The Rising Star of Rusty Nail

by Lesley M. M. Blume

  and my name.

  Ain’t nothin’ about me is gonna be

  the same.

  “Man, those guys can play,” said Franny’s dad, clapping his hands on his knees in time to the music. “Listen to Benny play that clarinet. He sure can swing.”

  “I need to go meet Sandy in the churchyard,” Franny announced.

  Her parents looked up at her.

  “Why in heavens do you need to meet Sandy Anne Hellickson in the churchyard on a school night?” Lorraine asked, putting down her knitting needles.

  “We have to catch some fireflies,” Franny answered. “For a science project. Everyone in the class has to catch and study a different insect. Me and Sandy are supposed to bring fireflies to school tomorrow.” She held out the jar as evidence. “See—we’ll put them in here.”

  “First of all, it’s Sandy and I,” Lorraine corrected her. She looked skeptical. “And secondly, why can’t Sandy just catch them at her house? There must be swarms of fireflies out at the farm.”

  Franny nearly panicked. She hadn’t anticipated this question. “She says there aren’t any out there,” she said somewhat lamely. Then, more bravely, she added: “Anyway, we’re supposed to do it together, and she said she’d rather come into town than do it at home.”

  Lorraine looked unconvinced, but Wes seemed eager to get back to his radio show.

  “All right, but no monkey business,” he said. “You’re still grounded, you know,” he called after Franny as she scrambled across the room toward the front door. The song continued in the background:

  They say don’t change the old for the new,

  But I’ve found out this will never do.

  When you grow old, you don’t last long.

  You’re here today and then

  tomorrow you’re gone….

  Franny heard her dad say: “Now, that’s God’s truth if I’ve ever heard it,” and then the front door closed behind her.

  The sun sank behind the cornfields, washing the world in a purple gray light and matting out the hard edges of the storefronts and houses.

  Franny ran down Main Street toward the church. When she got there, she sat on the church’s back steps and waited for Sandy to bike into town from her farm. Once in a while, she heard the tattered old screen door to Elmer’s Bar flap open and slap shut, but otherwise, the town center was quiet and still. Not even the mildest breeze fluttered the leaves on the trees.

  Suddenly someone grabbed Franny’s shoulder. “Boo!” a voice behind her screamed.

  Franny shrieked, her heart pounding in her chest, but it was just Sandy, dressed all in black like a burglar. She was clearly pleased with her ambush, but her grin melted away as she looked Franny up and down.

  “Jeez, Franny,” she said, smacking her forehead with her hand. “I said Plan A—didn’t you hear me?”

  “Of course I heard you,” said Franny, not yet over her scare. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Sandy scowled. “Okay, so you got here in time. Big deal. But what was the second part of Plan A?” she asked Socratically. “Hmm, I seem to remember sayin’ somethin’ about wearin’ dark clothing so no one could see us. You might as well be wearin’ a mess of blinkin’ Christmas lights.”

  Franny looked down at her outfit and her heart sank. Sandy was right: her white shirt and red pants were anything but stealth.

  “I could go back and change,” she offered.

  Sandy gave an exasperated sigh. “It’s too late—ole Wes and Lorraine’ll know we’re up to somethin’ then for sure. Let’s go.”

  The girls set out for Charlie’s house, cutting across backyards, climbing fences, and hiding in bushes along the way. When they finally got there, they snuck around to the far side and wedged themselves between an unwieldy peony bush and the wall of the house—just below the front-parlor window. It was balmy for October, and the window had been left open to let in the evening breezes.

  “What’s this one?” said Charlie’s voice from inside. It sounded like he was unsnapping the clasp of a case.

  “That is the viola,” said a woman’s voice laced with a thrilling accent. “It was one of the finer pieces my father ever made.”

  “And this one?” said Charlie.

  “Oh, that was his favorite violin,” the woman said. “The famous violinist Isaac Stern once borrowed it for a concert. It has the purest tone.”

  “I can never tell the difference between a viola and a violin,” said Charlie. “I swear, Olga—I had no idea you were going to move a whole orchestra into my house.”

