Tallahassee Higgins by Mary Downing Hahn Read Free Book Online

potato. "But Mrs. DeFlores acted like she didn't even want me in the house. Jane noticed, too, so I wasn't just imagining it."
    "Oh, don't be silly, Tallahassee. Linda's very nice." Aunt Thelma put the meat into a frying pan without looking at me.
    "Is that Mrs. DeFlores's name—Linda?"
    Aunt Thelma nodded. "But she's Mrs. DeFlores to you."
    "I always called Liz's friends by their first names."
    "Maybe that's how they do it in Florida. Here that would be disrespectful."
    "But were they friends?" I persisted. "She seems so much older than Liz, more your age."
    Aunt Thelma glanced at me. "Not every thirty-year-old woman wants to look like a teenager."
    I knew she was wrong about that, but instead of correcting her, I asked her if Liz and Mrs. DeFlores had had a fight or something.
    "I told you, Tallahassee, I don't remember." Aunt Thelma turned away to fill a pot with water and set it on the stove. "Cut the potatoes in quarters and drop them in as soon as the water boils."
    "But you must remember." I began hacking the potatoes. "It wasn't
that
long ago."
    "Will you drop the subject, Tallahassee?" Aunt Thelma picked up a spoon and began stirring the meat in the frying pan, a frown sharpening the lines around her mouth. "Whatever happened between your mother and Linda DeFlores is their business, not yours."
    Dumping the potatoes into the boiling water, I flounced out of the kitchen, getting the usual snarl from Fritzi. "You have bad breath," I whispered to him. "And you smell bad all over."

Chapter 8
    J ANE AND I WALKED to school together every morning for the rest of the week. And every afternoon we walked home together. After I checked the mail, we usually went to Jane's house because Mrs. DeFlores wouldn't allow her to play at Uncle Dan's house unless Aunt Thelma was home.
    Unfortunately, Mrs. DeFlores didn't act any friendlier. If she had been in a bad mood the first time I met her, I guess she never got out of it. At least not when I was around.
    Sometimes Jane would try to get her mother to be nice. She would say things like, "Doesn't Tallahassee have more freckles than anybody you ever saw?" and Mrs. DeFlores would ask Jane when she was going to do her homework. Or Jane would hold up one of the pictures I'd drawn in art and say, "See what a wonderful artist Tallahassee is," and Mrs. DeFlores would say, "You're a very good artist yourself, Jane."
    Finally Jane gave up and we would go straight to her room, avoiding Susan, and play Clue or Monopoly. If I forgot about the time, though, Mrs. DeFlores would shout up the steps, "Tallahassee, your aunt is home." That was her way of telling me to leave.
    When I'd been in Hyattsdale for two weeks without a word from Liz, I started getting desperate. Where was she? Suppose she'd had an accident? Bob had taken me for a ride on his motorcycle once, and I hadn't been very impressed with his driving skills. For all I knew, Liz was lying dead in the desert or something.
    Of course Aunt Thelma thought I was being silly. "The mail is slow, Tallahassee," she would say. "It takes a long time for a letter to get here from out west."
    Uncle Dan was much more sympathetic. He gave me a big road map and helped me figure out which route Liz had probably taken. I cut out a little motorcycle I'd drawn with two people on it, making sure to include their helmets, and entertained myself by moving it along the red interstate highway lines.
    "Oh, Bob," I would make Liz say, "When are we going to pass a post office? Poor Talley, I have all these postcards for her and I haven't got any stamps."
    And the mother stealer would say, "Sorry, Liz. No time to stop now. We have to keep going till we get to Hollywood."
    Vroom, vroom, vra vra vra-voooom!
Away the motorcycle would go with Liz clinging to Bob and crying, "Please let me get some stamps, please, Bob, please!"
    At night I talked to Melanie, and she always made me feel better. "Don't worry," she would say in her squeaky, little voice, "Liz will send you