The Rising Star of Rusty Nail Read online

  He stopped, lost in his favorite memory. Then his smile faded and he looked down at his daughter.

  “Well, anyway,” he said, clearing his throat. “What I’m saying is that if you keep behaving like a hoodlum and squandering your opportunities, you’ll be the main person to regret it. At some point down the line, you won’t want to settle for just being average—but by then it will be too late. Take it from me.” He was silent for a moment, and then added: “Now write your letters and go to bed. I don’t want to see you again till the morning.”

  And he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Franny got out of bed and gloomily sat down at her desk and watched the sky turn violet and then black as the sun set. The smells of cooling tar from the street below and sweet hay from the fields mixed in the breeze and filled her bedroom. The town’s sole stoplight swung lazily on its wire, dutifully clicking as it changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again.

  The colors reflected on Franny’s face as she sharpened some pencils. She scowled as she wrote her note to Nancy:

  Dear Nancy,

  My dad’s making me say I’m sorry that me and

  Sandy threw a water balloon at you.

  Sincerely,

  Frances Hansen

  She thought about spitting on the note as she folded it up, but decided that she was already in too much trouble to risk it.

  The next morning after breakfast, Franny met Sandy outside the James K. Polk School, where they had gone since kindergarten. Rusty Nail was so small that the elementary school, junior high, and high school were all part of the same brick building.

  Sandy sulkily parked her bike at the school rack. Her family lived on a big farm outside the town, and she bicycled two miles to school every morning and back again in the afternoons, braving all sorts of weather.

  “Daddy says that I’m grounded forever,” she complained.

  “Me too,” said Franny. “I had to write six apology notes last night—even to the people that you hit. And the worst part is that my dad told me that I had to write one to … Nancy.”

  Sandy gasped. “No! Not to Prancy! Did you do it?”

  “I had to,” Franny said, showing Sandy the note. The girls read it together and then stared at each other in despair.

  “Yeah, well—guess what,” Sandy said grimly. “It gets even worse. We already have our first job. My dad talked to Mr. Klompenhower last night. He says that he’ll let us off the hook about the chicken cart if we fix a big hole in his pig barn. Crazy Frankie drove his car into the barn last week.” Crazy Frankie was Mr. Klompenhower’s no-good son, who went on what Franny’s father called “benders.”

  “Wow,” said Franny. “Mr. Klompenhower sure has bad luck these days.”

  “No, we have bad luck,” said Sandy. “A pig barn. Do you even know how bad those things smell?”

  The girls stopped to consider this. Franny already felt nauseated.

  “And on top of everything else,” Sandy added, “Daddy took away all my candy.”

  Franny secretly thought that this was probably a good thing, since Sandy already had a vast array of cavities and fillings in her teeth from eating Red Hots all the time.

  “How long do you think Miss Hamm will last this year?” Franny asked, changing the subject to a happier topic. “I give her two weeks.”

  Last year, Miss Hamm, Rusty Nail’s young fifth-grade teacher, had had a nervous breakdown right in the middle of a standard duck-and-cover drill. These were like fire drills, but instead of leaving the building, all of the kids were supposed to crawl under their desks and put their hands over the backs of their heads. This was supposed to protect them in case the Commies ever lobbed a nuclear bomb in the direction of Rusty Nail.

  “Ha! I give her two days, tops,” Sandy said, her mood brightening somewhat. “Come on, let’s go grab desks next to each other.”

  They were walking up the school’s front stairs when a voice behind them said: “What nice overalls you’re wearing, Sandy Anne! They make it harder than ever to tell that you’re a girl.”

  Franny and Sandy spun around and saw Nancy Orilee smirking at them.

  “That’s a nice face you’ve got there, Prancy,” Sandy retorted. “Were all of the piggies in your litter as good-looking as you?””

  Nancy’s smile hardened a little. “Ha ha,” she said. “You’re the one who lives in a barn, not me. By the way, that was a nice stunt you pulled yesterday. I was so glad that I was there to see it. My father says that you’ll both end up in jail.”

