“About what?” I asked her, having no idea myself.
“The store,” she says.
I saw right off. You see, my father is Mr. Smalley, and he owns Smalley’s Bazar, where you can buy almost anything—if father can find where he put it. With father gone and mother gone there wouldn’t be anybody left to look after the store, and so there wouldn’t be any money, because the store was where money came from, and then as sure as shooting the Smalley family would have a hard time of it. It made me gloomier than ever, especially because I didn’t seem to be able to think of any way to help.
Mother went up-stairs to father’s room, shaking her head and crying, and I went outdoors because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. I opened the door and stepped out on the porch, and right that minute I began to feel easier in my mind, somehow. The thing that did it was just seeing who was sitting there, almost filling up a whole step from side to side. It was a boy, and he was so fat his coat was ’most busted in the back where he bulged, and his name was Mark Tidd. That’s short for Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, and you maybe have heard of him on account of the stories Tallow Martin and Binney Jenks have told about him. Yes, sir, the sight of him made me feel a heap better.
“Hello, P-plunk!” he stuttered. “How’s your f-f-father?”
“Got to go to the hospital,” says I, “and mother’s goin’, too, and there won’t be anybody to mind the store, and there won’t be any money, and we don’t know what we’re a-goin’ to do.” I was ’most cryin’, but I didn’t let on any more than I could help.
“W-what’s that?” asks Mark.
I told him all over again, and he squinted up his little eyes and began pinching his fat cheek like he does when he’s studying hard over something.
“L-looks bad, don’t it?” he says.
“Awful,” says I.