Billy and Ms. Morra

Day 1

When I was twelve years old, I lived with my mother in a not so nice neighborhood. Not that it was dangerous; it was just dirty and not pretty to look at. We lived on the second floor of a four-floor apartment building made from dirty tan brick next to a gas station and across the street from a bar.

One day, late in May, I came home to find a woman struggling to push a heavy metal case through our front door. I saw around the luminescent screen of my Gameboy that she was leaning on it with her full weight, but it would only go a foot at a time and then get stuck on the door frame. I stood and watched her do this for a moment with one hand on the strap of my backpack and the other pausing my game. Since she was so busy, she didn’t seem to notice me until I said, “Who are you?”

She looked around through the black hair that had fallen in her face and saw me standing there, looking at her skeptically. She stood up, panting and smoothed her hair out with her hands and pulled her shirt down over her thin, but sturdy frame, trying to look important, I guess. She grasped my hand, shook it, and told me, “My name is Jill, but you better call me Ms. Morra.” She put a hand up as if to block out someone from the conversation who wasn’t even there and whispered, “We wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea, would we?”

She grinned at me in what I thought to be a stupid way and went back to work pushing the heavy case through the door. When she had, I skirted through the small opening and went over to my mother who was washing dishes in the sink and humming. She had a nice voice and I think if she tried hard enough she could have been a singer instead of a waitress.

“Who is that?” I asked, eyeing Ms. Morra uneasily. (She was still pushing the case across the kitchen floor, now groaning loudly.)

My mother was never a very smart person. Actually, I think she’s stupid. I don’t know if she has a learning disability or if she’s just slow, but I think there’s something kind of wrong with her. Maybe she got dropped on the head.

She smiled happily at me and said, “How was your day, Billy?”

“Fine,” I said irritably, eyes still on Ms. Morra. “Who is that lady?”

“That’s Jill. Did you learn anything today?”

I ignored her question and asked, “Why is she here?”

“Who, Jill?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s gonna live here now,” my mother said happily and in her joy she squeezed me as hard as she could. “Isn’t it great?” she asked.

“Stop!” I whined, writhing in her grip. “Let go! Your hands are all wet. Come on, let go of me. You’re crushing me.”

I pushed her off of me and took a few steps back. Finding the table there, I threw my backpack on the floor and sat down, pouting.

My mother frowned and thought for a moment as she dried her hands on her pants, abandoning the unwashed dishes. Suddenly, she smiled again. She went over to the cupboard and pulled something out that I couldn’t see. Then she walked over to me slowly with her hands behind her back and waited for me to look up. Finally, I did, but I was frowning. She grinned joyously anyway and presented a cookie in front of me.

I tried hard to stay mad, but with her smiling so happily about a cookie I couldn’t help myself. I smiled reluctantly and took the cookie. She kissed me and went back to the dishes, now singing instead of humming.

****************

Ms. Morra brought in many more shiny metal cases, some heavy, most not. Most of them were oddly shaped, like guns, I thought. One of them actually looked like a sword. When I asked her about these she shrugged and said casually, “I’m a collector.” And then she went on towards her room where she was taking all of these items.

She was weird and I was pretty suspicious of her, especially since my mom was too dull to pick up on any of it. I had heard at school for the past couple of months that gas stations and convenience and drug stores had been getting robbed and that no one had ever been caught for it. Ms. Morra and all of her luggage seemed to fit into that equation very nicely.

The night Ms. Morra came, my mother made a very nice dinner and was smiling the whole time. Ms. Morra sat on the counter and talked to my mother while she cooked and I sat at the kitchen table with my Gameboy, looking up every once in awhile to frown at Ms. Morra who never took notice.

When we started eating I stared at her for awhile. She was really loud when she talked. My mother touched her ears a few times like they hurt, but never said anything about it. Then Ms. Morra spilled all of our glasses at once like they were dominoes.

“Oh,” my mother sighed and got up to get some napkins.

