Read Online The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright - Free Book Online Page B

from ailanthus trees in the backyard. Mona was brushing her hair; electricity made it stand out in a silken skein and Randy could hear it crackle like burning leaves. It was almost too bright to look at in the sun.
    â€œYou have beautiful hair,” she said.
    â€œOh, beautiful!” scoffed Mona brushing as if she hated it. “Nasty old straight stuff. You and Rush are the lucky ones.”
    â€œRush doesn’t think so. He’s always trying to make his lie down and be straight. Remember the time he put the gelatine on it?”
    They both laughed.
    Mona’s fingers deftly plaited the golden hair. Then she put on her cleanest sweater and skirt and her green coat and hat that matched. But where were her gloves? She jerked open the bureau drawers, burrowing through them till they boiled over. Not a glove in sight. Randy got off her bed and joined the search and at last they were located in the strangest places! One in the kitchen beside the alarm clock and one upstairs in the Office on the piano.
    â€œAll my gloves behave like that,” said Mona, slapping them together as if to punish them. “They never want to stay in pairs.”
    â€œThey’re what the newspapers call incompatible,” said Rush. “What are you going to do with your afternoon? Come on, Mona, be a sport.”
    But Mona wouldn’t tell. She patted her pocketbook and smiled mysteriously. The truth was she wasn’t sure herself.
    â€œGood-bye, kids,” she said. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow—’.”
    â€œScram,” advised Rush, holding the door open for her, and when she had gone down the front steps he and Randy tormented her all the way up the block by yelling admonitions after her at the top of their wicked lungs. “Don’t get run over! Don’t get lost! Don’t talk to STRANGERS!”
    â€œI suppose I might as well practice,” said Rush, slowly climbing the stairs. “Later we can go to the park.” Isaac trotted at his heels. For, though Rush had honorably inspected all the Lost notices in the newspapers for the past week, he had found no description of a lost dog resembling Isaac. Poodles, yes. Dachshunds, and Sealyhams, and Scotties, yes. But not, thank Heaven, a single mention of a small intelligent mongrel who showed traces of spaniel ancestry.
    Randy followed them. She was going to play Drugstore with Oliver in the top-floor bathroom. It was really an advanced form of mud pies. You took all the leftover tooth paste, cold cream, talcum powder, and medicines that had been hanging about the medicine cabinets long enough not to be missed, and you made mixtures. Last time they had evolved two splendid creations: Measlenot, a cure for measles made out of talcum powder, cold cream, and a dash of turtle food; and Complexion Jellyfish, a skin remedy compounded of melted soap and pink mouthwash.
    Soon Randy and Oliver were happily and messily absorbed, and except for the music that poured out of the Office the house was very still.
    Mona walked along the street feeling like the heroine of a play. The whole afternoon lay ahead of her filled with boundless opportunities. It was a cold day but not too cold. Mona couldn’t remember when the air had ever seemed so delicious before. She felt like running, or soaring in great bounding leaps, or shouting noisily. But naturally she did nothing of the kind. She walked sedately along the street, swinging her pocketbook and smiling to herself. She wondered if the people who passed her noticed the smile and thought to themselves, Who can she be? What a strange, mysterious smile! But then (it always happened that way) she caught sight of her reflection in a glass shop window and was astonished at how much fatter and shorter she was than she thought of herself as being. Between the swinging braids her round face with its mysterious smile looked perfectly sappy. There was no other word for it. Just sappy.
    Minus the