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Show Acting Alone Page 135 serve cone happened to be the big toe of the big old icky weird statue of Saint Willibrord himself that the sisters kept underneath the bread cupboard. It was a full-color statue with too much rouge and mascara and a yellow bishop's hat on his head (yellow, not gold). It made Saint Willibrord look like a queerbait, all in white silk, like one of the gross Beegees. Now, it was a custom for the sisters to depend on this plaster guy to provide them with necessary bulk foodstuffs. Mother Superior would get all serious and ceremonial and would offer Saint Willibrord samples of what they needed a whole bunch of. A slice of bread, a couple of tomatoes would be laid at his feet, and a local grocer or farmer or somebody would be inspired to donate in a dream or something, or maybe at Mass. Shannon didn't know how this worked. Sammy used to say that it all smacked of graven images. But Shannon didn't want to make fun of people's venerable customs or nothing. Just cause you been to college and learned better doesn't give you the right to make fun of people's venerable customs. Anyway, if Saint Willibrord didn't come through with the goods, Chaplain Wagstaff Bopp had to climb up on the drainboard and turn the statue's face to the wall, like it was in disgrace. But this time Saint Willibrord did come through with the goods. With whole freezer-burned cartons full of the goods. And Simone Stylite went around telling everybody, especially the older nuns who would be inclined to believe her, that it was all Shannon's fault. Not funny, Simone. Simone Stylite was making a snow sculpture now. She shaped her asphalt chip ice cream into some shapeless blob that she called a Shmoo. "My totem," she said, winking and making a really big old smile, as usual, and making |