Carmella Commands
“I’ll tell dad if you do it again,” declared Paola loudly.
Carmella did not do it again. She planned to rebel on a large scale. It was just as well not to err in minor ways, which might complicate the situation.
When the dishes were done she hastily got her hat and slipped out of doors, saying nothing to her mother. She was hoping to encounter Nicolo.
In front of Mike Laudini’s house she met him, smoking and lounging against the gateway. He sneered as she approached.
“Got kept in last night, after all!” he said.
“Yes, I did,” said Carmella bluntly. “Dad was in a terrible temper. Wouldn’t let me go out evenings except with him. So I didn’t go.
“Are you as smart as you think you are?” she asked.
Nicolo shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and snarled:
“You sound like the whooping cough. Something’s bit you.”
“If you were as smart as you think you are,” went on Carmella, “you’d think up some way to get off to a movie in the afternoon now and then.”
“I’m working now,” he answered. “Get that through your head.”
“You look it,” said Carmella, adding a phrase in Italian:
“Ti è entrato in testa!”
[133]
