Read Online Tallahassee Higgins by Mary Downing Hahn - Free Book Online

then paused in the doorway. "Oh, I came up to tell you that your aunt's home, Tallahassee, so you can run along over there. Jane, you get started on your schoolwork."
    We sat still for a minute, listening to Mrs. DeFlores go downstairs. "What do you think she'd say if you asked her about Johnny?" I asked Jane.
    "I'd be scared to," Jane said frankly. "She'd get really mad, I just know she would."
    I stood up and started pulling on my jacket as Susan stuck her head in the door.
    "You have to go home," she said in her usual bratty way. "My mommy said so."
    I crossed my eyes at her and ran downstairs, passing Mrs. DeFlores in the kitchen. She didn't even bother to say good-bye.
    ***
    At Uncle Dan's house I ran to the basket where Aunt Thelma always put the mail. As usual, there was nothing for me.
    "It's about time you got home," Aunt Thelma greeted me. "Set the table and then help me fix the salad."
    Wordlessly, I held out Johnny's picture. "Do you know him?"
    Aunt Thelma snatched the picture out of my hand. "Where did you get this?"
    "Never mind where I got it. Do you
know
him?" I reached for the picture, but she held on to it, scrutinizing it as if she was memorizing every detail.
    "Of course I know him," she said slowly. "It's Johnny Russell. He lived right around the corner on Forty-first Avenue. I used to babysit for him."
    "Does he still live there?"
    "He was killed in Vietnam," she said softly, "just before the war ended."
    I sucked in my breath and my knees felt weak. "He's dead?" I whispered.
    She nodded, gazing past me as if she could see Johnny somewhere beyond me. "His name's on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. Your uncle and I went down to see it."
    "He's my father, isn't he?" My mouth felt funny saying the words—dry and stiff and sort of shaky—but I forced them out.
    "Your father?" Laying the picture on the counter, Aunt Thelma opened a kitchen cabinet and started pulling out the things she needed for dinner. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
    "Look at him." I picked up the picture and waved it at her. "He looks just like me. Same hair, same teeth, same freckles! He's my father, I know he is!" I was yelling now, and Fritzi was barking, circling my feet, making little dashes at my shoes and jeans.
    "Don't shout at me like that!" Aunt Thelma slammed a can of paprika down on the counter beside the chicken she was preparing to cook.
    "Then tell me the truth!" I wanted to throw myself at her, hit her, force her to be honest with me.
    "The truth? You want the truth?" Aunt Thelma's face reddened. "I have no idea who your father is! I doubt your own mother knows!"
    For a second everything in the kitchen seemed to freeze. Even Fritzi stopped barking as Aunt Thelma and I stared at each other. When she finally opened her mouth to say something, I ran out of the kitchen and up the steps to my room, clutching Johnny's picture in my hand.

Chapter 11
    T HE NEXT MORNING while Jane and I were walking to school, I told her what Aunt Thelma had said about Johnny dying in Vietnam. "She also said she didn't know who my father was," I added, not mentioning what she'd said about Liz.
    "Oh, Talley, that's so sad." Jane looked close to tears. "He wanted to see the world."
    "Well, I guess he saw some of it," I said, blinking back my own tears, "but not a very good part."
    We were passing Forty-first Avenue, and I paused for a minute and looked at the big, old houses inching up the hill toward the park. "Do you think his family still lives there?" I asked Jane.
    "Mrs. Russell," she said. "Why didn't I think of her? "She must be Johnny's mother!"
    Jane pointed up the street. "See that big house, the one with the tower? She lives right there."
    "Just Mrs. Russell? All by herself?"
    "Mr. Russell died a long time ago," Jane said. "I never knew she had any children, but she has a big dog. You've probably seen her out walking him."
    "She's pretty old, with gray hair and kind of strict looking? And the dog's black and white and about the size