  Sandy leaned in toward Franny. “We hit the jackpot,” she whispered excitedly. “I bet she has long black hair and wears a cape and those boots with fur around their tops.”

  Franny shook her head. “She’s a spy, not a superhero,” she scoffed.

  From inside, the woman said: “Well, I have never traveled with fewer than three or four trunks. It’s in my nature, I suppose—even under these circumstances. And, anyway, I had to bring all of these with me. The New York Philharmonic, or someone worse, would have confiscated them all if I had left them in my apartment in the city.”

  “I’m gonna look,” Sandy whispered boldly to Franny. “Here I go.” Moving as slowly as an inchworm, she peeked up over the windowsill. The yellow light from inside bathed her damp forehead. After what seemed like an eternity, she dove down into the bush again to report back to Franny.

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” she said.

  “What?” whispered Franny urgently.

  “She looks just like we thought she would,” Sandy said, looking somewhat dazed. “Kinda like the Russians you see in the movies, with long black hair. Go on and see for yourself.”

  “I’m scared they’ll see me,” Franny said, feeling Jell-O–y inside all of a sudden.

  Sandy sighed in exasperation. “They’re not even payin’ attention. They’re just pullin’ instruments out of boxes— nothin’ top-secret. I guess she already took all of the nuclear parts out of the cases before Charlie got a look at them. Now go on and look, fraidy-cat.”

  Then they realized that the room above was silent, and Franny’s heart skipped a beat. Had they been overheard? The girls held their breath, and to their relief, the conversation in the parlor began again.

  “It’s getting late,” Franny said, stalling. “I’m going home. I don’t want to get grounded even longer.”

  “Chicken,” taunted Sandy. “Bok, bok, bok. Girlie chicken. Even Gretchen Beasley would look, and you’re too sca-a-ared.”

  Franny could only tolerate so much of this. She gave Sandy a little shove and timidly peered into the room. Charlie Koenig sat in a chair surrounded by a terrain of torn-open cardboard boxes and glistening instruments perched on stands amidst the mess. In the corner of the room stood the spectacular grand piano Franny had seen on the lawn. Its magnificent lacquered curves gleamed in the light and reflected the movements of Charlie and the Russian spy. Even seeing the woman’s reflection gave Franny a little jolt. She was laying eyes on a real live “Commie” for the first time in her life!

  The spy, for her part, apparently oblivious to the sensation she was causing outside, dug around in another box in the far corner of the room, out of Franny’s view. From the reflection in the piano, she appeared tall and slender, with a long black cord of a braid running down her back. She pulled an object out of the box and said to Charlie: “And this is one of my favorite instruments of all. Would you like to see how it works?”

  “Sure,” said Charlie, laughing.

  Franny squinted at the reflection in the piano, trying to make out what the object was. The woman’s footsteps clicked toward the window.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, something smacked Franny right on the nose. She let out a shocked squawk and fell back into the peony bush, covering her face with her hands.

  The woman leaned out the window and looked directly down at the girls, who were paralyzed by the humiliation of getting caught. The yellow light behin
d the Russian cast a halo around her head and outlined the edges of her sharp cheekbones. She said over her shoulder to Charlie: “How do you call this in English?”

  In her left hand, she brandished the item with which she had whacked Franny.

  “It’s called a flyswatter,” said Charlie, joining her at the window.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Very good at getting rid of household pests.” And she looked straight at Franny and Sandy again.

  “Sandy Anne Hellickson and Franny Hansen.” Charlie smirked down at the girls. “What a surprise. This is Olga. Olga, meet the town’s most notorious troublemakers.”

  “Howdy-do,” said Sandy. Franny mumbled a salutation from behind her hands.

  “Franny here is quite a musician in her own right,” Charlie informed Olga. “I hear that she gave a fine piano performance for an important government official not too long ago.”

  “Is that so,” said Olga, looking only mildly interested. “Did you notice my piano?”

