Me & Emma

Elizabeth Flock

www.mirabooks.co.uk

FOR MY PARENTS—BARBARA AND REG BRACK

“Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,

Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are

beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.

(O Mother—O Sisters dear!

If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us,

It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)”

—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1900

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people helped breathe life into this book. My deep gratitude to Anne and Taylor Pace, who shared their beloved North Carolina with me and watched patiently while it became my beloved North Carolina.

My thanks also to my gifted editor, Susan Pezzack, and to my tireless agent, Laura Dail, who still has no idea that her encouragement is completely intoxicating.

I am blessed to have a friend like Mary Jane Clark, who is a constant source of strength and love.

My Emily gave me Carrie’s voice and helped me remember what it’s like to be a little girl. My Lizzie gave me support and unknowingly saved me from myself time and time again. And my Jeffrey gave me this whole new wonderful life and with unwavering support and love made it possible for me to be a writer.

ONE

The first time Richard hit me I saw stars in front of my eyes just like they do in cartoons. It was just a backhand, though—not like when I saw Tommy Bucksmith’s dad wallop him so hard that when he hit the pavement his head actually bounced. I s’pose Richard didn’t know about the flips I used to do with Daddy where you face each other and while you’re holding on to your daddy’s hands you climb up his legs to right above the knees and then push off, through the triangle that your arms make with his. It’s super fun. I was just trying to show Richard how it works. Anyway, I learned then and there to stay clear of Richard. I try to stay away from home as much as I possibly can.

It’s impossible to get lost in a town called Toast. That’s where I live: Toast, North Carolina. I don’t know how it is anywhere else but here all the streets are named for what’s on them. There’s Post Office Road and Front Street, which takes you past the front of the stores, and Back Street, which is one street over—in back of them. There’s New Church Road, even though the church that sits at the end of it isn’t new anymore. There’s Brown’s Farm Road, which is where Hollis Brown lives with his family, and before him came other Browns who Momma knew and didn’t like all that much, and Hilltop Road and even Riverbend Road. So wherever you set out for, the street signs will lead the way. I live on Murray Mill Road, and I s’pose if you didn’t know any better you’d think my last name’s Murray, but it’s Parker—Mr. Murray passed on way before we got here. We didn’t change a thing about the Murray house: the way in from Route 74 is just grass growing up between two straight lines so your tires’ll know exactly where to go. The first thing you see after you’ve been driving till the count of sixty is the mill barn that’s being held up over the pond by old stilts. We still have the board with peeling painted letters that says No Fishing on Sunday nailed up to the tree on the edge of the pond. Just to the side of that, taking up a whole outside wall of the mill, is Mr. Murray’s old sign that shows a cartoon rooster cock-a-doodle-doing the words Feed Nutrena … Be Sure, Be Safe, Be Thrifty. It’s getting hard to read the words of the poster now that a fine red dust from the dirt outside the mill has settled over it top to bottom. But you can see the rooster clear as day. Tacked up to the door of the old mill is this: “WARNING: It is unlawful for any person to sell, deliver, or hold or offer for sale any adulterated or misbranded grain. Maximum penalty $100 fine or 60 days imprisonment or both.” I copied that down in my notebook from school.

“Whoa!” The notebook goes flying out of my hands into the dirt.

“Betcha didn’t see that coming!” Richard laughs at me as I scramble to pick it up before he gets ahold of it. “Must be something pretty important, you grabbing at it like that. Lemme see there,” and he pulls it out of my hands before I can make a squeak about it.

“Give it back.”

“‘Collie McGrath isn’t talking to me on account of the frog incident’ … what’s the frog incident?” He looks up from my diary.

“Give it back!” But when I go to try to get it back he shoves me away, flipping through the pages, scanning each one with his dirty finger. “Where am I? I can’t wait to see what all you write about me. Hmm,” more flipping, “Momma this, Momma that. Jesus H. Christ, nothing about your dear ole dad?”

He throws it back down to the ground and I’m mad I didn’t listen to my own self when I thought I shouldn’t reach down to pick it up until he leaves, ‘cause when I do bend down again he shoves me into the dirt with his boot.

“There! Gave ya something to write about!”

I live here with my stepfather, Richard, my momma, and my sister, Emma. Emma and I are like Snow White and Rose Red. That’s probably why it’s our favorite bedtime story. It’s about two sisters: one has really white skin and yellow hair (just like Momma) and the other one has darker skin and hair that’s the color of the center of your eye (that’s just like me). My hair changes colors depending on where you’re standing and when. From the side in the daytime, my hair looks purple-black, but from the back at night it’s like burned wood in the fireplace. When it’s clean, Emma’s hair is the color of a cotton ball: white, white, white. But usually it’s so dirty it looks like the dusty old letters Momma keeps in a shoe box on her closet shelf.

Richard. Now there’s a guy who isn’t like anyone we’ve read about at bedtime. Momma says he’s as different from Daddy as a cow from a crow, and I believe her. I mean, wouldn’t you have to be likable to make everyone line up to buy carpet from you like Momma says they did for Daddy? Richard’s not half as likable. I told Momma once that I thought Richard was hateable, but she didn’t think it was funny so she sent me to my room. A few days later, when Richard was back picking on Momma she yelled out that no one liked him and that his own stepdaughter called him “hateable.” When she said it I just stood there listening to the tick-tick-tick of the plastic daisy clock we have hanging in the kitchen, knowing it was too late to run.

Momma says our daddy was the best carpet salesman in the state of North Carolina. He must’ve sold a ton of carpet because there wasn’t any left for us. We have hard linoleum. After he died Momma let me keep the leaf-green sample of shag that she found in the back seat of his car when she was cleaning it out before Mr. Dingle took it away. The sample must’ve fallen off the big piece of cardboard that had lots of other squares on it in different colors so folks could match it to their lives better. I keep it in the drawer of the white wicker night table by my bed in an old cigar box that has lots of colorful stickers of old-fashioned suitcases, stamps and airplanes (only on the cigar box they’re spelled aeroplanes) slapped on every which way. Sometimes if I sniff into that shag square real hard I can still pick up that new carpet smell that followed Daddy around like a shadow.

Back to me and Emma. Our hair is different colors but our skin is where you see the biggest difference. Chocolate and vanilla difference. Emma looks like someone got bored painting her and just left her blank for someone else to fill in. Me? Well, Miss Mary at White’s Drugstore always tilts her head to the side and says, “You look tired, chile,” when she sees me, but I’m not—it’s just the shadows under my eyes.

I’m eight—two years older than Emma, but because I’m small people probably think we’re mismatched twins. And that’s the way we think of each other. But I wish I could be more like Emma. I scream when I see a cicada, but Emma doesn’t mind them. She scoops them up and puts them outside. I tell her she should just step on them but she doesn’t listen to me. And she never gets picked on by the other kids. Once, Tommy Bucksmith twisted her arm around her back and held it there for a long time (“until you say I’m the best in the universe” he told her at the time, laughing while he winched her arm backward higher and higher) and she didn’t make a peep. Emma’s not scared of anything. Except for when Richard turns on Momma. Then we both go straight to behind-the-couch. Behind-the-couch is like another room for me and Emma. It’s our fort. Anyway, we usually head there when we’ve counted ten squeaks from the foot pedal of the metal trash can in the kitchen. The bottles clank so loud I think my head’ll split in two.

Richard starts bugging Momma after about the tenth squeak. I don’t know why Momma doesn’t stay out of his way from squeak eight on but she doesn’t. Me and Emma, we’ve started a thing we call the floor shimmy where, when we hear squeak eight we start to scoot our behinds real slow from the floor in front of the TV toward behind-the-couch. With the volume up you can’t hear us, and Richard’s concentrating real hard on Momma so he doesn’t notice that we’re inching toward behind-the-couch. By squeak nine, we’re about two Barbie-doll lengths from the front of the couch, and just before squeak ten we’re sliding between the cool paint on the wall and the nubby brown plaid back of the couch. We used to think it was stinky behind-the-couch, but we don’t even notice it anymore. I brought some of Momma’s perfume there once and squirted it twice right into the fabric so now it smells just like Momma on Sunday.

We live in an old white house with chipping yellow shutters. It’s three floors high, if you count the attic where me and Emma sleep. We used to have our own room across the hall from Momma and Daddy’s room, but after he died and Richard moved in we had to go up another floor. But here’s the worst part: Richard’s making us move. I cain’t even think about that right now. When I don’t want to think about something I just pretend there’s a little man in my head who takes the part of my brain that’s thinking the bad thing and pushes on it real hard so it goes to the back of all the other things I could be thinking about.

