The Loud Silence of Francine Green Read Online Free PDF Page A

we were.
    The post office was crowded. I stood in line, looking at the criminals on the wanted posters on the wall—mostly angry-faced men with mean eyes who needed shaves. I examined the photos closely, but I didn't recognize anyone. Perhaps they were not pursuing their lives of crime in Los Angeles. Artie, meanwhile, helped himself to a handful of change-of-address cards, peeked into the mailboxes, and got in everyone's way. The Rice Krispies in his pockets dribbled out onto the floor and snap-krackle-popped as people stepped on them.
    Finally the clerk took my money, gave me a roll of

three-cent stamps, and stamped "First Class" on Artie's hand.

    Before heading home, we walked around a bit. Artie stared at his stamped hand while I admired the fall dresses in the shop windows. The new fashions were darkly romantic: wools and cotton plaids, with full skirts, wide collars and capes, and peplums that nipped the waist and flared out over the hips. "Look at that blue and green one, Artie. Isn't it just drooly? Artie?
Artie?
"
    He was gone. In only one block—okay, maybe three or four, I wasn't counting—from the post office, he'd gotten himself lost.
    I don't know if I was more scared for him, being lost, or for me, being in big trouble. I retraced my steps, looked on every corner, and walked slowly back up the street, checking each store: The Darling Shoppe, Newberry Five and Ten, The Feed Bag, Millie's Millinery, Fogarty's Appliances, where a crowd of small boys was watching puppets argue on a television set in the window.
    Normally I would have stayed to watch too, because we didn't seem likely ever to have a television in our house. My father said it was too expensive and just a passing fad. I told him that I'd read in
Life
magazine that one out of seven families in America had a television set. He said I should count six houses down the street from us and go watch
their
set.
    I examined the television-watching boys closely. No Artie.
    "Seen a little boy dressed for church?" I asked the people I passed. No one had.
    Just as I was about to give up and call a policeman, I saw

a commotion across the street. I ran over, hoping the hubbub was about a little lost boy.

    Where a building had been going up for months behind a tall fence was now the largest grocery store I had ever seen.
Piggly Wiggly Supermarket,
a banner said. A giant pig with huge golden scissors was cutting a ribbon strung across the front door, signaling the official opening of the store. And there pulling on the pig's curly tail was Artie.
    "Artie!" I said, grabbing him. "I was scared to death. Don't ever wander away like that again!"
    "He's okay, miss," the pig said. "I was watching him for you." I could see a man's face through the holes in the mask cut for breathing.
    "Thank you," I said to the pig. I had never imagined having an occasion to say thank you to a pig. But there it was: "
Thank you," I said to the pig.
"Let's go, Artie," I said, reaching for his hand.
    "No. I want to go in there."
    "Artie, that's enough. We have to go home."
    "No!" Artie ran into the market.
    I collared him by the soap flakes and grabbed his hand.
    "What is this place?" he asked, looking around.
    I looked too. Soft music came from somewhere above. Ceiling lights reflected off the shiny metal of the shopping carts, and the red linoleum floors gleamed. "It's like a grocery store in Heaven," I said. Artie and I walked up and down the brightly lit aisles of peanut butter and rye bread, Twinkies and Oreos and Stopette deodorant, chops and steaks and bacon in tight plastic packages.
    Pyramids of lettuce and oranges and beets in bright colors looked like paintings by some great fruit artist. "Buy me an apple, Francine. This apple," Artie said, taking an apple from the very base of the pyramid.

    "No, Artie," I said, too late, as the pyramid collapsed and all the apples fell to the floor. "Come on, " I said. "Let's scram before they figure out it was us."
    We were headed