  Franny nodded, her nose red from the flyswatter and her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

  “Well, I might have let you play it,” Olga said. “If you had not spied on us like a nasty little goblin.”

  “What happened to your thumb, Franny?” Charlie asked, looking at the dirty bandage covering her bruised thumb.

  “We’ve been fixing Mr. Klompenhower’s pig barn,” Sandy explained, standing on her tiptoes and trying to see into the room again. “She whacked her finger real hard with a hammer.”

  “A pig barn,” Olga said, as though she had never heard of something so disgusting. “How quaint.” She ducked back inside.

  “Sounds like a hard way to earn pocket cash,” Charlie said, still wearing an amused look. “Go on home now, girls. And next time you want to stop by, use the front door, not the window.”

  He withdrew back into the parlor.

  “Wait!” said Franny. “Do you need any handiwork around the house?”

  “What are you doin’?” hissed Sandy. “We haven’t even finished the pig barn and you want to get us more work?”

  “Shh—I have a plan,” whispered Franny. She turned back to Charlie, who poked his head back out the window. “Sandy and I need to earn money to pay the mayor back. We ruined his car and have to pay his bill to get it fixed.”

  “How’d you do that?” Charlie asked, looking amazed.

  “We hit it by accident with a water balloon, and he drove it into Mr. Klompenhower’s chicken cart,” Franny explained. “Our parents told us that we need to do jobs around town to earn back the money. So, do you need anything done?”

  “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head,” Charlie said.

  “Well, I noticed that your porch needs a new coat of paint—how ’bout that?” Franny offered.

  “Oh, man,” said Sandy under her breath. “This better be a good plan.”

  “It does?” Charlie asked hesitantly. “Well, I guess it has been a while since I painted it.”

  “We’d do a really good job,” Franny pressed.

  “Well, okay,” said Charlie. “But on one condition: no more spying. How does five dollars each sound?”

  “Done, and done,” Franny said. “We’ll come on Saturday.”

  The girls retreated to the bushes behind Thelma Britches’ house.

  “All right,” Sandy fumed. “What’s your plan, genius?”

  “Look,” said Franny. “We have to earn back that money anyway. Not only will we knock ten dollars off our bill, but we can also spy on the Russian—right from her own front porch! See? It’s perfect.” In addition, she secretly wanted to get near that piano again—but she didn’t mention that to Sandy.

  “Hmph,” scowled Sandy, kicking at the ground. “I’d still rather spy from behind a bush than from a porch with a paintbrush in my hand, but I guess you’re right.”

  The girls walked back to Main Street on the town’s sidewalks this time. At the last minute, Franny remembered that she was supposed to return with a jar full of fireflies. But by then, it was so late that she and Sandy had to make do with scraping some ants and dirt into the jar instead. Lorraine made her leave it outside on the sidewalk.

  When Franny went to sleep later that night, she dreamt about a huge jelly jar filled with shining instruments. Olga held it in her hands and offered it to Franny. It looked so heavy and breakable that Franny was afraid to take it, but Olga insisted.

  Just as Franny reached out to take the jar, she woke up—her arms stretched into the air.

  The girls worked at the Klompenhower farm after school every day that week. Sandy spent most of the time dawdling around and eating her stale candy. When it came to making mischief, Sandy had all the energy in the world, but chores always brought out her lazy side.

  But at long last, the girls drove the final nail into the wall of the pig barn. They stepped back to admire their handiwork.

  “Somethin’s not quite right about it,” Sandy said.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Franny. “It’s perfect. There’s barely any space between the boards.”

  Sandy stared at the wall for a minute and thought hard.

  “That’s it!” she said suddenly, and reached for her hammer. She started wrenching the nails out of one of the planks.

  “What are you doing?” shrieked Franny. “It took me forever to get that one straight.”

  “That’s just the thing,” explained Sandy as she pulled the board loose. “It’s too perfect. If we do that good a job, everyone in town will find a reason to make us come and do their work for them, even when we’re done earnin’ back that money. We have to make the wall look okay but not great. Get it?”

