I Love a Lemurian!

Happening 4: The Little Sister

Faye wished she could forget all about the lemurian—wished the whole thing had never happened. The kids in school had spent the whole week making fun of her, people on the street looked at her curiously, and in the shops they would whisper behind her back. Everybody knew about the girl that had been harassed by a lemurian; and Faye worried that the gossip was growing well beyond what had actually happened—which was nothing, really. Nothing had really happened at all!
          "You know, it was the Romans that named the lemurians, way back when? Lemurian, or lemures, means spirit in Latin, like a ghost. Only a few people claimed to have seen the lemurians at night, or hiding in the shadows, but most people weren't sure if they even really existed..."
           Faye and Patty walked down Brentwood Drive on a clear Sunday afternoon. Patty hadn't lost interest in the lemurians yet, far from it, and had asked their history teacher Mr. Branch about books on lemurians, since she couldn't find much on the subject in the town's library.
           "Madagascar was called Lemuria," Patty went on, while Faye was only half listening, "though nobody had ever been there or even knew where it was. And Marco Polo called it Madagascar on the map, even though he had never been there either, and he thought people were talking about Mogadishu! Which is in Somalia, and not even an island. He misunderstood, misheard and misspelled Mogadishu, and so that's why we still call the island Madagascar. Like with the Indians, who we still call Indians, even though they clearly don't come from India. People are pretty silly, don't you think?" Patty looked at her with her large magnified eyes behind her glasses.   
           "Yeah," said Faye. How could she stop thinking about the lemurian if Patty talked about nothing else? She hadn't the heart, though, to tell Patty she didn't want to hear it. Patty thought she was doing her a favor.   

Across the street a large gang of greasers hang around in front of the malt shop. One of them made a lot of noise revving a growling motorcycle. These guys in leather jackets would just hang out on this corner in the weekends, leaning against stuff, bothering people. Some of them were just kids, twelve or thirteen years old, but there would often also be a few adult greasers among them; some came from out of town, just to hang around here all day, doing nothing.
           Faye looked over her shoulder as she and Patty passed them, looked at their greasy hair, fashioned in the same style as the lemurian had: ducktails in the back and wild quiffs at the front.
           Some of the boys looked back at her, and Faye turned away quickly. But it was too late. Some boy with a big mouth yelled, "Oh, watch out, daddy-o! Don't make googly eyes at that chick! She'll have you deported to Canada!" And they all laughed, of course, and jeered. God, even these hoodlums knew about her..!
           Patty took Faye by the hand and quickened her pace, pushing her glasses back up her nose, "Come on!"
           "Hey!" someone yelled, and running feet followed them.
           "Hey, chicas, wait up!" Faye looked back. Two skinny, poor-looking Mexican boys followed them. Both had greaser hair-dos but they didn't wear leather jackets and their clothes seemed pretty dirty. Faye remembered seeing them before; they weren't really part of the pack of greasers, but were allowed to linger on the sidelines. Like reserve greasers.
           They quickly caught up with Faye and Patty—who weren't going to run... There were plenty of regular citizens around who wouldn't let a bunch of greasers hassle two teen girls.

"Hey, wait up, why don't you!" one of the boys said. He spoke with a thick accent, but Faye and Patty could understand him all right, most of the time.
           "You the girl that made Johnny disappear, isn't that right?" he asked accusingly of Faye. He was about Faye's age, and had a nice friendly face, though he tried looking tough. He missed a front tooth, which for some reason looked pretty cute on him. The other boy didn't speak, he just glared at the two girls. He had a large head and small, wiry body. He looked unhealthy, like he had been seriously malnourished growing up.
           "That wasn't very nice of you!" the boy continued.
           "I know!" said Faye, "I didn't mean to! But what's it to you?" she asked. Who did this kid think he was, anyway?
           "Johnny's my friend, is what it's to me!" the boy scowled at her. She had never heard of lemurians befriending humans. Patty still held her hand tightly, which gave Faye the nerve to stand up for herself.
           "Well, he's off to Iowa. He should have a better life there, you know, more opportunities. So it's all alright, really."
          "Iowa?!" the boy yelped, like it was some distant planet. He then said a couple of things in Spanish to the big-headed kid, who didn't reply and whose sullen expression didn't change. Maybe he understood neither English nor Spanish. In the background the other greasers were still yelling and guffawing.
           "So you don't like people, you send them to Iowa?" the boy continued to scold Faye.
           "Well, she's sorry, okay!?" said Patty, and tugged on Faye's hand—let's go!
           "Wait up! Wait up!" the boy said, his forehead furrowed in anguish for half a second. "Johnny's family, don't you know, they real worried! And they real hungry, don't you know? Is not very nice!"
           Faye and Patty looked at each other. "Why are they real hungry?" Patty asked. What did that have to do with anything?
          "Because Johnny, he no catch rat for the making of money, the family they no have money! And his little sister, see, she work hard at poultry factory, for tiny money; she hungry, her mom and pop they hungry, so she takes duck. Just one duck, they have millions! But no, is stealing. So now she lose stinking job, now she looking for food in the garbage!"
            Oh God, thought Faye...she had driven a whole family into poverty!
           "Hey, wait-a-minute!" said Patty suddenly shrilly. "Does this little sister wear an overall with pink and purple flowers embroidered down the sides?"
           "Si, this is Pearly! Why you know this?"
           Pearly? Oh god, this was too terrible! They had seen this little sister go through dumpsters, when they went out looking for lemurians early in the morning. Poor little Pearly! Faye wanted to cry (no way was she going to cry right here on the street).
           Patty saw how upset Faye was getting, so she spoke up, "Don't the Mexicans in your neighborhood give them food?"
           "No, oh no! They don't like them nohow. They say: what sort of creature is not even in the bible? Must be evil, anyhow!"
           "But you're Mexican."
           "Yes, they don't like me too!"
           "Well, what if... we give you some food. Could you then give it to the little sister?" asked Patty hopefully.
           "You will give me food..?" the boy looked for a moment at his big-headed buddy, who still stood glaring at the girls, apparently not understanding a word of what was being said
           "Sure, I can do this, I'll give it to Pearly" the boy concluded, "this is a nice idea."
           "Great! This is what we'll do, right Faye?"
           "Sure," said miserable Faye.
           "Great! Then we'll meet up here, tomorrow after school... say, what's your name? I'm Patty, and this is Faye."
           "Me, I'm Tuto. But I no go to school, see. I work all day. So we meet at sundown, okay?"
           "Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to go out after dinner on a school night."
           "I am," said still miserable Faye.
           "Great! So you two will meet, here, at sundown!" said Patty chirpily. "Say, what do lemurians eat?"
           "Just food, I guess," said Tuto.
           "Not weird stuff, like, I don't know... never mind. Food, okay! We'll ask our parents for food!" Patty seemed to be getting pretty excited about it all.