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Morra said instantly. She picked up the glasses as I stood up to avoid getting dripped on. “I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “I’m so clumsy. I’m stupid.”

“No you’re not,” my mother said kindly and cleaned up the mess.

I was a little bit angry with Ms. Morra for her clumsiness so the way I was looking at her grew a little mean. She picked up on this and said, “Geez, it’s not a big deal, kid.” She rolled her eyes. My mother refilled our glasses and we all sat down again.

After awhile, I said, “Why are you living here?”

My mother frowned at me, then looked confused and then looked back to normal. Ms. Morra shrugged. “I got nowhere else to go.” She grinned shyly at me. “I used to live real close to here. I didn’t have to move very far.”

After that she and my mother started talking again about some things that were very boring to me. I was thinking how interesting it was that Ms. Morra had lived nearby and that all those robberies had been nearby. I was proud of my discovery and sure Ms. Morra was at least a suspect. Then she decided to leave right after dinner without any explanation.

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Day 2


On my way to school the next day I passed a little corner store with a front window knocked out and a police car parked outside.

As soon as I got to school a boy named Ben bounded up to me shouting, “Did you see? Did you see?” We were still outside so nobody yelled at him, but thankfully he lowered his voice when he came near me. “It was right by your house, Billy,” he informed me excitedly. “This is awesome. Robbers are so cool. I bet this guy has like a machine gun and–and–like a getaway car, you know–hey! That’s why the cops can’t catch him!” He jumped around spastically on the spot and I moved out of his way.

“Hey!” he shouted again. “Billy! This is so cool. I could like catch him myself or–or… And then I could be famous or something… No…” He paused for effect. “I could join him,” he laughed giddily. “Robbers are so cool.”

He went on like that for awhile with me agreeing with him. I decided not to tell him what I thought about Ms. Morra so that I wouldn’t look stupid later if it turned out I was wrong. All through the day I heard stories from Ben and the other kids about what may or may not have happened to the corner store. One kid said he knew the mafia guys who came by with their machine guns because the owner owed them some money. Another boy said it was a team of masked bandits who robbed this and all the other places because they were crazy killers (no one died though). A girl said she knew for sure that it was a circus troop with baseball bats because she saw them at the store last night. I hinted that I might know something or someone and rejected the others’ theories smugly.

It was a warm day so after school the windows at home were open. I was sitting in the living room playing my Gameboy when I heard a loud scraping outside. I ignored it for awhile being so enthralled by my video game, but it only got louder. Soon I heard a woman’s groaning and I pressed my forehead against the screen to see who it was. It was Ms. Morra and she was pulling the same case I had first seen her pushing the day before. I watched the whole time it took her to pull it to the door that led to the basement and then send it down the stairs with one good push of her foot. She followed it and closed the door behind her.

My mother was doing the dishes again, but I was still surprised that she didn’t hear that thing crashing down the stairs. She just kept singing and when Ms. Morra came panting through the door she greeted her cheerfully.

Ms. Morra then came into the living room to rest on the couch. She said hello to me and turned on the TV.

“What’s with that metal case thing?” I asked.

“Hmm? What metal case thing?”

“The one you were dragging. I saw it out the window.”

She looked at the window, but said, “What case?” Then she saw that I was looking very sternly at her. “Aw, man. You shouldn’t have seen that.” She shook her head sadly. “It’s early Christmas presents – really early. Just don’t tell your ma. I don’t wanna ruin it for her, too.”

I frowned, shook my head, and rolled my eyes. She let out a little giggle and changed the channel.

At dinner, Ms. Morra spilled all of our glasses again. She smiled apologetically, but there was nothing left to drink now but water. My mother decided to go to the store since we needed some other things anyway and said she would be right back. She left me there alone with Ms. Morra.

After cleaning up her place at the table, Ms. Morra went into her room and closed the door. I sat alone and thought that she was probably loading her guns and leaving out the window. I was sure she was actually, but I had to make sure. I crept up to her door and lowered my face close to it to see through the keyhole. I saw a brown eye looking back at me.