  Franny wished that she had one of their water balloons at that exact moment. But instead, with enormous effort, she extended her hand with the apology note toward Nancy.

  Nancy took a step back. “What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just some dumb note my dad made me write,” Franny mumbled, wishing that she could shrink down to the size of a bug and scuttle away. She would never forgive her father for putting her through this.

  Nancy snatched it up and read it. A huge, gloating grin spread across her face.

  “You shouldn’t have even bothered,” she said, crumpling up the note and dropping it on the ground. “Your handwriting’s so bad that I couldn’t even read it.” And she sailed past the girls with her nose in the air.

  “If I wasn’t already in so much trouble, I would’ve slugged her right in the nose,” Sandy said.

  “We’ll get back at her later,” Franny said miserably. She pulled out a packet of Beemans gum and handed Sandy a piece as they walked into the school.

  Wonderful chaos reigned in the fifth-grade classroom since Miss Hamm had yet to arrive. Several boys stood on their desks, throwing paper airplanes and pencils at each other. Runty Knutson, the class troublemaker and one of Sandy’s favorite cohorts, scratched dirty words on the chalkboard with a piece of blue chalk. Gretchen Beasley, the class crybaby, was already sniveling. Sandy and Franny smiled slyly at each other. It was good to be back.

  Presently, Miss Hamm inched into the room. Pitifully skinny and parched-looking, she reminded Franny of a dry twig. Her flowered dress hung limply on her bony frame, and even the pink carnation she’d pinned to her breast had sadly wilted. Everyone in the class froze and gaped at her. She stood at the front of the room and let out a squeaky little noise.

  “Whaddya say?” said Runty rudely.

  “Oh!” yelped Miss Hamm. Steadying herself on her big oak desk, she said: “I said, please take your seats, children.” Then she saw the curse words covering the board. “Oh!” she said again helplessly, and vigorously erased them, sending chalk dust flying everywhere.

  Meanwhile, all of the kids went into a mad scramble for the desks they wanted. Sandy and Franny miraculously got seats right behind Nancy, which meant they could throw spitballs at her blond head all year.

  “All right, class,” said Miss Hamm weakly. “Why don’t we go around the room so each of you can stand up and say a few words about how you spent the summer?”

  Franny sighed. Her teachers started every school year with the same exercise, and Franny never thought that her stories sounded exciting enough. She’d spent most of this past summer out at the Hellicksons’ farm, wading with Sandy in the murky frog pond or playing hide-and-seek in the cornfield. And of course, taking piano lessons at the mildewy home of her music teacher, the dreary Mrs. Staudt. She sank down low in her seat and hoped that Miss Hamm would skip her.

  Runty stood up first and proudly announced that he’d spent the summer building slop troughs at his father’s pig farm. Sandy went next, and she made up a fabulous story about traveling with the circus and running the freak-show tent.

  “We had to feed the bearded Siamese-twin ladies raw steaks every morning, or they’d eat one of the kids in the audience,” she declared.

  “Oh my,” said Miss Hamm, wringing her hands.

  Then it was Nancy Orilee’s turn. “My daddy bought the first TV in Rusty Nail and set it up in our living room,” she bragged. “I
t cost five hundred dollars and we get two whole channels. We set up three rows of folding chairs in front of it like a movie theater, and invited everybody in the neighborhood to come over and watch The Roy Rogers Show. Well, almost everyone.”

  And with that comment, she looked straight at Franny and Sandy, who, of course, had received no such invitation. Nancy smiled meanly and went on: “And then Daddy sent me to a special music camp, where I took piano lessons with very important teachers who told me that I’m the best young pianist in all of Minnesota, and probably Iowa too.” Then she looked around the room again, as if expecting applause, and then sat down like a queen settling into her throne.

  “Oh, brother,” said Sandy under her breath. She scribbled something on a piece of paper, folded it up, and discreetly passed it to Franny. It said:

  give me your gum, you know why

  Franny took her gum out of her mouth and handed it to Sandy, who added it to her own gob. When Miss Hamm faced the blackboard, Sandy planted the gooey wad right smack into Nancy’s hair.

