The Fabulous Clipjoint

The singing made me turn around instead of touching the silver trombone. It was Gardie's voice.
She was singing and skipping rope along the sidewalk. Like she used to before she started high school last year and got boy-crazy, with lipstick and powder all over her face. She was not quite fifteen; three and a half years younger than I. She had make-up on now, in this dream of mine, thick as ever, but she was skipping rope, too, and singing like a kid, "One, two, three, O'Leary; four, five, six, O'Leary; seven, eight