The Good-Luck Bogie Hat Read online

  The last poem Arthur had written had been about spring and the daffodils coming up and the birds singing, and Charlie had been seized with a fit of coughing so violent that even Miss Peterson had said he could go to the fountain and get a drink. She probably thought he was going to choke to death and she didn’t know how to explain it to the principal.

  She stood at the door of the room and watched Charlie walk the entire length of the hall and watched while he bent over to get a drink. She stood there, tapping her foot, so he couldn’t do anything but come straight back. He walked as slow as possible and finally she said, “Snap it up!” in a hissing voice like a snake.

  Boy, do I feel sorry for the poor guy you’re going to marry, Charlie said silently. He didn’t want Miss Peterson to blow her stack the way she had the last time he’d said something she wasn’t supposed to hear. His mother had had to come down to school and have a conference and everything.

  Except for the fact that Arthur wrote poems and read them aloud to the class, he was a good kid. He laughed at Charlie’s jokes about as hard as he laughed at his own, and there weren’t too many kids who did that. They thought theirs were funnier. He also liked to eat a lot but his mother always had him on a diet so he gave Charlie a bunch of cupcakes and junk.

  He usually had money too. His father gave him an allowance when he thought of it. When Charlie wanted to borrow, Arthur loaned him cash and didn’t even charge interest, like some tightwad friends Charlie could mention, if he wanted.

  “Artie, you are one in a million,” Charlie said.

  Arthur recognized the tone of voice. “I’m broke,” he said. “My mother’s birthday was last week and the guy got a buck off me in church Sunday.”

  Charlie popped his eyeballs out so far they almost lay on his cheeks. He clutched his throat and rolled on the ground, making gagging noises.

  “How come?” he asked when he could talk.

  Arthur was pleased by the violence of the reaction. “I felt this thing in my pocket, all soft like an old sock,” he said, “and I pulled it out and it was a dollar bill I didn’t know I had and the guy passing the plate happened along just at the wrong moment, so what could I do?”

  “You could’ve pretended you were having a fit or something,” Charlie said. “I would’ve. Wow! Talk about lousy timing.”

  Both boys sat with their chins in their hands and thought about the fickle finger of fate.

  Charlie picked at his scab, gently lifting first one corner, then the other corner. The skin underneath was pink. Things were coming along nicely.

  “Cut that out,” Arthur said, turning pale.

  Charlie put his hands behind his head. He thought he’d take a tip from Ack Ack and catch a cat nap.

  A quick trot around the yard made Arthur feel better. A poem began to form inside his head. It was extraordinary the way that happened, just when he least expected.

  “’Twas the first day of summer,” Arthur recited aloud, “and birds were on the wing.”

  Blankness. Inspiration fled. Summer. Wing. What next?

  He looked at Charlie. Asleep? At ten o’clock in the morning? “I am getting dumber, so I begin to sing.”

  He put his mouth next to Charlie’s ear and sang a loud, clear, tuneless melody. Arthur was tone deaf.

  Charlie barely stirred.

  “The first day of summer,” Arthur shouted, “you are getting dumber.”

  Charlie sat up. “You are a pain,” he said crossly.

  4

  “Who’s the chick?” Ben asked Ack Ack, who had stopped by to borrow some history notes.

  “Thanks, old buddy,” Ack Ack said, pocketing the notes. “You are a lifesaver. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Our friendship knows no bounds. You are a prince of a fellow, Ben.”

  “Stop the rhetoric, pal,” Ben said, “and tell me who the cool-looking chick is you’ve got sitting out there in your old man’s car.” Charlie looked out the window. Whoever it was, she looked like any other girl to him.

  “That’s no chick. That’s only Penny. She gets a three-week spring vacation. How do you like that?”

  Penny was Ack Ack’s sister. She was a year younger than he and Ben. Last year Mr. Ackerman had sent her to a girl’s boarding school. It cost a mint, her father said, but this outfit was not only devoted to things of the mind and of the spirit, but of the body as well. Sports were a big part of the curriculum. They had everything covered.