Momma says it’s trashy to have stuff out front of our house like we do so she goes and plants flowers in some of it so it’ll look like we’ve got it there on purpose. Here’s what we’ve got: three tires—one of them has grass already growing from the pile of dirt that’s in the middle of it; a cat statue that’s gray like a sidewalk; Richard’s old car that he says will come back to life one of these days, but when it does I think it’ll be confused since it doesn’t have any tires on it; Momma’s old tin washtub with flowers planted in it; a hammock Emma and me liked to swing in when we were really young, but now one side’s all frayed because we never took it inside in the winter; a bale of hay that smells bad on account of rain rot; a metal rooster that points in the direction of a storm if one’s coming; and Richard’s old work boots. Momma up and planted flowers in them, too. I’ve never seen flowers in boots before, but she did it and sure enough there’re daisies pushing up out of them right this minute. Oh, I almost forgot, Momma’s clothesline is out there, too.

We don’t have a front walk to get to the door to the house. I wish we did. Snow White and Rose Red have a front walk that takes you through an archway of roses. We just have grass that’s been walked on so much it’s dirt. But then you get to the front porch and that’s the part I like best. It makes a lot of noise when you walk on it but I like being able to look out over everything.

“What’re you doing?” Emma asks. Where she came from I don’t know. I didn’t even hear her.

I’m standing here on the front porch, surveying our yard and all the things we’ve got. Sometimes I pretend I’m a princess and that instead of things they’re people, my subjects waving up to me on the balcony of my castle.

“What do you mean what am I doing?”

“Who’re you waving at?”

“I wasn’t waving.”

“Were, too. You’re pretending you’re a princess again, aren’t you?” Emma sits in Momma’s old rocker that’s missing most of the seat. She’s smiling ‘cause she knows she nailed me.

“Was not.”

“Was to. What color dress you wearing?” I can tell by the tone in her voice because she isn’t making fun of me anymore, she just wants to hear me talk my dream out loud so she can dream it, too. She’s all serious now.

“It’s pink, of course,” I say, “and it’s got sparkly beads sewn all over it so it looks like the dress is made of pink diamonds. And I have a big ole lace collar that’s made by hand. It’s not scratchy at all. In fact it’s so soft it tickles me sometimes. The sleeves are velvet, white velvet. They’re even softer than the lace. But the best part is my shoes. My shoes are made of glass, just like Cinderella’s, and they have diamonds on the tips so they can match my dress.”

Emma’s eyes are closed but she’s nodding.

“And here are my loyal subjects.” I sweep my arm across the railing toward the yard. “They all love me because I’m a good princess, not a mean one like my stepsister. I give them food and money—and I talk to them like they’re in my family. My loyal subjects …” I say this last part to all the stuff in the yard. Oh, yeah, we also have an old iron bed out there. It’s rusted now but it used to be bright metal. It’s right up front so I pretend it’s the river of water that runs in a circle around my castle and that the front steps are a drawbridge. I wish the drawbridge could stay up and keep Richard from coming into the castle.

Uh-oh. Richard’s noisy truck is pulling into its parking space to the side of the house. I cain’t tell for sure but it looks like he might not be in too bad a mood right now. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

“Whatchoo up to on this fine North Carolina day?” He’s walking toward us, but I can tell by his speed that he isn’t interested in our answer.

“Nothing,” Emma and I say at the same time, both of us backing up to put more space between us and him. Just in case.

“Nothing,” Richard mimics us with his chin sticking out extra far. But he keeps on walking past us into the house. “Libby? Where you at?” I hear him call to Momma once the porch door slams behind him. “It’s payday and I’m in need of in-ee-bree-ation!” A second later I hear vacuumed air pop from a bottle and then the sound of a tin cap pinging onto the counter in the kitchen. Momma’s voice is murmuring something I can’t make out.

“Hey, Pea Pop, how’d you like a nice cold orangeade?” Daddy rustled my hair like I was a pet dog. “Lib? It’s payday! Getchur bag, we’re going shopping.”

Payday was always the best day of the month when Daddy was alive. I’d hear orangeade and it was all I could do to fit the tiny metal fork into the hole in the strap on my sandals, I’d be so excited.

“Can I get a large, Daddy?” I called out from the back seat, loud enough to be heard over the wind blowing in through all the open windows in our car.

“You can get a jumbo, pea.” He smiled, and caught my eye in the rearview mirror.

Our first stop was the grocery store. Momma pulled a cart from the stack all folded into one another by the glass entrance. The cold air gave me gooseflesh at first but by aisle two I was used to it.

“Stop swinging your feet, Caroline,” Momma tsked at me, “you’re kicking me in the stomach.” So I tried to keep my legs still while Momma threw food into the cart over my head.

“Momma? Can I pull from the shelves?”

“I guess,” she answered, checking her list, which was long since we hadn’t been to the store in a while. Maybe even since Daddy’s last payday.

“Whole oats. No, not that one. The red label. That’s it,” she said, moving the cart before I could even drop the tin into the cart. “Flour. The big sack. Yes, that’s the one.”

Daddy popped up from behind Momma, startling the both of us. “I’m going over to the meat counter. What you want me to order up for supper?” he asked her. “How ‘bout some liver?” He winked at me since he knew I hated liver.

“No!” I whined to Momma.

She was still studying her list. “Be sure to get the ground chuck. Four pounds.”

“Now, what do we need four pounds’ worth of meat for?” he asked her over his shoulder.

“I’m freezing it for later,” she said, pulling a box of cereal from the shelf that was high up over my head.

Seven aisles later, the cart was filled to the brim and Momma wheeled us over to the checkout stand. Daddy was already there, talking with Mr. Gifford, the store manager he played cards with from time to time.

“Time to settle up,” Daddy said to him, slapping him on the back.

“‘Preciate it,” Mr. Gifford said. “You’d be surprised how many people—now, I’m not naming names—I got to turn away, they so overdue on the bill. Your credit’s always good here, Henry. ‘Sides, might as well take your money here than at the card table!” Mr. Gifford laughed, shaking Daddy’s hand. “You got yourself a fine family here, Culver.” And he tipped an invisible hat on his head to Momma and me and went over to talk to Mrs. Fox, an old lady who dressed in her Sunday best every time she left the house.

“C’mon, Pea Pop.” Daddy lifted me out of my seat in the cart while Momma unloaded the groceries onto the moving belt. “Let’s you and me pack up these sacks.”

After we got everything on our side of the belt, and then after the cash register, Daddy squeezed behind me to count out bills for the cashier, Delmer Posey.

“What’d we owe you from last time?” he asked Delmer.

Delmer Posey went to my school when he was little, but he stopped going right after the seventh grade. No one knew why until he showed up at the grocery store asking for work. Momma said the Poseys were strapped worse than us, so every time I’d see Delmer I pictured him with a saddle tied to his back.

Delmer ran his finger down a long list of names on a page in a thumbed-up ledger that was kept behind the register. “Thirty-four fifty-seven, Mr. Culver,” he said.

Daddy let out a slow whistle and added that to the amount we just spent. “Here’s an extra five for the books,” he said, smiling his smile at Delmer, who looked confused. “Just put it down as credit so Mrs. Culver can come grab whatever it is I’m sure we forgot today.”

Whenever you’d say anything to Delmer Posey, it’d take a minute or two before he could understand it, like he spoke foreign and was waiting for someone to tell him what it meant in English. But soon he got what Daddy said and we wheeled the cart to a spot alongside other carts by the glass door with the bright red Exit sign above it.

“You keep an eye on this for us,” Daddy winked back at him. “We’ve got some business over at White’s.”

Momma and Daddy held hands down the sidewalk to White’s Drugstore. They never used to mind when I ran ahead to put in my order at the counter.

“Hey, Miss Caroline,” Miss Mary called out after the bell over the door jingled to let her know someone’s inside.

“Hey, Miss Mary,” I said. “May I have a large orangeade, please?”

Miss Mary put her paperback book down so the pages were splayed out on either side of the middle. “I don’t see why not.” She waddled over to the countertop. Miss Mary was always fat. Fatter than fat. Daddy used to say there’s more of her to love.

The jingle up front told me Momma and Daddy had come into the store.

