Just before noon, the shouting
resumed and set the new baby wailing. Claire was hungry, though
she was too scared to ask for lunch. Her younger brother and sister
were playing in their rooms. They didn't seem to mind the shouting,
but it made Claire's stomach hurt. She slipped out the kitchen door
and onto the back porch. The smell of bleach from the laundry blowing
in the spring breeze stung her eyes. Claire crept around it, careful
to avoid the broken slat in the railing. She tucked her long, dark
hair behind her ears and gazed at the world from her third-floor
vantage point.
When Claire had turned seven the month
before, she found she was tall enough to see over the railing without
standing on her toes. Her younger brother and sister couldn't see
over the railing at all. They weren't even interested in the back
porch, and so it had become Claire's private domain, at least when
her mother wasn't hanging or gathering laundry.
Claire lived in one of the three-decker
houses that formed Boston's immigrant neighborhoods. The tiny yards
behind the houses on her street touched those on the next street.
Back porches rose above them all and created a world of secrets.
Claire liked to make up stories about the families who lived in
the flats behind all the porches. The stories were always happy,
because anyone Claire saw on the porches would wave to her and call
hello. She would wave back, unless her mother was there. Claire
was afraid to wave when her mother was on the porch. Her mother
never waved to anyone.
Most of the neighbors hung laundry
on their porches, though some grew flowers. A few even grew tomato
plants. The ladies who came out on the porches were kind to Claire.
A few days ago, Mrs. Sweeney next door had flung a bag of cookies
to her; last night, from the porch behind, Mrs. Gorman had tossed
her a candy bar.
Thumping noises made Claire look down.
The red-haired paperboy was leaping over the wooden and chain link
fences beneath her. On Saturdays he delivered his papers late. He
took a shortcut through the back yards afterward, though he never
cut through Claire's yard. No one did. Gramp's three Boston Terriers
had the run of the yard. They were not vicious dogs, but anyone
who walked down there would be stepping in some nasty stuff.
The dogs were out now. They yipped
at the boy until he bounded out of sight, then scurried around the
lilac tree. The lilacs would bloom soon, pure white and smelling
sweet. Of all the trees in all the back yards, Gramp's lilac was
the biggest.
Gramp's back porch was on the first
floor, set behind the house at an angle to the second and third-floor
porches. Claire loved looking down at it. Lilac branches covered
most of the porch rail. Gramp said he cut the branches back every
year after the lilacs bloomed, but they always grew back. Still,
Claire and Gram could wave to each other when they were out on their
porches.
The shouting in the kitchen grew louder.
The new baby was crying harder than he had in the whole two weeks
he had been there. Last night when her parents were shouting, her
father had pulled off his wedding ring and thrown it on the kitchen
floor.
Claire fled down the back stairs now,
past the second floor landing where the two ladies who baked cookies
lived, and knocked on her grandparents' door. On Saturday Aunt Kay
would be home. Kay would let Claire play with her makeup, and Gram
would give her a cup of tea.
Kay opened the door. Her instant smile—and
the mouth-watering aroma of frying bacon—softened the shouts
that echoed from the third floor flat.
"Come in, Claire," said
Kay. "I have great news. The leprechaun has been here."
Claire's eyes crinkled in disbelief.
"What? You're making that up. There aren't any leprechauns
in America." She closed the kitchen door. The shouting disappeared.
Gramp stood at the stove pouring himself
a cup of tea. He smiled his lopsided smile, the one that terrified
the neighborhood children, and pulled another cup from the shelf
for Claire. Years of pipe smoking had caused a cancer that had taken
half his jaw away, and he had pronounced plastic surgery a waste
of good money. He couldn't speak clearly, but Claire understood
him perfectly, and loved him a lot.
"Our family has a special leprechaun,"
said Kay. "He came over on his magic boat to follow Gram and
Gramp when they left Ireland. He hides his treasure in the lilac
tree for the summer. If he wants us to have it, he'll let us find
it."
Gram came down the hall shouting orders
to the snorting dogs she had just let in the front door. Their toenails
clicked on the floor; their stumpy tails waggled when they saw Claire.
"Eat something, Claire,"
said Gram, and she started her laundry going.
Curiosity had sidetracked Claire's hunger, however. "What kind
of treasure?" she asked.
"Silver, I think," said Kay. "Sit down and have a
sandwich and a cup of tea with us, and we'll go see if he left any."
Kay slathered butter over several
pieces of warm toast. She piled bacon on one, folded it onto a plate,
and slid it before Claire.
Gramp's shaking hand set a cup of
tea beside it. He sat with his own tea and sliced himself a thick
chunk of pound cake. "I planted potatoes beside that lilac
tree thirty years ago," he said.
Gram didn't even turn from her laundry.
"Hah! Did they grow yet?"
Claire grinned and gobbled her bacon
and toast. She finished her tea and carried her dishes to the sink.
"Can we look for the treasure now, Aunt Kay?"
"Good idea," said Kay. "Gram
will hang the wash soon, and we won't be able to go out."
Kay took Claire's hand and led her
through the long pantry and onto the back porch. The lilac tree
was so big it screened the house behind them from view. Kay brought
a small folding stepladder from the pantry and set it near the invading
branches.
Claire climbed up and looked at the
leaves. "I don't see anything. I don't think he was here. I
don't even believe there is a leprechaun!"
"He wouldn't leave his treasure
where anyone could see it," said Kay. "Maybe you should
look harder."
Claire ruffled the sweeping branches.
She snatched the nearest one and turned it upside down. With a loud
gasp, she cried, "There's quarters taped to the leaves!"
Kay sounded outraged. "I don't
believe it! He never let me find his treasure! You must be special,
Claire."
Claire searched harder and found a
half dozen more quarters, a fortune for her. "I'll share them
with you, Aunt Kay," she said.
"No, it's yours," said Kay.
"Maybe I'll find the next batch he leaves. He keeps bringing
his treasure until after the lilacs bloom, you know. I'll tell you
what. I'll keep these quarters for you, and later this afternoon
we'll go shopping."
"Can we really?"
"Go and ask your mother if it's
all right."
Claire's delight vanished. "Could
you ask her for me?"
"I'll call her," said Kay.
"I'm twenty-five now, much too old to be climbing all those
stairs. Run up and get your jacket."
Claire laughed and raced up the back
stairs. Trying to decide whether to use her treasure to buy comic
books or candy, she twisted the doorknob to her flat.
In the kitchen, her frowning mother
was folding the cloth diapers she had just brought in from the porch.
A pile of wooden clothes pins sat on the table beside them. "Where
have you been, Miss Lizzie Tish?"
Claire's stomach hurt. Her mother
looked so much like Aunt Kay, but she was so different. "Downstairs.
Aunt Kay says I can go shopping with her." She didn't mention
the leprechaun. Her mother wouldn't care.
The telephone rang. Claire knew by
her mother's tone that it was Aunt Kay calling. She ran to her room
and put on her jacket.
"All right Claire," said
her mother. "Go, but see that you're back in time to set the
table for supper. Put these clothes pins in the box on the porch
before you leave."
"Yes, Mom."
Now that the laundry was in, sunlight
brightened every corner of the porch. Claire ran into its soothing
warmth with her hands full of clothes pins and her mother's scolding
ringing in her ears. The scolding grew when Claire tripped and fell.
Her mother screamed that she had better not lose any of the clothes
pins. Claire wiped away the tears she thought were from scraping
her knees and knelt to pick up the pins. One had landed near the
broken slat in the porch railing. When Claire reached for it, she
glanced down through the jagged opening and smiled.
Aunt Kay stood on the folding ladder,
taping quarters to the lilac leaves.