  Miss Hamm nearly hit the ceiling when she heard Nancy’s shriek.

  “God almighty!” she cried, gripping her throat with her hand. “What’s happening?”

  Nancy tugged at her hair hysterically. “Miss Hamm! Miss Hamm! Sandy Anne put gum in my hair!” she shrieked.

  Just then, the principal, Mr. Moody, stomped into the room. No one could ever figure out why he worked in a school, since he hated kids almost as much as Stella Brunsvold, the popcorn lady, did. Brown stains spattered his necktie, as though someone had blown coffee at him through a drinking straw, and a wet blue inkblot adorned his front shirt pocket.

  “Quiet!” he bellowed. “What’s going on here?”

  Trembling like a witness in a murder trial, Miss Hamm explained.

  Mr. Moody sighed irritably. “Nancy, go to the nurse and have her deal with the gum. Sandy Anne, go to my office—you know the way well.”

  This was true—every year, Sandy practically made a rut in the floor from her desk to the principal’s office. Nancy stamped out of the room. Sandy trudged out after her.

  “Now then,” said Mr. Moody. “Listen to me—each and every one of you little savages. If you give Miss Hamm any more trouble, you’ll spend the year studying in my office. Think about it.”

  A chill of horror went through the classroom. The idea of spending even a minute in Mr. Moody’s office was too awful to think about. Firstly, he smoked so much that no one could even see across the room, and secondly, everyone knew that he spent the whole day coughing and loudly clipping his yellow fingernails into a wastebasket under his desk.

  “I’m glad that we understand each other,” Mr. Moody continued darkly. “Welcome back to the James K. Polk School. The mayor has just informed me that Rusty Nail is going to have a very important visitor soon. Furthermore, we’re going to have a school assembly in honor of the guest. And I will not tolerate gum infractions, name-calling, spitball throwing, hair yanking, yelling, hollering, hooting, whining, profanity, seat kicking, outbursts, horsing around, note passing, booby traps, trick playing, or any other bad behavior. Understood?”

  All of the students nodded grudgingly, except for Runty, who belched under his breath.

  “Oh yes, Mr. Moody, we understand,” Miss Hamm breathed.

  Mr. Moody looked disgusted. “Get ahold of yourself, woman,” he said, and clomped out of the room. Miss Hamm smiled feebly at her students as she began handing out arithmetic books.

  It’s going to be a long year, Franny thought.

  At recess, the schoolyard buzzed with speculation about who the mystery visitor would be. Why would anyone want to come to Rusty Nail? Besides the wild visit of Duke Ellington sixteen years earlier, the last time someone famous had come was when the state governor ended up there courtesy of a highway car accident. He fled again as quickly as possible, but not before getting food poisoning at a church meatball supper hastily assembled in his honor.

  “I hope it’s John Wayne,” said Runty. “I want him to teach me how to ride backward on a horse.” John Wayne was a famous movie star who always played cowboy parts.

  “Aw, John Wayne’s a sissy,” scoffed Harold Hrapp, who was skinny as a chicken bone. “Gene Autry—now, that’s a real cowboy. He can clean up ten Injuns with a single bullet. I hope it’s him that’s comin’.” And with that, he kicked up some dust onto Runty’s feet.

  Thora Vilborg pushed her smudgy glasses up on her nose. “Who wants a stinky old cowboy to come here?” she said. “I want it to be Jane Russell—I’ve seen her in eight movies down at Hauser’s.”

  All of the girls began arguing over whether Jane Russell or Ava Gardner was the bigger movie star while Runty and Harold continued kicking dirt at each other.

  Soon Sandy and Nancy Orilee came out of the building and joined the group. The school nurse had massaged peanut butter into Nancy’s hair until the gum slid out, and now her hair had been raked back into a greasy pony-tail. Sandy smelled as though she’d spent the morning emptying ashtrays in Elmer’s Bar on Main Street. Apparently, Mr. Moody’s office was as smoke filled as ever.

  “What happened?” Franny immediately asked Sandy.