“Miss Mary, how are you?” Daddy said from the stool alongside me. Momma was picking out a few things from the shampoo shelf. “Isn’t that a pretty dress.”

But it didn’t sound like a question.

“Thank you, sir,” Miss Mary said shy-like, smiling down at herself so hard her cheeks almost folded over the corners of her mouth. “Mrs. Culver here, too?”

“Oh, don’t mind her,” Daddy said, “let’s you and me run away together. Let’s really do it.”

“I’m over here, Mary,” Momma called from behind the only aisle in the place. “Just picking up a few things we been needing for a while. I’ll be right over.” Momma was used to Daddy asking Miss Mary to run away with him. He did it every time he went into White’s. I reckon she smiled so hard and blushed ‘cause no one’d ever asked her that before. She’s about a million years old and lives alone with two tomcats and a rooster named Joe.

“What about me, Daddy?” I asked him. “You gonna run away without me?”

“I’m gonna put you in my pocket and take you with me,” he said. Then he leaned over from his stool and kissed me on the head like he always did.

“Orangeade for you, too?” Miss Mary asked Daddy, still smiling.

“You bet.”

Miss Mary cut each orange down the middle until there were ten halves. I counted each one. Then—and this was the best part—she put each one in the big metal press and leaned all her weight onto each orange rind until nothing more dripped into the glass jar underneath it. Then she poured sugar into the jar, added some soda water, screwed a lid on and shook it good and hard until it was fizzy and frothy. The glasses were kept in the icebox so there’d be a nice cool film of cold all over them. I wrote my name in the frost on the side of my glass. White’s had bendy straws so I never lifted the glass off the counter, and that was how Daddy and I’d drink them: without hands.

Ping. Another tin beer bottle cap hits the kitchen counter.

“What do you want to do now?” Emma asks me. She’s been leaning against the porch railing, counting the pings of the bottle caps just like I have—both of us wondering how many it’ll take to turn Richard into Enemy Number One.

“I don’t know.”

“How about we walk down to the fence out back and do the balance thing?”

The balance thing is something Emma and I like to do when we’re superbored. Actually it’s kind of fun. The top logs on the fence that used to separate our land from the neighbors, back when we all cared about that sort of thing, are all missing. So Emma and I walk on the lower logs between the fence posts and see who can stay up the longest without falling off. The loser has to do whatever the winner makes her do.

“I’ll start, you count.” Emma is already on top of the first log. It’s the easiest since it’s so old it’s split long ways in the middle so it’s wider than all the rest. The tricky one is the newer one that’s next.

“Go,” I say, and I start counting out loud. Emma can do this without even extending her arms and that makes me mad for some reason so I count slow.

“You’re counting too slow!” Emma says. She’s concentrating real hard on the next step she’s going to take.

I don’t speed up, though. Not much she can do about it while she’s trying to stay on the log. Instead of saying the word Mississippi in between numbers like Momma did when she used to play hide-and-seek with us, I spell it all out and it takes twice as long to get to the next number.

She’s on to the next log and I can tell she’s not going to make it to twelve. For once I may even beat her.

Yep, there she goes. She’s off the log.

“Eleven!” I say as I pass her, and hop up onto log number one.

“Cheater. You counted so slow I felt my hair grow,” she grumbled. And before I could even prove I’m the Queen of the Log Fence she added, “Let’s go over to Forsyth’s.”

Forsyth Phillips is a friend of ours who lives in the house that’s as close as we’re going to get to having a neighbor. Forsyth’s a cure for boredom if I’ve ever seen one. If the Phillips’s house were a flower it’d be a sunflower, all smiley and warm with lots of clean windows and white tablecloths for fancy occasions.

Before I can even balance my way along the log to the post, Emma’s lit out for Forsyth’s.

“Wait up,” I call out to her, but it’s no use. I’ll have to hurry to catch up to her.

“Well, hello there, Miss Parker.” Mrs. Phillips talks that way to kids: like we’re the same age as her. “Forsyth’s upstairs. Y’all can go on up.” Once again, it’s Emma who’s gotten to the door first, so I have to let myself on in.

“Hey, Forsyth,” I say, all breathless from taking the stairs two by two.

“Hey, Carrie,” she says. Emma’s already called the spot across from Forsyth, who’s playing with her Old Maid cards on her single bed that has its own legs, like it’s on a throne. Her room has matching fabric all around, daisies on a sky-blue field hang from either side of her window, on a cushion just underneath it, and stretched neatly across her proud bed. I cain’t imagine what it’d be like to fall asleep every dag-gum night with my head on soft daisies. I guess I’d never have nightmares at the Phillipses’.

“Y’all hungry for some cookies?” Mrs. Phillips pokes her head in the room, smiling above her apron that must just be there for show since it’s never been smudged not once since we started coming over. “Come on down when you feel ready, they’re just coming out of the oven.”

Momma hasn’t baked us cookies in, well, forever. Mrs. Phillips bakes so much that Forsyth doesn’t even look up from her cards, doesn’t even seem to be in a hurry to get ‘em while they’re good and hot, the chocolate chips melting on your fingers, making it two desserts in one when you lick it off once the cookie’s gone.

“Aren’tcha gonna go on down for a snack?” I ask her. Please, Forsyth, say yes.

“I reckon,” she says, but she still doesn’t budge.

“What’re you playing?”

“Old Maid, silly. You blind?”

She must’ve woken up on the wrong side of her daisies.

“Can we play?”

“We?”

“Me and Emma.”

“I’m tired of playing with Emma,” she sighs. She always does this … refusing to play with my baby sister like she’s got the plague. Emma doesn’t seem to mind, but I think it’s mean to say it right in front of her like that.

“Come on,” I whine.

“Aw-right,” she says, scooting over on the bed to make room for me, too. “Y’all better take your shoes off, though, or my momma’s gonna tan your hide.”

I don’t think Mrs. Phillips has ever tanned a hide, though.

It’s a hot day, maybe that’s why Forsyth just ends up being as bored as the two of us. This kind of hot sucks out all your life blood and then expects you to be able to breathe and not suffocate. In the middle of Forsyth’s ceiling she’s got her very own ceiling fan that beats the hot air back out the window and brushes our skin with a nice breeze instead. Seems like every room in this house has one of those fans.

“Didja do your homework yet?” I ask her, hoping she’ll lose interest in her game and notice she’s hungry.

“Mmm-hmm. Momma makes me do it the minute I come in the door from school,” she says. “Did you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I lie. I don’t do my homework till it gets dark and then I hurry through it like it tastes bad. Emma’s still too young to have homework.

“Let’s get some of your momma’s cookies,” Emma says, and I glare at her ‘cause it’s rude. Momma would tan her hide if she heard her ask outright for food from someone else.

Momma and Mrs. Phillips have talked on the phone, but I don’t think they like each other much. Momma always says she ruins Emma and me for anyone else. I guess she’s talking about all the food we eat when we come over—we’re never hungry for dinner when we finally drag ourselves home.

Forsyth is my best friend outside of Emma. We been going to school together since we were smaller than beans. We sit together at lunchtime and then we play on the jungle gym at recess when I’m not getting hit by a dodgeball. Usually she’s in a better mood than this.

“What’s the matter?” I ask her, trying to ignore Emma.

She shrugs just like Emma always does.

“Tell me.”

She shakes her head. She has curly red hair with freckles to match.

“Is it your momma?”

She shakes her head again.

“Your daddy?”

Again, no.

“It’s gotta be school, then,” Emma says.

“It’s Sonny, isn’t it,” I say.

Sonny’s the school bully. If someone falls down the stairs, Sonny’s usually up at the top, laughing. If something’s gone missing, it’s usually in Sonny’s backyard. And if somewhere in the recess yard a fire breaks out, Sonny’s usually the one holding the lighter.

For the first time since we came into her room, Forsyth looks up from her Old Maid cards. She nods and the mop on her head shakes like Momma’s Christmas Jell-O mold.

“What’d he do?”

Tears spill past her rims onto her freckled cheeks. “He’s meaner than spit, is all,” she cries, the way you would if you were choking.

“Tell me something I don’t know. He’s our second cousin, don’t forget.” Sonny’s the one who short-sheeted our bed last summer. Sonny’s the one who made me put my tongue to the bottom of an ice tray and then led me around his house laughing. Sonny truly is meaner than spit.

