One of the big kids

14. Third grade brought with it a new experience at St. Pete’s - I had my first lay teacher. Mrs. Higgins must have been in her fifties - she was definitely a lot older than my mother but seemed younger than my grandmother, at least younger than Nonna Ma. She began the year by admonishing us to use our cursive writing, not printing anymore. Printing was for the little kids and we were now in THIRD GRADE. We all must have had a brain drain over the summer - how could we forget the hours spent practicing cursive with Sister Ann Josephine? Apparently, it took us a while to get back on track, only to begin another challenge: multiplication tables. For most of us, flash cards became the key to learning our “times” and before too long, the simple rote methods got us through.

My third grade classroom was back in the lower level, right next to my first grade classroom and next to the infamous lunch area. I sat next to one of the curtain “walls” - thick folding curtains which, when pushed back, opened most of the lower level into one huge area for parish activities. One day as I was taking my books out of my school bag to start the day, I notices a ripped tuition envelope on the floor between my desk and the curtain. I knew money was put in the envelope and students brought them in, turning them over to their teachers. Tuition for the entire year was something like $36 and parents would often send four dollars in cash each month. I picked up the envelope, noticed nothing was inside and decided to give it to Mrs. Higgins.

“I found this on the floor Mrs. Higgins,” I said casually, figuring she would just toss it in the waste basket. She looked at it very curiously and asked, “Where did you say you found this?”

“On the floor, next to my desk,” I said. She smoothed the envelope out, realigning the ripped portion, to get a better look at the writing on it. Student names were written at the top.

“You may take your seat,” she told me without looking up. I watched her open a spiral book from her desk and check a listing of students, no doubt trying to determine if the student whose name was on the envelope had a current tuition balance.

Before the end of the day, the principal and a couple of other adults had been in and out of your classroom, quietly talking to Mrs. Higgins, usually out in the hallway. Our regular routine had been changed to working in spelling or reading workbooks, without the benefit of much direction. Finally, in the afternoon, Mrs. Higgins announced to the class that we were to speak with the principal one at a time in the hallway. None of us could understand what was going on.

Sister Superior was sitting on one of the benches near the lunch table. She had been in and out of our classroom so much that morning that we soon dispensed with the standing up and “Good Morning Sister Superior,” greeting by her third entrance. She sat down, hands up into the sleeves of the opposite arm, and asked us each our names and told us to sit on the bench beside her.

“We are talking to each one of you in Mrs. Higgins’ room,” she explained. “And asking about the tuition envelope. Do you know anything about what happened to what was inside of it?”

“No Sister,” I quickly answered. “The only thing I know is that I found it when I got to my desk this morning.”

“And nothing was in it?”

“No Sister, it was ripped and empty.” It was probably the most information she had gotten out of anyone since the interrogations began.

“OK, you may return to your desk,” she dismissed me and then followed me back in, where she made a quick comment to Mrs. Higgins.

One by one, kids went out into the hallway while we plugged away in our workbooks. The silence was suffocating - we all wanted to at least stand up and stretch, but no one dared do anything except the assignment. Whether we all realized it or not, someone was in very big trouble. Stolen tuition money was a capital offense - almost like stealing money from the poorbox in church. All evidence seemed to point to the kid who was supposed to turn in the tuition envelope, but what if he or she had dropped it and someone else picked it up, took the money and tossed the envelope? We were only seven and eight-year olds and very incapable of plotting out any kind of scheme, especially one that would work.

We went home that day without any announcements from the teacher or Sister Superior, without a note to parents, and without finding out the whole story. Whatever the outcome, St. Pete’s chose to keep the incident quiet.

Third grade definitely made me feel like one of the big kids, even though I still didn’t get to stay for lunch. This was also the first year of school for my sister Susie - at least there was someone lower on the totem pole than I.

By this time, my godfather's family was growing rapidly and my mother turned to her cousin, Anita, who lived at the end of Concord to take me in for lunch. This worked out well because I left for lunch with Anita’s daughter Kathy who was a couple years older. Kathy’s older sister, also named Anita, was a few years older than Kathy, but way too cool to have anything to do with me, Kathy or Sue. Anita was probably in seventh or eighth grade, wore bobby socks, straight skirts and a thin babushka type scarf on her head that she tied on her chin - not under her chin, on it, just under the lips, like all the big girls at school. The rest of us younger ones still struggled to get all our outerwear clothes on - or off - in time for the bell, to get to lunch, or to get back to school on time. Anita just seemed to float in and out of her family’s apartment.

Sue and I had probably come to know Concord Street as well as our own Courtland Street. My grandmother, aunt and uncle, godfather and my mother’s cousin all lived on the same block and we were there for holidays, trick or treating, birthdays or just weekend afternoons playing with my cousin Donna.

My mother had her eye on a bungalow a few houses west of Anita’s two-flat that appeared to be abandoned. She even buried a statue of St. Joseph in the front lawn in her efforts to buy it. It was the scary house on the street and the bigger kids on the block would tell stories about it just to frighten the little ones. Once when we were all hanging around in the overgrown grass of the front yard, a kid lifted another on his shoulders so that he could look in the windows of the front living room. The looker was a guy named was Jim and he was kind of a leader of the kids on the block, living directly across from my grandparents. He had blondish-orangey hair, was skinny but tall and I had more than once seen him smoking a cigarette.

Jim shaded his eyes and pressed his face against the dirty glass of the big picture window.

“What’s in there? What do you see? Can you see anybody?”

“I’m trying to make it out...it’s real dark in there...there’s a couch and stuff on the floor...”

He shifted his hands like a submarine captain with a periscope, surveying the interior of the living room.

“I think there’s a broken mirror on the wall, or maybe it’s a picture...newspapers and boxes...an empty bottle on the floor...”

“Does it look like anybody still lives in there?” someone asked. We all stood around, listening to the report, curious and hungry for answers.

“Nah, I don’t think there’s anybody....ah...ah....AAAHHHH!!!!”

Jim jumped off the shoulders of the bigger boy and we all quickly scattered toward the street, running fast and frightened.

“What did you see? What was it?” we screamed after him. In the supposed safety of a few houses’ distance from the spook house, he stood under a streetlight as we gathered around him for the details. He was breathing hard.

“It’s all messed up in there,” he began. “Like someone was looking for something and threw stuff around.”

“So? That’s not scary,” another boy said.

“No,” Jim said, then taking a breath, he started his retort in almost a whisper, getting louder with each word, “but they dead guy in the chair with blood on his face sure is!!!”

My sister Sue, Donna and I all screamed, along with every other kid under ten who hung on Jim’s every word. We didn't know which way to turn.

“Let’s go home,” I said, grabbing my sister and cousin. We began racing the rest of the way down the block to my grandparents’ building. Jim’s words were ringing in our ears and causing horrible pictures to form in our heads. As our feet hit the sidewalk with each stride, we could see our homebase getting closer and closer...almost there, almost there...finally, we turned onto the front walkway and Sue and Donna clambered in through the front door.

Before going in, I looked back at the group of older kids moving as a group out from under the glow of the streetlight, and I heard the sound of loud laughing boys.