  “That’s Penny?” Ben raised his eyebrows. “Not ole Penny the Pig?” Ben kept on peering from behind the curtains. “From what I can see she sure looks different.”

  Ack Ack scratched his head.

  “She ain’t,” he said succinctly. “As bossy as ever. No sooner does she set foot inside the front door than she’s telling me I better get a haircut. Get her. Only thing different about her is she must’ve lost about a hundred pounds. They really keep those dames hopping at that school. Field hockey, riding, tennis, you name it.”

  Penny had always been what Charlie’s father called “a good substantial girl,” which meant she was fat. Fat and bossy, that was some combination, Charlie figured. He remembered that Ben used to call her Captain Chubby.

  “Maybe I better go and check her out,” Ben said. “Say a fast welcome home or words to that effect.”

  “Make it snappy,” Ack Ack said. “I’ve got to get to work.”

  Charlie went out to the car with Ben and Ack Ack.

  “Hello, Ben,” Penny said. She didn’t say anything to Charlie, didn’t even look at him. He felt invisible.

  “How are you?” she said in that sugary phony tone Charlie had noticed girls used when they were talking to Ben and older kids. They never talked that way to him. He felt like popping a girl in the face who talked that way.

  “Hey, Penny, how’s the girl?” Ben leaned on the car. “I never would’ve known you. You’ve changed some.”

  Penny smiled. “I know,” she said. She flipped her hair over her shoulders. Charlie figured she thought she was a Miss Teen Queen or one of those.

  “How’s school? You take over the joint yet? They elect you president of the student council or anything?” Ben asked.

  Penny looked at herself in the rearview mirror. “I’m captain of the field hockey team,” she said.

  “Why not?” Charlie muttered. “With those legs.”

  “No kidding?” Ben laughed as if Penny had said something funny. “I hear you’re going to be home for three weeks.”

  Penny smiled. “Why don’t you drop by?” she said. “We can talk over old times.”

  “I might,” Ben said. “I just might.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to split,” Ack Ack said. “The old lady will put a wrist lock on me if I don’t get the car back.”

  “Say,” Ben said, rubbing his chin as they watched Ack Ack drive away, “she’s pretty nice.”

  “She still looks like Captain Chubby to me,” Charlie said sourly. “How come she talks in that disgusting voice?”

  “She’s some nice tomato,” Ben said.

  “Can we go to Sammy’s tomorrow?” Charlie asked. “I want to see about that hat.”

  “I guess so,” Ben said absent-mindedly.

  5

  “Sammy, I brought my kid brother in for a look at your wares,” Ben said. “Charlie, this is Sammy.”

  Ben had told Charlie that Sammy was pretty cross-eyed but he hadn’t described how little tufts of hair grew out of his ears. They sort of made up for the fact that he had almost no hair on his head. Sammy was a very interesting-looking man.

  “Pleased to meet you, Charlie. You look like about a size twelve, fourteen, somewheres around there.” Sammy backed off and sized Charlie up. “A rangy kid, you got a lot of growing in you yet, it’s plain to see. An athletic type, like your brother here.”

  Sammy raised a finger. “Wait,” he said. “One minute. I have something special, a real number for your inspection, Ben.” He raced into the back where he kept his choicest items, n
ot for sale to the average customer, only for favorites such as Ben.

  “What do you think?” Sammy asked, coming back with something black over his arm.

  “What is it?” Charlie asked.

  “It’s a tail coat,” Sammy said. “Probably a custom-made job. The man who sold it to me, he was a waiter or a magician, something along those lines. A very expensive item. I can let you have it for a fraction of its original cost.”

  “Neat,” said Ben, “but where would I wear it?”

  “Where would you wear it? Where would you wear it?” Sammy threw his hands in the air. “What kind of a question is that? You’d wear it to a formal occasion, maybe to church or to a fancy-dress ball. All kinds of places.”

  Sammy stroked the black material lovingly. “I always wanted one of these when I was your age. You got one of these items, you can go anywhere.”

  Ben put the tail coat on and stood in front of the full-length mirror Sammy kept in the store for just such events. He looked a little lost. The coat had been made for a much bigger man.