“When God gave out brains, Sonny thought he said trains and he ran for it,” Emma says, flipping through the cards, trying to shuffle.

“What’d he do this time?” I ask Forsyth.

“He pulled down my pants at band,” she cries, “and everyone saw.”

This is worse than I thought.

“What?” I ask her, but I’m glaring at Emma, who’s trying real hard not to crack up. I think Emma secretly likes Sonny but I couldn’t tell you why.

Forsyth is nodding her head, assuring me that I have indeed heard correctly. “I stood up to play.” Forsyth plays the recorder. “And just like that he reached from the row behind and pulled on my pants and the next thing I know everyone was laughing at me,” she cries even harder. “And I didn’t even have my good panties on.” See, there’s another difference between Forsyth and us. There’re no such things as “good panties” in our family.

“You want me to talk to him?” I ask her. Please, Forsyth, say no.

“No,” she practically screams at me. “Carrie, promise! Promise you won’t talk to him about it. Promise.” She’s clutching at my arm like I’m a log in the river she’s drowning in.

“I won’t,” I say. And that’s the God’s honest truth.

“Honor bright?”

“Honor bright.”

I get to thinking and it hits me. “You know what?” I pause to make sure they’re listening real good. “Sonny needs to taste his own medicine.”

“Huh?” Emma says. Even Emma looks interested in what I’m going to say.

“Seriously, we’ve got to get Sonny back for everything he does to us all the time,” I say. Forsyth isn’t looking away so I keep going.

“What can we do to get him back?” I think. Emma thinks. Forsyth thinks. “There’s got to be some way to get him….”

“We should sic Richard on him, is what we should do,” Emma mumbles. Forsyth pays no attention.

“We could pull his pants down,” Forsyth says, all excited-like.

I shake my head. I don’t know what these two would do without me sometimes, I’ll tell you what. “It’s got to be something no one’s done before. Something he won’t expect. But it’s got to be good.”

“What’re you thinking?” Forsyth asks. She’s leaning forward, waiting to catch my idea as it leaves my mouth.

“We could take his G.I. Joe and get one of Jimmy Hammersmith’s firecrackers, take G.I. Joe’s head off, put the firecracker in his body and watch him explode!” Emma shouts out.

Forsyth looks like this might be the way to go but I have my doubts, and once she sees the look on my face she starts acting like she doesn’t like the idea, either. She’s sort of a copycat, if you want to know the truth.

“It’s got to be even better than that,” I say. “But that’s good, though.” I sound just like our teacher when he doesn’t want to make us feel stupid.

“Well, what, then?” they both ask at the same time.

“Cookies are ready!” Mrs. Phillips calls up from downstairs and I cain’t take it any longer. I stand up and I know they’ll follow me since I’m Miss Idea.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, making sure I don’t grab, like Momma always warns us.

“Help yourself, sweetie.” Mrs. Phillips smiles while she shovels two more from her pancake turner onto the plate in the middle of the kitchen table, just like a television commercial. This kitchen is already tidied up—wet measuring cups and mixing bowls lie next to the sink air-drying in the V-shaped rack made just for that purpose.

We carefully wait for her to leave the room so we can plot our revenge.

“I’ve got it!” I say, with my mouth full.

Forsyth practically jumps out of her chair, which, by the way, has its very own cushion on it so you never get uncomfortable sitting on hard wood. “What? What?”

“How about,” I say real slow-like, drawing it out ‘cause it’s fun to be the center of attention every once in a while. “How about we go into the boys’ washroom before he goes in to use it and we grease the toilet seat so he slips in when he goes to the bathroom!”

Two sets of huge eyes blink back at me.

“My mom has Crisco,” “I can scout it out and give a signal when he asks permission to go,” “I’ll guard the bathroom door so we know it’s him who’s going in and not anyone else,” “I’ll spread the word that something really funny’s about to happen in the bathroom so everyone can go in and see him all dripping wet!” We talk all at once and whammo! We’ve got ourselves a plan.

After we eat so many cookies I can feel the dough rising in my stomach, we go back upstairs to Forsyth’s room and work it all out so we’re sure it’s foolproof. You’ve got to be foolproof with a boy like Sonny.

“He’s in room 301 second period,” Forsyth says. “I know ‘cause that’s across the hall from me. After second period he’s bound to have to go to the washroom.”

“Yeah, they have snack period after first, right?” Emma asks. She looks like she loves this plan as much as Forsyth does, which is funny considering she’s the only one Sonny hasn’t picked on. Truth to tell I think Sonny’s a little afraid of Emma since he knows she has no fear whatsoever.

“Yup,” I say. “Okay. So, Emma will scout him out and make sure he heads to the bathroom down the hall next to the gym. Forsyth, you have to come get me when Emma gives you the signal.”

Forsyth looks confused.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, “we’ve got to come up with a signal.”

“How ‘bout I call out ‘My favorite color is blue!’” Forsyth says.

“You can’t yell that down the hall,” Emma sneers at her. “He’ll know something’s up our sleeves.”

Forsyth nods.

“I know,” I say, “the signal will be that Emma will scratch her chin when she sees Sonny ask Mr. Stanley for the key. Then I’ll run down ahead of him with a pat of the Crisco in a bag under my shirt and, Forsyth, you watch the washroom door and make sure no one’s in there when I go in.”

“Wait! How’re you going to get into the boys’ washroom without a key?” Emma asks. And she has a point.

I think on this for a minute.

“Well,” I say out loud, but in my head I have no idea how I’ll finish this sentence. Then it comes to me. “I know! I’ll go to the bathroom right when I get to school ‘cause that’s when the janitor cleans them and leaves the doors open for them to air out! I’ll click that thingy in the middle of the doorknob that keeps it from locking when it closes and that way I’ll be able to slip in when you tell me he’s coming!”

Now, that’s a darn good plan, if you ask me. Foolproof. Emma and Forsyth look like they’re thinking the same thing. They’re both smiling like cats that ate canaries.

“Okay, then how’re we going to get everyone in there so they can see him after he falls in?”

I’m thinking again. How come I’ve got to come up with the whole dang thing?

“How ‘bout we count to ten so we’re sure he’s falling in and we tell anyone who’s around us in the hall that there’s a bag of free candy in the boys’ washroom.” Emma shouts this out she’s so excited. “Everyone loves candy. Especially when it’s free!”

That’s my little sister for you. She always comes through in the clutch.

“That’s it, then,” I say as Forsyth falls back on her bed of daisies. “Don’t forget to bring the Crisco in tomorrow morning,” I remind her.

“I won’t.” She smiles up at the ceiling. “This time tomorrow Sonny Parker’ll be the laughingstock of the whole entire school.”

Emma stands up and stretches her arms up over her head—after leaning back on them for so long I expect they’re stiff. “We better go on home before Richard gets to five.”

“You asleep, yet?” Emma whispers, knowing full well there’s no way I’m sleeping.

“No.”

“You reckon it’ll work for real?”

“It cain’t not,” I say, but inside my head I’ve been thinking it over and now I’m not so sure.

“What if he doesn’t have to go to the bathroom?” she asks.

“He’s got to go sometime,” I say. “Besides, say he doesn’t go after second period. We just scoot the plan up and do it after fourth.”

“You think?”

“It’s foolproof.”

“You’re right,” she yawns. “It’s foolproof.”

I don’t remember sleeping, but I must have because the next thing I know Momma’s calling up to us from the landing. “Rise and shine!” She sounds like she’s in a good mood, but we won’t know for sure till we get downstairs and see what’s waiting for us in the kitchen. When the cereal bowls are already out on the counter we’re home free. Sometimes, though, she says, “You got arms to reach up, don’tcha?” And other times she’s not there at all … still sleeping. Sure enough it’s a breakfast-bowl-on-the-counter morning. Phee-you. One less thing to think about today.

We ride the bus to school and there isn’t much to say about that except that Patty Lettigo (who everyone calls Patty Let-Me-Go and then runs away like she’s holding on to them too tight for real) glares at us when we walk up the aisle to the back of the bus where there’s an open two-seater. Patty Lettigo always glares. It’s her job or something.

My stomach’s in knots. Emma’s clutching her books close to her chest even after she sits down so I’m betting she’s as nervous as I am.

“Remember,” I whisper to her with my hand up to her ear just in case anyone can hear over the loud bus engine, “get the bag of Crisco from Forsyth the minute you see her at your locker and then pass it to me when I come by after homeroom.”