  Sandy had a point, so Franny helped her pry the board loose. Then they nailed it back on slightly crooked, and surveyed the final result with satisfaction.

  Then, the next day, they trudged off in the direction of Charlie Koenig’s house to paint his front porch. To the girls’ disappointment, Charlie answered the front door instead of Olga.

  “Hi, ladies,” he said through the screen door. “Want some sandwiches before you start?”

  “Can we eat them inside?” Sandy asked in a very forward manner. She craned her neck to see the foyer behind Charlie.

  “Sure,” said Charlie pleasantly. “Come on into the kitchen.”

  Sandy practically tore the screen door off its hinges and ran into the house, and Franny followed tentatively. Stacks of boxes lined the walls, and packing paper littered the floor. Propped up against one of the walls stood an unusual painting of a saint. The shiny gold background glinted in the sunlight streaming through the window.

  “Wow!” said Sandy, inspecting the picture. “Is that real gold? Like they put in fillings in your teeth?”

  “Don’t touch that,” commanded a voice from the top of the stairs. “It is a Russian icon, and worth more than a hundred silly pig barns.”

  The girls looked up in surprise. Even though it was past noon, Olga stood there wearing a long silk robe, her black hair loose around her shoulders. In the daylight, Franny could see that the Russian was indeed very pretty—but not in a warm, welcoming way. Her strong face could have been chiseled on a totem pole, and her dark eyes glittered like onyx.

  “Just so you know: I keep a flyswatter in every room, Dyevushka,” the lady added for good measure. “And you have seen already how fast I am with it.” She marched back into her bedroom.

  “The kitchen’s this way, Sandy,” said Charlie.

  “What’d she just call me?” Sandy asked as Charlie shoveled the girls into the kitchen. “Was that a dirty word in Russian? Wow.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” Charlie said. “It only means girl.”

  The girls ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank farm milk from big mason jars. When they finished, Charlie gave them paintbrushes and sent them off to the front porch. Several cans of sticky white paint stood next to the door.

  “Give it the first coat today and we’ll do another
tomorrow,” he said cheerfully. He walked back inside and closed the front door, blocking their view into the house.

  Sandy glared at Franny and put her hands on her hips.

  “Nice job, Franny,” she said. “This place is like a fortress. What’s the point of bein’ here if we can’t even get a look inside?” She sulkily plunged her brush into one of the paint cans.

  Franny had to admit that her campaign to spy on the Russian didn’t look very promising. In fact, they didn’t see a hint of her for the rest of the day, and the front door stayed firmly shut. Sandy snuck around the side of the house at one point, but Charlie caught sight of her peering through the parlor window and abruptly pulled down the shade.

  “Wow—we sure are gettin’ a lot of spyin’ done,” Sandy said sarcastically. “I’m real glad that we took this job.”

  Franny sighed. The girls painted in silence for the rest of the afternoon. And, of course, they made sure to leave spatters here and there, in the spirit of doing an okay-butnot-great job.

  The next morning, before church, the Hansens’ phone rang. Owen answered.

  “Franny, it’s for you,” he said, dropping the receiver rudely on the floor. “It’s just Scrappy,” which was his nickname for Sandy.

  Franny picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  The caller gave a feeble cough on the other end of the line. “Franny?” said a weak voice. “Is that you? Can you hear me?” This was followed by another cough.

  Franny rolled her eyes. “Hi, Sandy,” she said.

  “This might be the last time I ever talk to you,” Sandy moaned and wheezed dramatically. “I’m horribly sick— probably dyin’. I think it’s pneumonia. Daddy’s even lettin’ me stay home from church—that’s how bad it is.”

  “Oh, really,” said Franny, examining a little scratch on the toe of her shoe.

  “Yes, really,” rasped Sandy. “D’ya think you can finish the porch without me this afternoon?”

  Franny gave an exasperated sigh.

  “I’ll try and come later,” Sandy added pitifully. “If I can crawl out of bed onto my bike. Hopefully, my legs’ll work. I’m so weak I can hardly hold the phone.”