a stroll with him through the Dairy School grounds; I continued toward home with Egg and Lilly.

'Does Franny love Junior Jones?' Lilly asked, seriously.

'Well, she likes likes him, anyway,' I said. 'He is her friend.' him, anyway,' I said. 'He is her friend.'

'What?' said Egg.

It was almost Thanksgiving. Junior was staying with us for Thanksgiving vpcation, because his parents didn't send him enough money to go home. And several of the foreign students at the Dairy School - who lived too far away to go home for Thanksgiving - would be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone liked having Junior around, but the foreign students, whom n.o.body knew, had been Father's idea - and Mother had gone along, saying it was the kind of thing Thanksgiving was originally for. Maybe, but we children did not care for the invasion. Guests in the hotel were one thing, and there was one of those staying with us - a famous Finnish doctor, supposedly, who was there to visit his daughter at the Dairy School. She was one of the foreigners coming to dinner. The others included a j.a.panese whom Frank knew from his taxidermy project; the j.a.panese had been sworn to secrecy over the stuffing of Sorrow, Frank had told me, but the boy's English was so bad that he could have blurted out the truth and no one would have understood him. Then there were two Korean girls, whose hands were so pretty and small Lilly would never take her eyes from them - not for the entire dinner. They perhaps kindled an interest in eating that had been absent in Lilly before, however, because they ate lots of things with their little fingers - in such a delicate and beautiful way that Lilly began to play with her food in this fas.h.i.+on, and eventually even ate some. Egg, of course, would spend the day shouting 'What?' to the tragically incomprehensible j.a.panese boy. And Junior Jones would eat, and eat, and eat - making Mrs. Urick nearly detonate with pride.

'Now, there there is an appet.i.te!' said Mrs. Urick, admiringly. is an appet.i.te!' said Mrs. Urick, admiringly.

'If I was as big as that, I'd eat like that, too,' Max said.

'No you wouldn't,' said Mrs. Urick. 'You don't have it in you.'

Ronda Ray did not wear her waitress uniform; she sat and ate with the family, jumping up to clear the dishes and serve things from the kitchen, along with Franny and Mother and the big blonde girl from Finland whose famous father was visiting her.

The Finnish girl was enormous and made swooping movements around the table that made Lilly cringe. She was a big blue-and-white ski-sweater sort of girl, who kept hugging her father, a big blue-and-white ski-sweater sort of man.

'Ho!' he kept crying, at the arrival of new food from the kitchen.

'Ya-hoo,' Franny whispered.

'Holy cow,' said Junior Jones.

Iowa Bob sat next to Jones at the table; their end of the table was nearest the television above the bar, so that they could watch the football game in progress through our dinner.

'If that's a clip, I'll eat my plate,' Jones would say.

'Eat your plate,' Coach Bob would say.

'What's a ”clip”?' the famous Finnish doctor would ask, only it sounded like 'Wot's a clop?'

Iowa Bob would then offer to demonstrate a clip, on Ronda, who was willing, and the Korean girls giggled shyly to themselves, and the j.a.panese struggled - with his turkey, with his b.u.t.ter knife, with Frank's mumbling explanations, with Egg's shouts of 'What!' all the time, with (apparently) everything.

'This is the loudest dinner I've ever eaten,' Franny said.

'What?' Egg cried.

'Jesus G.o.d,' said Father.

'Lilly,' Mother said. 'Please eat. Then you'll grow.' eat. Then you'll grow.'

'What's that?' said the famous Finnish doctor, only it sounded like 'Wot's dot?' He looked at Mother and Lilly. 'Who's not growing?' he asked.

'Oh, it's nothing,' Mother said.

'It's me,' said Lilly. 'I've stopped growing.'

'No you haven't, dear,' Mother said.

'Her growth appears to be arrested,' Father said.

'Ho, arrested arrested!' the Finn said, staring at Lilly. 'Not growing, eh?' he asked her. She nodded in her small way. The doctor put his hands on her head and peered into her eyes. Everyone stopped eating, except the j.a.panese boy and the Korean girls.

'How do you say?' the doctor asked, and then said something unp.r.o.nounceable to his daughter.

'Tape measure,' she said.

'Ho, a tape measure?' the doctor cried. Max Urick ran and got one. The doctor measured Lilly around her chest, around her waist, around her wrists and ankles, around her shoulders, around her head.

'She's all right,' Father said. 'It's nothing.'

'Be quiet,' Mother said.

The doctor wrote down all the figures.

'Ho!' he said.

'Eat up your food, dear,' Mother told Lilly, but Lilly was staring at the figures the doctor had written on his napkin.

'How do you say?' the doctor asked his daughter, and said another unp.r.o.nounceable word. This time the daughter drew a blank. 'You don't know know?' her father asked her. She shook her head. 'Where's the dictionary?' he asked her.

'In my dorm,' she said.

'Ho!' he said. 'Go and get it.'

'Now?' she said, and looked wistfully at her second serving of goose and turkey and stuffing, heaped upon her plate.

'Go, go!' her father said. 'Of course course now. Go! now. Go! Ho! Ho! Go!' he said, and the big blue-and-white ski-sweater girl was gone. Go!' he said, and the big blue-and-white ski-sweater girl was gone.