“Okay, okay, stop reminding me,” she hisses at me.

“I’m just saying.”

“I got it.”

But after we pass three farms and the second flashing stoplight she leans over and whispers in my ear. “Where’re we meeting up again after?”

“Jeez! We’ve been over this a million times! At the end of the hall that leads to the gym. You’re going to be the signal girl.”

“Right,” she nods, remembering. “Got it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Sure as manure.”

I smile, thinking about how I told her that Daddy always used to say that to me. He’d rhyme the words and it made me laugh every time.

The bus lurches to the curb right in front of our school, squeaky brakes and smelly fumes. Emma hits my arm and I look to where she’s looking and sure enough it’s Sonny at the bike stand, pulling his books out of the trap that’s fixed over his back wheel.

“Here we go,” I say to no one in particular, and we head in through the front doors just in time for the first bell.

“Bye,” she calls to me, which is weird ‘cause we never say goodbye to each other at school—we just sort of walk away. But in a nice way. Yep. She’s nervous all right.

Homeroom drags by so slowly now it’s me who can feel her hair grow. Miss Fullman calls attendance and everyone’s got to add their funny little thing they say back instead of “here” like boring old me. Mary Sellers: “Is the best!” (everyone laughs—she changes this every day). Liam Naughton: “Yell-oh!” (laughs). Darryl Becksdale: “Who?” (not so many laughs, but still better than “here”). The list goes slowly while Miss Fullman gives everyone the evil eye and says, “People. That’s enough now, people,” and waits for the laughter to die down before she calls the next one on the list.

The second bell rings almost as loud as my heart is beating. It just occurred to me that this whole thing is riding on me. I cain’t chicken out now. I just cain’t. Forsyth would never speak to me again.

First period goes by even slower than homeroom did, but the good thing is we’re right on track. Forsyth passed a slab of Crisco wrapped in plastic to Emma, who gave it to me just like we planned. Now I’m sitting here in second period with Crisco grease in the space between the snap and zipper of my pants and my stomach. I wore a looser shirt than I normally wear for this exact reason. Planning ahead works every time.

Bzzzzzzz. Second period is over and as we file out of the room I bump into two desks because I’m concentrating on my heart, which is beating in my chest like a bird flapping its wings against a cage, trying to get free. Oh, Lord, please help me carry this out.

Out in the hallway in front of the gym Forsyth is standing in front of the boys’ washroom like she should be but I cain’t see Emma over the heads of the other kids in the hallway. I didn’t think about how tough it’d be to see her in the crowd! Oh, God. Oh, God. Emma? Where are you?

And then she appears—standing in between Betsy Rut-ledge and Collie McGrath, talking to Perry Gibson and … there it is … she scratches her chin! That means Sonny’s asked for the key and is about to head to the washroom. I whip around to see Forsyth shaking her head to someone who’s trying to go in but then turns away after she whispers to him. Just like we planned, Forsyth is telling anyone who wants to use the washroom—who isn’t Sonny, of course—it’s “out of order.” We practiced it dozens of times before we left the Phillipses’ last night.

There’s no time to waste. I push past people I barely recognize because I’m so nervous and feel up under my shirt for the packet of Crisco. In front of the boys’ washroom I look over my shoulder quickly just to make sure Sonny’s not right behind me. The coast is clear so I rush past Forsyth, who’s mouthing something to me and waving her arms around, but I push through the door to the boys’ washroom so I can carry out our plan.

Oh. My. Lord.

I hear the door shut behind me and rest my eyes on not one, not two, not three, even, but about twenty—twenty—boys! Boys from every grade. Boys standing with their backs to the door. Boys facing the wall. Boys with their pants practically down to their ankles. Boys combing their hair. Boys leaning against the tiled wall. Boys in every nook and cranny of this washroom!

“Lookee-lou, it’s Scary Carrie,” a hollow voice bounces off the tiled walls and mixes into all the laughing that breaks out like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.

Everything happens so fast I cain’t even tell you what I said or how I got out of there. I just know that as I fly out the door I see Sonny, smiling and sauntering up to the door without a care in the world.

The girls’ washroom is right next door but I want to get as far away from here as I possibly can. So I run. I run down the hall, past Emma, who’s looking at me weird, past Mr. Stanley, past a million laughing kids I never want to see ever again, and out the double metal doors that lead to freedom. They can arrest me if they want, but I’m not going back into that school. I hear the door slam behind me and soon Emma’s beside me on the second step of the rickety old bleachers by the baseball diamond.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Forsyth,” I sob, “Forsyth …” It’s all I can manage to say. I’m crying too hard. I’m the laughingstock of the school.

“Forsyth what? What happened?”

Then it comes back to me … oh, Lord! Forsyth’s lips moving. Her arms swishing back and forth like windshield wipers. She was trying to warn me. She was trying to warn me.

I wish I could disappear.

“It’ll be okay,” Emma says. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. It’ll all be okay.” Her hand rubs circles in the middle of my back.

“How?” I sniffle. “How will it be okay now?”

But she’s quiet so I know she was just trying to make me feel better.

“If anyone makes fun of you I’ll beat ‘em up, that’s how.”

“You cain’t beat up the whole school. And that’s who’s going to make fun of me.” I wipe my runny nose on my sleeve.

“We’ll think of something,” she says, “but we better go on back. Mr. Streng’s going to be after us if we cut out altogether. Come on.”

The halls are empty when we go back through the double doors—everyone’s in third period, I reckon. After my eyes adjust, I head toward my locker and Emma pads alongside me. Even in echoey halls she doesn’t make any noise.

“Here’s what you do when third period’s over.” She hurries up to in front of me so she can face me. “You pretend you’re deaf so when anyone says anything—or even laughs at you—it doesn’t make a lick of difference. Just pretend you can’t hear a thing.”

What she doesn’t realize is I’ve been trying this all my life. It never works.

“Caroline, you knew this stuff backward and forward yesterday.” Mr. Stanley’s mouth is all twisted up, like it’s fed up with talking to me altogether. “What I wonder is how on earth you could completely forget multiplication.”

Am I supposed to answer him?

“Young lady? Young lady, I’m talking to you.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you forgot to do your homework, say so. But don’t give me this little act like you think I don’t know what you’re up to. I’ll see you after school.”

When on earth did we learn multiplication? I swear I have no idea how an x between two numbers is supposed to change what they’re worth. Mr. Stanley keeps looking over here like I’m going to make a run for it and I suppose I could, but where would I go? Home to Richard? Here’s the thing Mr. Stanley doesn’t get about me: I don’t mind school. Mary Sellers, Tommy Bucksmith, Luanne Kibley and all them can pretend to love it all they want in front of the teachers, but I hear them in the lunchroom talkin’ trash about it. I like everything about school—except for the other kids, a’course. I like getting out of the house all day long. It’s like a field trip every single day.

“Caroline!”

Mr. Stanley’s voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it.

“Yes, sir?”

“The bell rang five minutes ago. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

“Yes, sir.” I swear I didn’t even hear the bell ring. I’m the only one left in the classroom. Just before I get through the door his gravelly voice throws words at me: “Remember, after school.”

“Yes, sir.”

Emma’s going to have to wait for me. I bet Momma won’t even notice we’re not home on time. She don’t care. To tell you the truth, I bet she’s glad to have us out of the house as we are to be gone. She’s got to manage her piles and I reckon she can do it a whole lot better with some peace and quiet. All day she sits there folding letters into three sections, stacking them in tall towers until the envelopes all have the address stickers on them and then she stuffs those with the letters. We’re not allowed to read what the letters say; Momma’s sure we’ll crinkle the paper and she’ll get fired. I don’t care what they say, anyway, since Momma looks so bored doing all this it cain’t be interesting. Momma’s so smart she didn’t even have to go interview for the job. She answered an ad in the newspaper about working from home, making you a ton of money. They liked her so much on the phone the job was hers, they said. Emma and me try to figure out why it is we haven’t seen the ton of money they promised Momma, but I think it’s babyish to think a truck is going to pull up to the back of your house and unload bagfuls of cash like a bread truck delivering to the grocery store. Emma’s still waiting for the truck.

“You’re late, Caroline.” Miss Hall looks about as happy with me as Mr. Stanley did. “That’s the third time this week.” She made a little mark next to my name in the book on her desk.