  “It just so happens I got this to go along with it and I am not averse to throwing it in for gratis,” and Sammy placed a top hat, slightly the worse for wear but still a top hat, on Ben’s head.

  “That’s one hundred per cent silk,” he said softly.

  Charlie breathed heavily.

  “Boss,” he said, “really boss.”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “It feels sort of funny.”

  “Listen, a top hat’s not something you just put on and feel right in. Believe me”—and Sammy’s eyes seemed to collide over the bridge of his nose—“believe me, when you own one of them, you are a man of the world. A bon vivant, an entrepreneur, even a tycoon. But it comes gradual. You got to take it easy. You got to adjust to it slow.”

  The sun shone through the dirty windows of the shop. A train went by, rattling the cast-off golf clubs and wooden skis that someone had unloaded on Sammy. An old tiger cat looked sullenly from behind a chair.

  “And I believe I might, just might, don’t count on it, have something to go with your outfit. Stay here. Don’t move,” and Sammy sped away again into the back.

  “He’s a character,” Charlie said.

  “One of nature’s noblemen,” Ben agreed. Sammy came back carrying a package wrapped in tissue paper.

  “What is it?” Charlie asked again.

  “It’s spats, clod,” Ben said when Sammy had taken the paper off. “Don’t you know spats when you see ’em?”

  “I never saw a pair before,” Charlie said.

  Ben slipped the gray felt harnesses over his desert boots. The effect was astonishing.

  “Do they add the final touch or do they add the final touch?” Sammy wanted to know. “With them gaiters on you could go to Buckingham Palace even.”

  “Who needs Buckingham Palace?” Ben did a little dance. The spats did indeed look fine. “I might just wear them to the movies. I might even sport the whole schmeer.”

  “How are you going to get out of the house without Mom’s seeing you?” Charlie asked. “You know what she’d say.”

  “I’ll take care of the old lady,” Ben said masterfully. “I can handle her.”

  “Oh yeah?” Charlie nudged Ben. “How about the hat? Ask about the hat.”

  “Right. Sammy, Charlie here is interested in purchasing a Sherlock-Holmes-type hat. I told him you had one you might consider an offer on.”

  Sammy laid a finger alongside his nose. His left eye seemed to be keeping track of it.

  “The checked one,” he said. “A good buy at a buck. Not a hole in it, not a mark on it. I don’t think I can let it go for less than a buck.”

  Charlie said, “I don’t have a buck.”

  “How much you got?”

  “I have twenty-seven cents,” Charlie said. “I could let you have that as a down payment. I could pay you a little each week.”

  “If I let you have it for fifty cents, that makes it too easy,” Sammy thought aloud. “Suppose we shake on seventy-five. For seventy-five you got yourself a buy. A beautiful buy. I, Sammy, do not lie.”

  Charlie and Sammy shook on it.

  “It’s a deal,” Charlie said. “Can I wear it now?”

  “Ordinarily, I do not allow a customer to wear the merchandise until it is fully paid for,” Sammy said. “In this case, I will make an exception. You are a relative of Ben here and I know you are as good as your word. You may wear it out of my store after I receive my deposit of twenty-seven cents.”

  Charlie thrashed through his pockets and came up with a quarter and a penny.

  “I thought I had twenty-seven,” he said, turning both pockets inside out.

  Sammy raised his hand. “Never mind,” he said. “Sammy does not go back on his word. I am an honest man. For a twenty-six-cent deposit you may wear your purchase out of my store. Good will is everything. I been creating good will among my customers for more years than I like to think about.”

  Sammy and Charlie shook hands again.

  “Done and done,” Sammy said.

  “What’s ‘done and done’ mean?” Charlie asked when he and Ben were on their way home.

  “He got it out of the movies. He told me all the guys in the movies he saw when he was a kid were always saying it when they were going to fight a duel or something.”

  “But what’s it mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Ben shrugged. “What difference does it make? It sounds good. Some things you don’t want to investigate too thoroughly, kid. Some things you just accept.”

