Seven Stories Up by Laurel Snyder Page A

looking at me intently. Her eyes were focused, constant. “Would you like to know something?” she asked.
    “Sure,” I said.
    Molly took a deep breath. “I would jump from this fire escape right now to feel that way about someone.”
    For a minute we stared at each other. It was weird. I didn’t know how to respond. At last I said, “Is that true? Really?”
    Molly shrugged. “Probably not, no. But it
feels
true.”
    “Well, that sucks,” I said. “But jeez, stop being such a drama queen! You scared me.” I punched her lightly in the arm.
    Molly smiled faintly. “I don’t know what a
drama queen
is,” she said. “But I’ll try not to be one. All right?”
    “Anyway,” I said, “of course your mother loves you too. And you love her. Right?”
    Molly leaned over the railing. She looked a little sheepish. “Yes, I do,” she said. “Certainly I do. But she isn’t here, is she?”
    “So you miss her! And you’re mad. Like I said, my mom’s not perfect either. Once she forgot to pick me up from ballet class and I had to walk home two miles in the dark! I wanted to kill her. Totally normal.”
    “Totally normal?”
    “Totally.”
    Molly looked strangely relieved. “That’s nice to know,” she said.

After all that talking, it felt good to run down the fire escape with the wind in my face and the thud of my feet on the stairs. I kept a hand lightly on the railing, but I took each floor fast, whipping around corners. It felt like flying.
    At the bottom I shot straight out into the alley, Molly behind me. She was smiling again. Soon we were at the fair poster, staring at its bright colors.
    “Fell’s Point,” I read from the poster. “Is that far?”
    “I don’t know,” said Molly. “But a taxi driver is sureto. Look,” she added, pointing to the list of attractions. “There’s a fortune teller!”
    “And a mermaid,” I said, scanning the list. “
That
can’t be real.”
    “
Probably
not,” said Molly.
    We headed down the alley to the big avenue, where we’d seen taxis two days before. But when we spotted a policeman blocking the sidewalk, we nodded at each other slowly and turned right at the intersection instead of left,
away
from the Woolworth’s, as fast as we could hustle.
    “We’ll go back with the money when he’s not there,” she said. “After the fair. All right?”
    “Sounds good to me!”
    After a few blocks, we passed a large square brick building with a paved courtyard. Sitting around it were lots of girls wearing simple brown dresses. A few of them played jacks. Mostly they talked quietly in small groups. “Must be recess,” I said.
    Off to one side, two girls about my age were doing a hand clap, quickly but in hushed voices. One wore her hair in tight dark braids, the other in a mousy bob. I tried to listen but couldn’t make out the song, so I walked into the yard with Molly a step behind me. When the clappers saw us, they stopped clapping.
    “No, don’t stop!” I said. “Keep singing. Please?”
    They began again, slowly at first, then picking up speed. The one with the bob sang:
    I am a pretty little Dutch girl
,
    As pretty as I can be, be, be
,
    And all the boys in the neighborhood
    Are crazy over me, me, me
.
    My boyfriend’s name is Fatty
,
    He comes from Cincinnati
,
    With turned-up toes and a pimple on his nose
,
    And this is how the story goes
.
    Molly burst into cheerful laughter when they were done. “How terrific!” she said. “Where did you learn to do that?”
    “I don’t know,” said the girl with the bob. “Who doesn’t know how to clap?”
    “I don’t,” said Molly.
    I hadn’t done a hand clap in about a year myself. There was an unwritten law of the schoolyard that girls graduated from hand claps to cheers when they started fifth grade. I’d moved on from “Eenie Meanie Bopsabeanie” to “Be Aggressive.” But now my hands itched with wanting to join in. I rubbed them on my skirt.
    That was when the girl with the braids