The crowd came out.
“Get set,” Mimi kidded shoving her head between Betsy’s shoulders. “Give me some interference and I’ll lug the ball through.” Mimi knew a lot about football. She had watched the kids at home play on the corner lot; had even played a time or two herself when there weren’t enough without her. Honky had told her a lot about it, too. He played on B. G. Hi.
“Signals,” Betsy answered.
“Seven-Eleven-Hike,” Mimi answered shoving hard.
By pushing and scrouging and holding to each other, they managed to plow down the aisle to two seats. The newsreel was on flashing pictures of a suspected kidnapper across the screen.
“I’d like to spit on him,” Mimi hissed to Betsy as she popped the folding seat down. All the hatred she felt for Fritzie with the tattoed arms, Freida, and the short man, who had cast a blight on Chloe’s life, was in that sentence.
“I’d like to scratch him and kick him,” Betsy hissed back. She was thinking of Chloe too.
“Wonder what Sue and Chloe are doing?” Mimi said.
“Study hall,” replied Betsy scornfully.
Then realizing how rude it was to even whisper at a talkie they gradually became interested in the comedy. It was Popeye and he made Mimi shriek with delight but the tattoed anchors on his brawny forearms were an ugly reminder. They pricked the back of her mind and she was not quite happy. Before the feature was well begun and, as she was beginning to lose herself in it, a sudden commotion riveted her attention to the back of the theatre. There was a regular stampede. Mimi and Betsy turned to each other inquiringly. Each hated to admit she did not know what was going on. They were not in the dark long. Soon every one in the theatre knew what was up and, at least in spirit, joined in the celebration. The supporters and pep squad of the visiting team had crashed the show. They overran the lobby, the aisles, and the cheer leaders vaulted the orchestra pit to the stage. After five minutes of yelling and bedlam in general they left as suddenly as they had come. The heroine’s voice sounded small indeed in the void they left behind them.