Tony and his gang were looking through the schoolyard fence checking out who was playing in the yard. His hands were behind him as if he were hiding something. When the gang spotted me and my two friends they donned their devilish grins and lost no time heading for the open gate.
Instinct warned me something evil was about to happen. “Let’s get out of here!” I shouted as I looked around the shoveled piles of melting snow for a means of escape. There was only one other open gate and it was clear across the yard to the next street. Before we could as much as think about getting there, the gang was almost upon us. Tony Bologna brought his hidden hands from behind in front and sure enough he was holding a cat. That is, not a live a cat, but the skin of a cat. With his hand inside the head, which was still in tact, Tony wore it like a hand puppet. My two friends and I screamed like we had never screamed before as we ran helter-skelter to avoid them.
“Don’t go after Francy,” Tony shouted, “Chase the red-head.” They pursued Sally who crying frantically ran in circles bumping into snow and ice heaps as she neared the school building. Just as the boys caught up with her, she slipped and hit her head hard on the brick school wall then on the ice-covered ground. Everything happened so quickly nobody seemed to grasp exactly what was going on, or the seriousness of her fall. She didn’t get up.
Francy and I hastened to her side. The gang of bullies laughed as Tony dangled the cat-skin above her. We bent over to help her get up and realized she couldn’t; she was unconscious. I got down on my knees to lift her head, blood gushed from it blending in with her red hair. I pressed my handkerchief on the wound. Looking up at the ruffians I shouted, “Look what you’ve done, you no-good bullies. What are you laughing at? You think this is funny? You killed Sally!”
Francy sprang up from my side and attacked Tony. She banged her fists on his chest and shouted, “You killed my friend! You killed my friend! Murderers! You rotten, no-good murderers!” Tony pushed Francy away from him. He and a couple of guys turned to run and join their buddies, who had already fled the scene. By this time the rest of the boys in the schoolyard—those who had been tossing basketballs into the hoop--came running.
“Oh no you don’t!” Philly said as he and his friends tackled Tony and his cohorts. They piled on them like a team of football players. Philly threw himself on top of the mass of bodies then thought better of it. He slipped off and said, “Let’s call the cops. I’ll go to the corner to use the police box. Moish, you and Franky look for Officer O’Leary; he’s always somewhere around.”
“And an ambulance! She needs an ambulance,” I shouted. Francy and I went back to pressing Sally’s wound with our handkerchiefs.
In no time, Officer O’Leary, a tall and strapping policeman, came running swinging his billy. He took one look at Sally and said, “Holy Mary, Mother of God who did this?” He turned to the mountain of boys and peeled off the layers of bodies one at a time. At the bottom, Tony and Shnoz and Vinny lay on their stomachs flattened like the cat-skin next to them. The policeman lifted them up by the scruff of their necks. “Oh, its you two bums is it? This time you did it, laddies; now you’re in for b-i-g trouble.”
“We didn’t do nothin’,” Shnoz said.
“Yeah, we didn’t touch her, she slipped and fell. Dat’s what happened, Tony said, trying to wriggle out of the officer’s grip.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Officer O’Leary said as he cuffed their wrists together and held on to them until the police arrived. Then he pushed them into the back seat of the police car.
Somebody had gone to Sally’s house to get her mother, who came running, “Where is she? Where’s my daughter? Sally, Sally, where are you?” When she saw Sally lying unconscious in a pool of blood, she let out a shriek and became frantic. Other mothers, as did mine, who had heard the ambulance and police sirens, hurried to see if their children were safe. They tried to calm Mrs. Fleischman, but her cries were uncontrollable. I sighed in relief when the ambulance arrived.
Once Sally and her mother were in the ambulance, the sirens started up again, and so did our crying. Francy said, “I’m going to church to light a candle for Sally.”
I said, “Me too. I’ll go to my synagogue and say a prayer.” I ran to the synagogue with Mama calling after me to wait. She said something about blood on my coat, but I wasn’t paying attention, I was already praying as I was running.
Upon entering the sanctuary, I saw Rabbi Goldstein, the cantor and three other men on the bima. One of them was the president of the congregation, the little guy with the gruff voice. Rabbi Goldstein looked up at me as I slipped into the last pew. I closed my eyes and prayed.
The rabbi immediately rushed toward me calling, “Leely, what’s wrong? What happened? Why is your coat covered with blood?” The other men were at his heels.
His caring attention caused me to sob harder and louder. “What happened is what I was telling you about that mean Tony Bologna’s gang. They chased after Sally,” I inhaled a deep trembling sob and let out a long, sad wail. “O-o-o-h!”
Mama came running from behind me and as she wrapped her arms around me, she explained to the concerned men what had happened.
“I have to pray for her, Rabbi. I have to pray for Sally to get better,” I wept.
|