I don’t ever set out to be late but my mind sometimes takes a detour. Like when I write with another kind of handwriting. I know which way the letter k is supposed to face but then, whammo!—there it is backward. And usually when there’s a backward k, it’s in the other handwriting I surprise myself with; it almost looks like I could be in Emma’s class with this handwriting. It’s really shaky and big and, like I said, the letters are sometimes mixed up. But most of the time I keep my brain focused on what I have right in front of me. Not today, I guess. Momma won’t even know to look at the line on my report card that says I been tardy for classes. If she did see it she probably wouldn’t care.

“What’s the matter, Scary? You forget how to tie your shoelaces, you little baby?” Mary Sellers started this nickname, Scary Carrie. They all point at my hair, which is funny since it’s not half as tangled up as Emma’s, but they point anyway. My shoes have been bothering me all day. I hate it when you tie one side kind of tight and the other side doesn’t match it. These are saddle shoes that look like my Momma could’ve worn them back when she was my age. That’s how come I have them, she saw them at the store last year and practically started crying right there in front of Mr. Franks, who insists on sliding our feet into shoes with that metal shoehorn instead of letting us wriggle our heels into them, the way we do the rest of the time. What does he think anyway? That we use shoehorns every single day? The shoes are mostly white with a saddle of black across the middle and down the sides. That’s how come they’re called saddle shoes. The toes are rounded so you have plenty of room to grow, which is a good thing since Momma said she spent so much on these shoes that we wouldn’t be able to get me new ones for a while. No one at my school wears saddle shoes. They’re just another weapon Mary Sellers can use in her war against Scary Carrie. She calls them “domino shoes.” I tell myself I don’t care. And I don’t. Really. I don’t.

TWO

We’re moving and I’m not speaking to Momma on account of it. I don’t want to leave but she says we have to. And Emma’s on her side. She doesn’t like it here, either. Last night Momma got fed up and said she’d just take Emma with her and I could stay here and live on my own, but when I said “fine” she sent me to my room, so I don’t think I’m going to get to stay here by myself. Eight-year-old kids shouldn’t be living in big old houses by themselves, anyway, but still … I don’t want to go. Richard says he’s moving on and moving up. He’s been saying that a lot lately. He got a new job across the state so we have to go with him, I guess, even though some of us don’t want to move on or up, thank you very much. Momma says it’ll be a fresh start. But starts are only fresh for grown-ups. Third grade was never fresh for me, and even after a whole school year I’m waiting for it to stop being a start altogether.

Thanks to the stupid Washroom Plan I’ve been getting picked on more than ever in school. My teacher, Miss Hall, says I talk out of turn and that’s just been an open invitation to Patty Lettigo. On the playground at recess she hollers at me, calling me a space cadet. The other kids laugh because to them that’s what it looks like, I suppose. What’s really happening is that I’m thinking of things I have to remember to tell Emma after school lets out and the next thing I know I’m saying them out loud. I don’t set out to talk out loud, it just ends up that way.

“And that’s why we use long division,” Mr. Stanley is saying, “so we can figure out how many little numbers make up whatever big number is under the line here. Who can tell me how many times nine goes into eighteen?”

Outside, the buds on the tree branches look like tiny knobs on a television. I wonder what kind of show a tree would want to watch. Nothing involving a saw, I bet.

“Miss Parker?” Mr. Stanley’s voice reaches out to my head and turns it toward the front of the room but I’m still thinking about Tree TV. “Can you tell us?”

“What, Daddy?”

Oh, my dear Lord—what did I just say? What did I just say? Maybe I thought it but didn’t say it out loud.

“Class, quiet down,” Mr. Stanley is saying to all the kids around me who’re laughing and pointing at me like I’ve just climbed off of a spaceship. “Class, please,” he’s saying, but no one’s quieting down one bit.

This ringing in my ears makes it sound like the class-room is one big glass jar—the voices echoing from side to side in my brain.

Mary Sellers snorts her little snorty laugh that always sounds like it’s going to turn into hiccups. My face is on fire.

“All right, class, that’s enough,” Mr. Stanley finally says, but I cain’t see his face because I’m just looking down at my desktop, tracing the carved “EMB was here” that’s in the corner. Who was EMB? I wonder about this every single day. EMB could have been a boy, but I like to think she was a girl, brave enough to dig lines in her desk when no one was looking. EMB. Maybe she died and this is the only evidence that she lived, but her parents don’t know it and every night they cry themselves to sleep wishing they had just one thing with her initials on it and here it is, right under my fingernail, which, I now notice, is packed with dirt so it looks brown. If I knew who EMB was I could let them know it’s here, this last piece of her. Then they could sleep at night.

“Caroline, please see me after class,” Mr. Stanley sighs. “Tommy, what is eighteen divided by nine?” And the class is back to normal for everyone else but me. By recess, I’ll once again be the laughingstock of the school.

Emma is the only one who understands me talking out of turn since she does it, too, sometimes, but when she does it no one picks on her because they know she’ll beat them up after school if they do. Plus she’s pretty, and pretty girls never get into trouble with the other kids. The boys all like them and the girls want to be their friend. So Emma’s got it made. Me, on the other, well I guess I’ll be getting a whole new life out in western North Carolina.

“Would you like to tell me what’s goin’ on, young lady?” Mr. Stanley says to me after everyone’s filed out of the room.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say. My face still feels hot and I can’t look him in the eye even though Momma’s drilled it into us since we were weensy.

“Now, Caroline,” he says in a voice that sounds like warm doughnuts, “you’ve got a lot of potential. You’re a smart young lady. But you’ve got to apply yourself …”

Apply myself. Apply myself. If one more teacher tells me that, I’ll scream.

“… and then you can write your own ticket …” He’s saying something about college. Apparently he thinks that’s the key to the universe.

“… so you can go now, but remember what we talked about, you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” I say to him over my shoulder, bolting out of the room to my locker so I won’t be late for the next period and I won’t have to have another teacher lecture me.

“Shh, here she comes” is what I hear when I come through the door of Miss Hall’s room. Nothing like hearing that when you’re about to go somewhere you don’t want to be in the first place.

“You better sit quick, Carrie Parker,” Luanne Kibley says, “or Mommy’ll send you to your room without supper.” The class erupts like a volcano; they’ve been waiting for me.

“Did you and Daddy have a nice talk?” Mary Sellers sings to me from over the din.

“Who’s your uncle?” Tommy Bucksmith shouts. “Mr. Streng?” Mr. Streng is our principal. Everyone hates Mr. Streng except maybe Daisy, his one-eyed dachshund who sleeps on a checkered cushion in the corner of his office.

Where is Miss Hall?

The skies have turned black outside—the clouds are ready to break open with water, I can just feel it. I hope it waits till after we’ve gotten home. I know I’m just trying to come up with things to think about other than where I am right now, but can you blame me? When I’m a teacher I’ll show up to class on time, that’s for sure.

“All right, people,” Miss Hall says before she even shuts the door. “Everyone please get out your social studies workbooks and turn to page nineteen. I hope y’all remembered to read this over last night….”

I didn’t. I don’t even remember her telling us to. What else is new?

THREE

Right now I’m in our room with the ceiling that leans in like it’s protecting our beds from the sky. Our room is the best part of the house, but Richard thinks it’s the worst. I suppose I can see his point, because even though it’s only May, it’s hotter than Hades in July and the only window up here has a fan in it that only sucks the air out of the room. When Richard moved in, he stomped up through the house with the boxes from the back of his truck and told us we’d better get on up the stairs with the string that pulls them down from the ceiling. No one’s gonna build our nest for us anymore, he said, so we better start getting used to it. Ever since he called our room the nest, that’s what we call it, too. I didn’t know what was up his sleeve but I went up the stairs first, which is surprising considering how Emma’s normally the brave one. Once we were at the top he pushed the stairs back up—something he still does to this day. Because it’s summer, the hot air in the Nest hits you in the face like the cloud of smelly smoke that shoots out from behind Richard’s truck every time he pulls out from the side of the house. There’s only that one side that you cain’t stand up straight in and that’s where our bed is. Our quilt on the bed we share is patchwork and reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.

