“How did you lick both of them?” Dad asked curiously.
“Both, three, six — who cares?” Stoney said. “They both lead with the right and swing from way back and shut their eyes when they swing. All you gotta do is stay inside the swing and bust ’em with straight rights and left hooks.”
Dad stayed home from the office the next day to see Stoney off. Mrs. Turner came to drive him down to the station. Dad carried the black suitcase out to the car. Stoney had a little more weight on him and he looked heavier in the shoulders, but otherwise he was exactly the same.
Mrs. Turner said, “And what do you say, little man?”
“Yeah. Thanks,” Stoney mumbled.
The car drove off. “Grateful little cuss, isn’t he?” Dad said.
“Maybe we’re the ones to be grateful,” Mother said mildly.
We went back into the house. Dad was the one who, by accident, found out about the shoes. And I heard them talk and figure out together what had happened.
The only way it could have happened was for Stoney Wotnack to get up in the middle of the night and put a high shine on every pair of shoes he could find. It must have taken him hours.
I saw Mother’s face. She had a shiny look in her eyes and her voice was funny, the way it gets every fall with hay fever. That seemed to me to be a pretty funny reaction to some newly shined shoes. She shook Dad by the arm and said, “Don’t you see, Sam? Don’t you see? He didn’t know how to do anything else.”
Dad looked at me and smiled. It was that same funny-looking smile that he wears when he walks out of a sad movie.
None of it made any sense to me. All I knew was that I’d spend the rest of the summer with Looie walking one step behind me, sucking on her hand.