Ms. Morra opened the door before I could run away. She leant coolly in the frame with her arms folded and looked down at me. I folded my arms, too.

“You’re not very smart, you know,” I informed her.

She looked confused at first, then she grinned devilishly. “I’m not?”

“No… I know you robbed those places.”

“You do?”

“Yep.”

She brushed back her hair to show me pointedly that she was still smiling. “What are you gonna do about it?” she asked. “Gonna tell on me?”

I hesitated, seeing that she was confident and waited for the catch.

“No one will believe a short little twelve year old boy, Billy. You might think I’m stupid, but I can talk pretty smart. They won’t believe you if I tell ‘em not to.” Here she smiled very evilly at me.

I stayed cool too. “Did you just admit it?” I asked.

She shrugged and closed the door.

****************

When she took a shower that night I went to tell my mother what I thought about Ms. Morra and what I had seen.

“I saw Ms. Morra put that huge metal case in the basement after school today,” I told her earnestly.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” she said as she put another one of my clean and folded shirts in its stack on her bed.

“What’s in there?” I asked. “Do you know?”

She pulled a pair of her pants out of the laundry basket as she thought and looking at them said, “Maybe it’s early Christmas presents.”

“What?”

“Aw, Jill is so nice. Isn’t she?”

I shook my head. “No. She’s weird. Where did she go last night?”

“I don’t know,” my mother said, folding the pants over her arm and then placing them on their stack.

“The corner store got robbed last night,” I told her.

“Mmhmm…”

“Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“What’s weird?”

I wasn’t able to get it across to her even though I said straight out that I thought Ms. Morra was a robber. My mother shooed this idea away with a flick of her hand, saying that she had known Ms. Morra since high school. Then she gave me a cookie and told me it was time to go to sleep.

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Day 3


The next day on my way to school I saw smoke above the buildings a few blocks away and heard sirens. It was out of my way, but I headed directly towards it.

To my surprise, I found a small crowd along with Ms. Morra who was observing the flames with her eyebrows furrowed and her hands on her hips. I went right over to her and asked, “Why are you still here?”

She looked down, surprised to see me. “Oh, hi, Billy,” she said in a friendly way. “You better get going. You’ll be late for school.”

I frowned and stood my ground. “How come no one can catch you?” I demanded angrily.

She grinned that stupid, yet intimidating grin and squatted, putting an arm around my shoulders. She pointed and said, “Why don’t you tell that police man over there that it was me? It’ll be fun. Won’t it? Why don’t you? You’ll be doing the right thing.” She laughed at me.

I don’t know if the police man would have believed me or not then, but the way she spoke made me feel like if I had said anything I would have been falling into her trap. Besides, I needed proof and I had been formulating a plan for that since the night before. I realized that she must have been doing her crime sprees at night when I was asleep. My plan was to follow her and to somehow get an incriminating picture of her. With this plan in mind, I rolled my eyes at her and ran off to school.

After school, I bought a camera with my allowance at the corner store with the knocked out front window. All that night I played it safe and didn’t say anything about my suspicions. When my mom told me to go to sleep, I stayed up in my room with my light off and my clothes on, but under the covers in case anyone came in to check if I was asleep or not.

I waited until one in the morning before I heard any movement (I was only still awake because I had been playing my Gameboy and no one had come in so it was okay, although I think I might have drifted off a few times). I crept out of bed and listened at my door to the unmistakable sound of the front door closing gently. I listened for another moment and then opened my door quietly so I wouldn’t wake my mother. I tiptoed past her closed bedroom door, camera in hand. I passed my shoes in the kitchen, but decided not to put them on so I wouldn’t be too far behind Ms. Morra. I passed through the front door silently and got all the way outside without making a sound thanks to my bare feet.