The ceiling has a lot of cobwebs and all I can think of is Charlotte and Wilbur in one of my all-time favorite stories about the pig and the spider who get to be friends. I wonder if spiders can really spell like that in their webs. And since these webs are on the high side of the ceiling that’s not where the bed is, I let them stay … until I see a spider dropping down. Emma loves it up here. She knows now that you can’t jump up and down on the bed and it only took her three bruises to figure it out. She likes to put the window fan on and talk into it really slowly, and to tell you the truth I like that, too. At first she wouldn’t go near it because she thought her hair would get pulled off her head, but now she knows to put it in a ponytail and then there’s no risk. She says things like “I hate you, Richard” and “You will die” and “Leave us alone” right into the fan, knowing he cain’t hear a thing because the fan blades chop the air into little pieces and carry her words out and away from the house. I don’t think she cares if he does hear her, anyway, since sometimes, when he lays into Momma real bad, she shouts right into it before it gets itself up to speed.

I can hear Richard right now out in the second-floor hallway and I know it’s only a matter of time before he pushes the stairs up again and locks us in here. Momma hates it when he does this but I don’t mind it anymore. When he pushes the stairs up I know he won’t be bugging me and Emma. He used to do that all the time, but since we’re gonna be moving on and up I think he’s got other things to bug.

Uh-oh. Momma’s calling us. Here’s the problem—if we call out and let her know we’re up here, then she’ll see that the stairs are up. If she sees the stairs are up, then she’ll know Richard was being mean to us. If she sees that Richard’s been mean to us then she’ll lay into him about it and then he’ll start laying into her and it won’t end up like Little House on the Prairie, let me tell you.

“We better not answer her,” Emma says, and I’m thinking that’s a fine idea.

“But then we’ll be stuck up here all day,” I say, and Emma just squinches her shoulders up and then lets them fall back down again and I know it’s settled, whether I like it or not.

I’m tiptoeing over to the stack of books near the fan, which we cain’t turn on since the noise will alert Momma and then it’s all downhill from there, and I’m leafing through this battered old book of stamps from around the world. Someone who lived here before us left it behind, but I don’t think they missed it since they died and that’s how we came to live here. Anyway, I love to look at the different stamps and picture living somewhere really beautiful. Even though I’m old enough to know better, I think the countries are the colors on their stamps. It’s weird in geography class hearing how Finland is such a dark place since its stamp is so bright and colorful.

Uh-oh. Momma’s under the pull-string staircase. I can hear her calling out. I look over at Emma but she’s fallen asleep reading again. Richard must’ve been at her last night. When she sleeps that way during the day I know what’s happened the night before.

There’s that creaking sound the springs make when the stairs are pulled down and I know the day’s not going to end up well for Momma.

“Caroline? You up there with Emma?”

I hurry to the top step so she won’t wake Emma.

“Emma’s asleep,” I hiss to her. “You need something?” I ask real nicely so she’ll forget that Richard’s locked us in again. Maybe then she won’t go near him.

I can tell by the way she eyes the fold-out stairs and by the way she sighs that she doesn’t have the energy to take up for us today, and I’m glad. Well, sort of glad.

“I need you in the kitchen,” she says. “I’ve got to go out for a little while and you need to get everything ready for dinner.”

“Where’re you going?” I ask. “Can I come?”

“It’s none of your business where I’m going and no you cannot,” she says all in one breath. “Now, come on and get moving.”

Usually when Momma calls to me and Emma both that means she’s in a good mood, but I guess that’s not true today. Here’s the reason why she only calls on me most times—she likes me better than Emma. We both know it and so does Momma. She’s even said it out loud. “I don’t care what Emma wants to do, I’m telling you I only want you to go,” she says when we go to someplace fun. Or she’ll ask me for favors, not Emma. This really hurts Emma, even though she doesn’t admit it, because when I do the favor for Momma she’s really nice to me in return. Emma wants to be able to have Momma be that grateful to her, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

I think Momma doesn’t like Emma because she looks just like Daddy and Momma says some things are best forgotten.

Like the first time Richard called to me from his room. You cain’t make an angry voice into a pretty one, but that’s what Richard is trying to do, I thought to myself at that very moment. Why is he calling me like I’m a little kitten. “Here kitty, kitty,” he calls. Come on up here, he says, like his room’s a fun place to be. “Come here, sweet girl,” he calls.

“Don’t go up there,” Emma says to me with those eyes of hers that know it all even though she’s two years younger than me.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, trying not to look scared, turning the day’s events over and over in my head. I didn’t do anything wrong, I think. Breakfast was my turn and I made the eggs just like he said to, I tell myself at the bottom of the stairs. I know from the sound in his voice it’s a trap. It’s the way you call to one of the chickens when it’s dinner. You don’t chase it, you let it come to you. You call it by trying to sound pretty. Here chicky, chicky.

“Coming,” I answer him.

The stairs feel steep so I hold on to the banister even though I go up and down them a million times a day without even thinking twice about it.

“What’s taking you so long, girl,” he hollers, the try for sweetness turning the word girl into a curl in the air. I picture him reaching out with chicken feed in the palm of his hand, waiting for me to peck it so he can grab me with the other when I’m not looking.

“No,” Emma says from the bottom of the stairs. “Carrie,” she calls to me. “No.”

The sound in her voice makes me want to throw up.

Momma’s not here, I think to myself. I’ve got to do as he says.

At the top of the stairs I look around for a safe place to run, but in our house there are none. Except behind-the-couch, but right now I’m too far away from there.

I look into Richard and Momma’s room and inhale. Even from the top of the stairs I can smell it. Momma’s perfume cain’t cover the smell of Richard and his sweaty clothes. Richard is sitting on the edge of the bed that used to belong to my grandmother. The bed is covered with a graying fabric that has a pretty flower pattern sewn on it in the same material. I love to trace that pattern when Momma’s still soft from sleep and me and Emma crawl up onto the bed ‘cause Richard’s not home.

“Come here,” he says. He’s hunched over and is resting his elbows on his knees. When I tiptoe into the room he straightens, and I can see that his pants are unzipped. Now I really want to vomit.

“I said get over here,” he says to me, but I cain’t move my legs. They’re like dandelion roots that won’t let go of the soil. Just as he’s about to say it again, Emma comes in from behind me, pushes me out of the room and closes the door. Just like that. I waited there a few seconds and then I ran behind-the-couch. That’s how much of a coward I am. I let my little sister take the heat for me. I don’t know why Richard would have forgotten to do up his pants before the beating but I try not to think about that. There are no sounds coming from up there but I know it’s bad. Emma never cries when it’s bad. Only when she thinks she can change something does she cry. She couldn’t change this. I put my forehead down onto the tops of my knees and wait for her to come back down but she never does. I am wedged behind-the-couch picking at the yellow line in the plaid pattern, hoping she’s okay. Why hasn’t she come back down yet? I wait. Then I wait some more. Then I think maybe she thinks I went back upstairs to our room so maybe I should go there and look for her to see what that was all about. So I start out from behind-the-couch by digging my heels into the linoleum and pulling my rear end along an inch or two and then repeating the process.

But Emma doesn’t come out of the room for a long time and when she does she doesn’t come looking for me like I come looking for her after it’s my turn for a whipping. I hear her tiny footsteps heading up to the Nest so I scoot out from behind-the-couch and go up after her. Richard’s door is closed so the coast is clear and I take the stairs two at a time. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed and it doesn’t look like she got a beating. It looks more like she got stuck in a rainstorm. Her hair isn’t silky anymore, it’s matted in the back and the bangs in front are damp. Her face is all puffy like she’s been crying, but I listened real hard for that so I’m not sure if that’s what happened.

But her mouth is clamped up like the meat grinder that’s fixed to the edge of the counter in the kitchen, so I don’t think I’ll be finding out any time soon what Richard was so mad about.

I go over to the fan and turn it on, thinking maybe she’ll talk into it like she always does and then I can find out what went wrong, but she just sits there on the bed, so I give up and go for the stamp book, flipping past Romania and getting right to my favorite—Bermuda. I touch it and pretend I’m touching the white sand under the palm tree that leans into the sun. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in Bermuda. It’s too pretty there for anything to be wrong, and I bet they even have a law that would keep people like Richard out altogether. ‘Sides, his thin brown hair wouldn’t keep the top of his head from getting burned and his arms with all the veins popping out up and down them would turn beet red.

I look back at the bed and I see that Emma’s curled up like a little baby wanting to get back into her mother’s stomach. She’s trying to be really small, hugging her legs up to her chest like she is.

I hate Richard.