  “Nothing, really,” Sandy replied. “I mean, he called my mom, but what are they gonna do? I’m already grounded for life—are they gonna ground me when I’m dead too?”

  When she learned about the mystery person due to arrive in Rusty Nail, she immediately voted for Willie Mays, the baseball player. “So he can teach me how to throw like a champ,” she said. “I wanna be the first girl to play in the major leagues. Hey, Franny—who do you hope it is?”

  Franny tried to remember the names of all of the movie stars she’d seen in films down at Hauser’s, but the only thing that came to mind was the string of Westerns and outer-space movies she and Sandy had seen the week before.

  But then she remembered something else.

  They had been sitting there, last Friday, watching the newsreel that came before that evening’s feature film, Gold-town Ghost Riders. Usually the newsreels bored Franny and Sandy since all of the stories featured a senator named soand-so McCarthy, who always harped on and on about the so-called Commie Menace. According to him, secret agents were determined to turn regular folks into Commies and bring America down from the inside.

  But on this particular day, part of the newsreel was about a girl from New York—only nine years old—who had been invited to give a piano concert for President Eisenhower and his wife at the White House. Franny had sat up straight in her creaking seat. Her heart pounded and her fingers tensed as she watched the girl play and then bow to the president and first lady. Why aren’t I the one up on that stage? Franny had thought. That girl’s a whole year younger than me! She sulked jealously for the rest of the afternoon.

  And now, in the schoolyard, Franny found herself wishing that Rusty Nail’s famous visitor would be someone who could help her, somehow, get onto a stage like that uppity nine-year-old. Some sort of Hollywood agent would be best, she supposed, but that would probably be way too much to hope for. Maybe if the governor comes back, she thought rapidly, and somehow he hears me play, he’ll go to Washington and tell the president about me, and I’ll get an invitation to play at the White House too. Or maybe—

  Franny suddenly realized that the other kids were staring at her, and her face reddened.

  “I hope it’s Willie Mays too,” she said quickly, mostly to show solidarity with Sandy.

  This brought the discussion to an end, and the class played kickball on the dry, patchy lawn until the bell rang.

  When the bell rang at three o’clock, Franny watched with envy as her classmates ran off to buy baseball cards and candy cigarettes and wax lips at the Snurr sisters’ five-and-dime store. Then she walked resentfully over to Mrs. Staudt’s house, clutching her music books. It was time for her weekly piano lesson.

  Franny might have been smart-alecky to her father about her talent, but the plain truth was that she love
d playing the piano. She also loved being good at playing the piano, which isn’t necessarily the same thing. Furthermore, she loved it that people knew that she was a good pianist, which is a different thing altogether.

  But she detested her actual lessons—and hated knowing that everyone else was off having a grand old time while she was a prisoner in Mrs. Staudt’s stuffy music room.

  Mrs. Staudt lived in a rickety old house with her ancient father, who “didn’t have all of his marbles anymore,” as Franny’s mother put it. Usually he had been stashed away in a room upstairs when Franny arrived for her lesson, but sometimes he would escape and wander into the music room. This was always very exciting because the old man usually had some interesting things to say for himself.

  Franny walked up the splintery front stairs and rang the doorbell.

  Eventually the plump Mrs. Staudt materialized, a cigarette hanging sullenly from her lower lip. Rhinestones glinted around the edges of her black horn-rimmed spectacles, lending a hint of vitality to Mrs. Staudt’s otherwise lusterless presence.

  “All right, girlie,” she rasped. “Into the music room with you.”

  Franny strolled into the next room and plopped herself down on the piano bench.

  “What was your assignment again?” Mrs. Staudt asked disinterestedly as she arranged her bulk in a chair near the piano.

  “Bach,” Franny replied glibly. They had worked on the same Bach piece for four weeks in a row—but Mrs. Staudt never remembered this. In fact, Sandy and Franny had a running bet on how long Franny could get away with playing the same thing over and over again in her lesson.

  Mrs. Staudt just nodded and took a long drag on the cigarette.

  “Go on, then, girlie,” she said, and yawned.