  “Done and done,” said Charlie. His new hat gave him a feeling of power that was very pleasant, very pleasant indeed.

  “I need a pipe to go with this,” he told Ben. “Sherlock Holmes always smoked a pipe.”

  “Yeah, well, that comes later. Try the old lady and the old man with the hat first.”

  “What about the tail coat and the top hat and the spats?” Charlie asked. “That’ll really have them flipping.”

  “Sammy’s going to hold them for me. For six bucks. I plan to bring them home separately. That way they won’t get hit with the works all at once.”

  “Good idea,” Charlie said. “Done and done.”

  6

  “Let’s hitch a ride home,” Charlie suggested. “Naw,” Arthur said. “It’s against the law.” A long shiny car pulled up to the curb. “Hey, you kids, no loitering now.” The deep voice sounded right in Charlie’s ear. Arthur turned pale.

  “All’s we were doing is standing on the corner,” Arthur said.

  It was Ack Ack, laughing up a storm. He looked over his left shoulder, then over his right. No one was following him. Good.

  “I really had you going, didn’t I? Thought I was the fuzz, didn’t you? Oh, yeah. Hop in, comrades, and I’ll give you a lift.”

  Charlie and Arthur hopped in.

  “How come you get to drive your father’s car?” Charlie asked. Ack Ack was usually on his motorbike. His father had this shiny car and he treated it like it was Apollo 15 or something. He was prouder of that car than anything. He washed and waxed it so much that when the sun hit it, the reflection was blinding.

  “My old man’s away on a business trip,” Ack Ack said, “and you know my mother. She’s very permissive. She said I could drive it today if I picked up Penny when I got out of school and saved her a trip. O.K. with you guys if I make a brief sortie into the fleshpots?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said. He’d never been to the fleshpots, whatever they were, but they sounded worth seeing.

  The fleshpots turned out to be Murray’s, the local department store. Penny was standing in front, frowning.

  “Where have you been?” she asked Ack Ack crossly. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”

  “The fresh air’s good for you,” Ack Ack said.

  “A gentleman would open the door for me,” Penny said, opening her own door.

  “One thing I have never claimed to be,” Ack Ack said proudly, “a
nd that’s a gentleman.”

  Penny turned and surveyed Charlie and Arthur.

  “You kids look like something the cat dragged in,” she said without preamble. “When was the last time you took a bath?”

  “A week ago Saturday,” Charlie said. “My mother’s very strict. She makes me take a bath every other week.”

  Penny directed a stare of considerable malevolence at him. “You always were a smart aleck,” she said.

  Arthur tittered and poked Charlie in the ribs.

  “Turn left at Oak Street,” Penny said. “I want to see if the Thompsons still live there.”

  “Say ‘please,’” Ack Ack said.

  “Where’s Ben?” she asked Charlie. She didn’t say “please,” he noticed.

  “He works at the B and T after school.”

  “What does he do there?” she asked.

  “Oh, lots of things. Pumps gas, does repairs. He can do practically anything. The guy says Ben’s the best worker he’s ever had.”

  “I thought he had a job at the ice-cream place,” Arthur said.

  “He did but he got fired. He was overloading the cones and the profits were ’way down.”

  “Drive over to the B and T and let’s get the tank filled,” Penny said. “We can charge it to Dad.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Ack Ack whispered in a loud voice. “I value my life too much for that, sister. Anyway, I have to get home and take my bike to the shop. It’s making funny noises.”

  “So what else is new?” Penny said, combing her hair.

  “Why don’t you get off my back?” Ack Ack said.

  They pulled up into the Ackerman’s driveway.

  “We’ll walk from here,” Charlie said. “Thanks for the lift.”

  Ack Ack got out of the car and went into the house. Penny slid over to the driver’s seat. She turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred. She checked herself in the mirror.

  “You can’t drive,” Charlie said from the back seat. “You’re too young.”

  “That’s all you know.” Penny smiled at herself. “I’ve been driving for ages. Not on the road, just in the driveway, for practice. It’s a cinch. See?”