Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi Page A

the sky and our street, especially Smelly Alley, where anyone could be hiding. Smelly Alley was down the block from us, a vacant lot with dog poop and broken glass and sumacs and rusty cans and—most of all—poison ivy. “Three leaves with a sheen, worse than mortal sin,” my mother had taught me. “Never touch those clusters of three shiny leaves.” “Sheen” and “sin” didn’t quite rhyme but were close enough. Except poison ivy was worse than mortal sin, because mortal sin you could confess to the priest and get absolution; but once you got poison ivy, you had it for life, and you got it every seven years. But one Sunday last summer, after mass, Kevin—on a double-dare—rubbed a handful of those shiny leaves against his neck, and nothing happened to him. All he said was, “I’m immune.” It was a shock to me, a revelation. Here someone had dared touch this curse of the human race, but nothing had happened to him, which meant that if you were immune to something, you couldn’t get it. I felt giddy. Free. Because it had to be the same with mortal sin. And if you were immune to mortal sin, you never had to worry about hell. Not even purgatory. But when I touched the poison ivy, splotches of tiny bumps soon formed on my hands and where I’d rubbed sweat off my face. The bumps itched, turned red, and formed hot blisters that oozed foul liquid. Twice a day, my mother would stir half a box of cornstarch into the tub and I’d lie in the lukewarm water, feeling my skin get cooler while I envied Kevin, who had everything: immunity to mortal sin and to poison ivy.
    â€œMrs. Hudak is mean,” Kevin said.
    â€œMaybe she’s a Russian spy.”
    â€œUuuughhh…uuuughhh…”
    â€œLet’s play mass.”
    â€œI want to spy on communists. Uuuughhh…Mrs. Hudak…” Kevin’s face was red, even though it was cold outside. Especially his big cheeks. My mother called him “lollipop face” because he looked like one of those red lollipops with a red face pressed into them.
    â€œLet’s just practice communion.”
    â€œWe need crackers for communion.”
    â€œI don’t have any.” I pointed across the street and into our kitchen. “We can spy on my aunt.”
    Aunt Floria and the twins were eating minestrone at my table as if they belonged there. One floor below, we saw the top of Mr. Casparini’s bald head, the top of his cigar, the top of his belly while he was sorting his stamp collection. On the third floor, Mrs. Rattner—Pineapple Sheila—was singing while rinsing her bowls and baking pans, and her son Nathan was studying so he could be a dentist. Last week, when Kevin and I had played spies, we’d shot rubber bands at Nathan’s window and ducked before he could see us; but he’d still waved at us and stood up, stretching himself as if we’d reminded him to take a break. The next day, Nathan Rattner had left a squishy envelope in our mailbox. On the outside, he’d written “Enjoy, Anthony,” and inside he’d stuffed rubber bands of different sizes and colors.
    â€œThere she is.” Kevin ducked. “Uuuughhh…uuuughhh…Mrs. Hudak…”
    I howled along. “We’re going to get you, Mrs. Hudak…uuuughhh…uuuughhh….”
    But Mrs. Hudak didn’t look up. She walked away from us, pulling her shopping cart.
    â€œShe’s going to John’s Bargain Store,” I announced.
    Kevin nodded excitedly. “To meet other communists.”

    Two days before Christmas, Riptide Grandma took me to Arthur Avenue—me alone, not the twins—my father’s idea to give me time away from them. At the Italian market, Riptide picked a wrinkled black olive from one of the wooden tubs and laughed when I didn’t want to taste it. “One day you’ll say yes, Antonio,” she said and chewed the