Dirty Faces - Book 2

Chapter 12: Tales of Old Wives and Old Glory

Chapter 12: Tales of Old Wives and Old Glory

“Don't leave the biscuits in the oven too long or the bottoms'll burn,” Mama said, before going into one of those coughing fits she'd had all winter and still had from time to time. That cold of hers just wouldn't go away.

Ginny waited for her to stop coughing. “I won't. But for the gravy, when do I add the milk?”

Mama cleared her throat and said in a hoarse voice, “Once the grease has soaked up the flour pretty good. Now, I gotta get going. It's inventory week.”

“Bye, Mama,” and “Bye, Aunt Susan,” said the two moochers loafing at the kitchen table.

“Y'all be good.” Mama turned up her coffee cup, set it down, grabbed her raggedy purse off the counter, and hurried out the front door.

Lately, she had insisted that Ginny spend more time with her in the kitchen, undoubtedly the result of Kody's horror stories about the Summer of the Bologna Sandwich. Ginny was generally pretty comfortable in the kitchen as long as Mama was around, but that wasn't going to be the case this day.

Kody was messing with that old pocket watch Ginny had found in the apartment in Cleveland. He tried to wind it, but kept hitting resistance. Adam peeked over the top of the newspaper and said,“Paw hated that watch. Said it never would keep time like it was supposed to.”

“Mm,” Kody replied. Adam returned to reading the newspaper; apparently he was tired of re-reading the latest letter from Uncle Kent. The roar of Lilly's engine had barely faded when the back door opened and Jack, wearing that old hat that would look better in a fire than on his head, let himself in.

“Mornin',” he announced to the dull bunch in the kitchen. They mumbled return greetings, but each kept to what they were doing. He sat down and looked at each of them, absorbed in cooking, reading, or tinkering. He drummed his fingers on the table, desperate for someone to speak to him. When nobody did, he gestured at the newspaper. “What's the latest?”

Adam looked away from the paper for the first time since Jack's arrival. “The latest on what?”

“The big war.”

“Oh. Um, Greece surrendered to the Germans Sunday. More air raids on England.”

Jack sighed. “I figured that'd be the case, what with the Greek prime minister offing himself and all.”

Kody looked up and raised a questioning brow.

“What?” said Jack.

“Nothing.” He returned to the watch.

Jack looked over at Ginny, stirring something in a skillet with a wooden spoon and thinking awfully hard about it. “What you over there burning, Pit Viper?”

“I ain't burned nothing!”

“Yet,” Kody muttered, staring at the broken watch in his hand. “Oh! Hey, it works. The hand just moved.”

“Crazy watch,” said Adam.

Jack's expression darkened and he became very serious. “You know what that means,” he said in a quiet voice. “Means somebody's gonna die.” Kody rolled his eyes. “You know good and well that when a clock that's been broke all of a sudden starts working, somebody's gonna die,” Jack went on, still uncharacteristically serious.

“Pretty sure that only applies to the kind of clock you hang on the wall or sit on the mantle, not a watch,” said Adam.

“If it keeps time, it's a clock,” Jack argued.