“I ran off with the cookie jar,” Bingo said.
“You got a ma?” said Willy. “What’s she like, Bunghole?”
“She’s just my ma. Well, she has blond hair, and she—”
“You got a dad too?” Willy asked.
“Papa’s dead,” Bingo said shortly.
Willy waited.
“He’s been dead three years. I was six. He worked in the timber.”
“Did he ever hit you?”
“No, well, he hit me when I needed it.”
“Yeah,” Willy said. “I never had no parents.”
“I have two sisters,” Bingo said, hoping to change the subject.
“You bet you have,” said Willy. “That one, Crystal, she’s the hottest thing to come in here in a long time.”
“How do you know?”
“Grapevine. Man, you are a fish, Bunghole.”
“Tell me about the grapevine.”
Suddenly Willy looked secretive. “Messages get passed, word moves along,” he said vaguely.
“You think I’m a spy or something?”
Willy just looked blank.
“O.K., O.K., tell me what you heard about Crystal.”
“That she’s a looker. That Bev McDougal, who thinks she owns Girls’ Two, has it in for her. Your sister’s been bugging that one.”
“What’ll she do to her?”
“Beat her up, maybe. Can’t hurt her much, the group workers break everything up. You can’t have no fun in here.”
“But it’s pretty rough over there, in Girls’ Two?”
“Naw. Those girls never get into much. Biggest thing they do is stand in front of the craft room windows at night with the lights on and open up their nightgowns. You can see them from the admitting room. It gives the new kids a thrill.”
“I’ll just bet it does.”
“What you in for, Bunghole? I won’t tell no one.”
For some reason, Bingo trusted Willy and wanted to tell him,
but— “I can’t tell you, Willy. I promised.” Well, he had promised himself.
“O.K., Bunghole, I won’t ask no more. You know how to hotwire a car?”
Bingo shook his head.
For the next hour Willy taught Bingo how to jerk the wires out of a car and hot-wire it, how to case a store, and how to make contacts to peddle hot merchandise.
The only use Bingo made of such valuable information was to tell Jenny later. Jenny wrote it all down; it could have been gold he’d given her. “I’m going to write about J.D.H. Stories, I mean. It’s the first time since I was little that I’ve wanted to write stories, write something whole.”
Willy talked as if he’d done a lot of things, but Bingo thought most of it was hot air. Willy was too young to have done half of that. Once, late in the night when they should have been asleep, Bingo rolled over and grinned at Willy in the darkness. “Willy, you’re giving me a snow job.” Bingo couldn’t see his expression. After a while Willy started telling him about some of the foster homes he’d been in, and those stories had a different ring to them, as if they had really happened to Willy. “I’m an uncorkable,” Willy said.
“You mean incorrigible.”
“Yeah, uncorkable.” He leaped out of bed and pounded on the door. “Hey, screw, come unlock this door, I gotta go to the can.”
On Saturday Willy brought Bingo news from Girls’ Two. “All hell broke loose. Crystal got herself in a fight with McDougal and four other girls and was put in solitary. Some sister you got, Bunghole!” Willy knew precisely Crystal’s condition. She had a cut on her cheek, a badly twisted arm, and some scattered bruises. Bev McDougal had been sent to the older girls’ unit.
Chapter 7
Jenny watched Crystal, white and shaken, as she was led out of the solitary confinement cell. She had been screaming for what seemed a long time, though it was really only minutes. Jenny had thought at first that she was bluffing, but when the group worker unlocked the door there was no doubt that Crystal, locked in the small concrete room with the tiny barred window, had succumbed to panic, then terror. Once when Jenny was little she got herself locked into a clothes hamper while playing hide-and-seek. The panic she felt, the lack of air to breathe, the utter physical terror came back to her now, sickeningly. She put her arms around Crystal, and Crystal clung to her. In their room Crystal lay on her bunk with her arms tight around Jenny and would not let her go. She would glance at the door to make sure it was open, then lay back exhausted. “It was concrete,” she said once, “all concrete, even the ceiling, and the bars bolted down. When they locked the door, it was like the air went away. Like I couldn’t breathe. The window was so small. I couldn’t get out.”
After a while she fell asleep with her head in Jenny’s lap.
The group worker found them so and asked Jenny to come into the hall.
Jenny imagined all kinds of things. Had something happened to Bingo? Was he sick? Did the group workers expect her to try to control Crystal and keep her from fighting again? Fat lot of good I could do, Jenny thought, picking up her notebook to keep from leaving it unguarded in the room. She stuffed it in the folds of her nightgown and followed the uniformed woman down the hall.
They sat at a table in the dining room and the group worker gave her coffee. She was a squarely built woman with bleached hair like Mama’s, but her eyes were green, and so direct they made Jenny uncomfortable. Her hands were square: short-fingered, wrinkled hands. She glanced at the notebook that Jenny kept secreted in her lap.
“You needn’t hide your journal, I won’t take it. I understand that your writing is private.”
How did she know what the notebook contained? Jenny stared at her. How could she know—unless she had read it?
But Jenny kept it with her.
She must have been into the trunk. The trunk was supposed to be locked away where no one could touch it. That was why they had brought it. She might as well have left it with Lud.
“I know you write, Jenny. Do you mind my knowing? Bingo told Officer Dermody, who brought you here. I didn’t mean to pry.
Jenny looked down at her steaming cup and felt her face go red; she must have shown her anger very plainly. Bingo told Officer Dermody? But why would he?
“I write too, that’s why Ben told me. Ben Dermody is my son.”
Jenny sat staring dumbly. It was a moment before she took in the words. Then all she could say was, “A real writer? With books published?” It sounded incredibly stupid and rude.
“My books are about police work, about girls in trouble, girls you might meet here. I’ve published seventeen books, and some magazine stories, taught classes in writing, been a policewoman, a matron, and now I substitute as a group worker occasionally.” She paused and studied Jenny. “Did I present the proper credentials?”
Jenny’s face colored. “I didn’t mean to—” Oh, why was she so stupid. Then she saw Mrs. Dermody’s glint of humor, the laugh behind her eyes. She grabbed at her courage, and grinned back. “Yes. Exactly the right ones.”
*
On Monday Jenny and Bingo were allowed to visit in the hall during lunch period. They met at a wooden bench near the admittance desk, a group worker observing them from the office. Jenny hugged Bingo tightly, then held him off and looked at him. “You look fine. Mama can’t get into court until Tuesday. How is your unit?” She was so glad to see him. “Did you know Crystal was in solitary? She—”
“Sure I know. I know everything that happens in Girls’ Two.”
“How do you know?”
“Grapevine,” he said casually.
“What else have you learned in there?” she asked with suspicion.
He smirked at her in a knowing way, and she giggled. Then she looked serious. “Bingo, Crystal had a terrible time in solitary. She was terrified. I didn’t know that about Crystal, I didn’t know she could be frightened like that. She stayed all night in my bunk, hanging onto me.”