I didn’t know which way to go when I got outside so it was lucky I saw Ms. Morra across the street already, carrying something and heading the opposite way. She’s not being very careful, I thought. I waited a minute for her to get ahead and then crossed the street too, but on the other side of the block so we weren’t close, but so I could see her between the houses.

I didn’t think she saw me then, but she had a sneaky smirk on her face and after awhile I realized the thing she was carrying was some kind of weird gun. I only followed her for a few blocks when she stopped outside a flower shop and looked around. Luckily, I was safely hidden behind a bush, but could still see her and I saw that the florist’s glass door was already broken. Ms. Morra was not surprised so I guessed she had accomplices who had beaten her there. She peeked in the window and frowned, unable to see anything since the lights were off. She looked around again, smirked, and said, “Come on out, Billy.” She still had that weird looking gun so I stayed hidden, thinking of a good way to run away without getting shot. Before I could come up with anything she aimed the gun directly at the bush I was behind and shot at me three times.

I fell backwards onto the ground, dropping the camera, and trying to crawl away as I heard her coming towards me. She laughed and picked up the camera and took a picture of me. I had never been shot so I didn’t know how much it should hurt, but I was thinking at the time that it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Then the flash from the camera showed me that instead of blood, my leg had something pink on it.

Ms. Morra laughed at the look on my face and shot me again. “It’s just a paintball gun,” she laughed hysterically. “Did that even sound loud enough to you?” She doubled over, laughing at me. I got up, trying to wipe the paint out of my hair, but just smeared it worse. “You were so loud, Billy. Couldn’t you hear yourself breathing?” she asked laughingly. I snatched my camera from her as she tried to take another picture of me and was ready to go back home, but she snaked an arm around my shoulder and led me to the florist’s window. She peeped in and smiled benignly at me before snickering and saying, “All right. Let’s go.”

She changed her casual hug to a headlock and aimed the gun at my head. We went inside the broken door and Ms. Morra flicked on the light, revealing nothing but an open cash register and a room full of flowers. Undeterred, she reached an arm over the counter while still holding onto me with the arm that held the gun and pulled up a person by their collar. This person was wearing a hat and a scarf to cover their face, but their eyes peered out at me fearfully and I looked back feeling just the same.

Ms. Morra yelled at the thief, “Take off your scarf!” The person obeyed since there seemed to be a hostage and revealed her face.

It was my mother behind the scarf. I had already recognized her clothing and her eyes. She begged Ms. Morra tearfully, “Please don’t hurt him.” Ms. Morra released me and shot me playfully in the back, but I wasn’t even angry at her anymore. I looked at my mother speechlessly. She came and cooed over me, seeing if I was okay. Ms. Morra stood there coolly with her gun on her shoulder and said, “You’ve been pretty lucky so far.”

My mother started begging Ms. Morra not to turn her in, but I interrupted, saying, “You’re the robber?” She looked at me blankly. “But…” I gestured helplessly to Ms. Morra.

“I had to. We’re poor,” my mother explained.

“No we’re not –”

“Well, we would be if I didn’t rob people,” she said emotionally. She looked to Ms. Morra hopefully who looked very unsure of everything. I looked at her with the most pitiful expression I could.

“Aw, come on,” she said, frustrated. “I was pretty proud of myself for catching you.” She pointed at my mother, but then seemed to change her attitude. “So…I guess that’s good enough for me.” She tousled my hair with a wry smile and abruptly left the florist.

I was too stunned to move so I just stood there and looked at my mother as she picked up a bag off the floor and finished emptying out the cash register. She smiled at me innocently as she pulled out the drawer. I should have known it wasn’t Ms. Morra. She’s nowhere near graceful or quiet enough.

I left and caught up with Ms. Morra. She tousled my hair again as I approached and then wiped her paint-covered hand on my shirt.

“Thanks,” I said.

She smiled. “I couldn’t turn your pretty mommy in,” she admitted as she pinched my cheeks. “Besides, now we get to see how long she can keep it up for.”

My mother went to jail in another couple of months. I wasn’t kidding when I said she was stupid.

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