When Richard first met me he patted me on the head and walked on by. I didn’t pay him any mind because I had no idea he’d be here to stay. Momma had dropped some hints—”You better be real nice to my new friend,” “Why don’t y’all go on up and put on those sundresses I bought you last spring”—but I didn’t notice until it was too late.

Emma and I were playing jacks on the front porch when he came by carrying a tin can full of nails, which Momma made such a big deal over—like he was the one who said “This loaf of bread is great but what if we made lines across it and cut it up.” He told Momma the nails were to fix the floorboards that bent up and stubbed our toes when we walked barefoot. Big deal. I could’ve done that. Besides, no one had stubbed their toes since Daddy died so I don’t understand what the fuss was all about. But Richard winked at me and said it’s so my baby sister doesn’t hurt herself. Momma gave us this look so we had to say “Thank you, sir” to him even though his wink looked as fake as the left hand on Mr. Brown, who plays the harmonica outside White’s Drugstore every day.

One day I went with Richard to White’s ‘cause Momma asked us to. It was still early on, when Richard did favors for Momma. “Caroline, why don’t you go along so Richard has some company,” Momma said. But I guess I wasn’t the kind of company Richard must’ve wanted: once we pulled away from the house and Momma was out of sight, the smile went away from his face and he stopped talking altogether.

“Hey there, chile,” says Miss Mary from behind the counter. Then she tilts her head to the side and mumbles to herself loud enough for me to hear. “I don’ know what they be givin’ so much work to them kids at school fo’. Y’all look so tired all the time.” Then her head snaps back upright and she looks over my head altogether. “I’ll be right with you,” she says to Richard.

“I’ll be right with you …” Richard says it like she did but he drags out the end so it’s clear she left something off of the end of her sentence.

“I’ll be right with you, sir,” she says, looking down at her work. Richard likes everyone to call him sir, even people who’re old enough to be his grandma.

Miss Mary’s nails are long and make a tapping sound when she pushes the numbers on the calculator to figure out how much you owe. Sometimes she uses the eraser end of the pencil that usually sits behind her left ear, but that day was a fingernail day. I watch her total up Mr. Sugner from the library that’s also the Toast Historical Society—if you need to know anything about Toast, Mr. Sugner’s the man to talk to. Tap-tappity-tap.

Richard looks as happy to be here as if you’d driven a railroad tie into his foot. He scowls at Miss Mary and shifts from one leg to another, huffing, like it was Mr. Sugner’s fault he was here and not the fact that Momma needs Band-Aids, toothpaste and a cup measure. I got a funny feeling in my stomach when I saw the way he looked at Miss Mary, all mean like she smelled bad, so I went over to the rack that holds dusty postcards that no one’s ever bought even though they’re only ten cents each. They’re not postcards of our town, they’re North Carolina state postcards with pictures of the capitol and a town called Mount Airy.

When I turn around Richard’s nowhere to be seen. I even check the aisle that has diapers and other soft-like things but no luck.

“He ain’t here.” Miss Mary aims a fingernail at a spot to the left of her chin and gently scratches. “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Her mouth was turned down and she was shaking her head like she thought of him the same way he thought of her.

“Where is he?” I ask. I only turned around for a second.

“Check out by the Dumpster,” and I think I heard her say—she was mumbling, though, so I couldn’t be sure—”That’s where trash ends up.”

“Miss Mary?” Mr. White’s voice slices the air like a paper cut. “Is there a problem here?” It’s weird how he can smile at me but keep that teacher tone with Miss Mary.

“Miss Caroline, how would you like to choose a piece of penny candy?” He was holding out the big glass jar with fingerprints all over from where all us kids point at the exact piece we want. It had been refilled and was brimming full of Mary Janes, Tootsie Rolls, little-bitty Necco wafer rolls and Hershey’s. It was so packed that Mr. White’s thumb knocked a piece onto the floor when he gripped it from the top. The Mary Jane was lying on the floor between us like it was saying “Pick me, pick me!”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I stare at it while I say this, hoping it would magically unwrap itself and hop into my watering mouth. “I don’t have any money with me right now.”

“Oh, don’t be silly—” he smiles even nicer “—this is a gift. Take your pick.” He says this last part in Miss Mary’s direction, even though I think he was talking to me. Before he has time to change his mind, my arm, like it had a mind of its own, shoots down to the floor, past the old glass jar, and scoops up that Mary Jane.

Miss Mary was busying herself with the zipper on her gray cover-up that has White’s Drugstore sewn over her heart and looks just like Mr. White’s, but is gray instead of, well, white.

“Am I to understand you got separated from your escort?” he asks me. This always happens: people ask questions right when I’ve got my mouth full and I can’t answer. Mr. White’s so polite, though, and he keeps talking till he sees my jaw stop moving up and down on the peanut toffee. “This must be my lucky day, if this is true. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a helper in the back room, someone to alphabetize bottles, you know, get things in order. Would you be so kind as to help me out for a bit, young lady?”

He timed this question perfectly: I had just finished scooping the Mary Jane that was stuck in my back teeth out with my tongue. “Yes, sir, but I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

“What if I call your momma for you and we can ask her permission,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I say. I don’t know where I’d have gone, anyway, since Richard had up and left me there. Mr. White went over to the phone near Miss Mary’s cash register and dialed our number without even looking it up—that’s a small town for you, I guess.

“Libby? Dan White.” He pauses waiting for Momma to greet him. Then he clears his throat, “A-hem, well, don’t mean to bother you, but Miss Caroline and I were wondering if I might be able to retain her services for the day, here at the store. It seems her companion had some, ahem, pressing matters to tend to, so if you could spare her I’d be much obliged.”

Pause again. No telling what Momma is saying from the look on Mr. White’s face. He must be tired, his eyes are halfway closed and he looks like he was studying for a test, memorizing her voice or something.

“I don’t quite know,” he says, shifting his eyes over to me for some reason. “We had a bit of a wait, so I’m sure he’ll stop back in when he sees we’re not so busy after all.” Then he winks at me and his voice rises back up to a normal level.

“Well, it’s settled then,” he says, clearing his throat again. “I’ll keep Miss Caroline here with me until five and then I’ll bring her on home—” Pause. “Oh, it’s no trouble ‘tall. I have to go out that way, anyway, to pay a call on the Godseys.” Pause. “See y’all then. Bye.”

It takes my eyes a few seconds to get used to the back room, which was night compared to the day outside. Mr. White was right: it was a mess back there. Momma would say it’s a viper’s nest. There’s barely enough room for me to walk to the other end of the room; the boxes are piled one on top of another in every spare space on the floor.

“Here’s what I was thinking,” Mr. White says from behind me, surveying the packed crowd of cardboard. “A lot of these boxes are pretty much empty. If you could go through and find the ones that only have one or two bottles in them, take those bottles out and put ‘em all here on this lower shelf, and then go back and break down the boxes, that’d make a lot more room.”

“Where do I put the empty boxes?”

“Come on out back and I’ll show you where we stack for the garbageman.” I turn and follow Mr. White back into the store and then out the door that leads to a tiny parking lot out back. A huge Dumpster sat in one of the spaces.

“Just stack the flat pieces here, next to the Dumpster.”

“Okay.”

“You sure you’re up to this?” he asks me.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then,” he says, patting me on the head. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re just like your momma. Once she sets her mind to something, she never lets it go.” He walks back into the store, smiling.

I liked the idea of straightening up the storeroom. Plus, this way when Richard comes back, he cain’t call me lazy.

One by one I empty out most of the boxes that sit about eye level to me. Mr. White was right; a couple of boxes only have one bitty bottle in them. They were just waiting for someone to remember them. I have no idea how much time has gone by, but I do know that I’ve flattened fifteen boxes flat and it’s time to start taking them out to the Dumpster.

When I cut through the store with my first armload, Miss Mary is tapping into the calculator, figuring out how much to put on Mr. Blackman’s tab. Back and forth I go and pretty soon I’ve taken out all the pieces I’d worked on.

“Oh, my dear Lord,” Mr. White says when he comes in to check on me later on. Uh-oh. I hope I haven’t messed up, but I look over at him and his open mouth is turning into a smile. A real smile, eyes and all. “Well, I’ll be darned. Miss Caroline Parker … you’re hired!”

I’m hired?

“Sir?”

“The job’s yours if you want it,” he says, running his eyes over the spaces I’d made on the floor. Now two people can stand side by side in there. “I guess I didn’t realize how much we needed you. You think your momma could spare you once or twice a week?”

“B-but, I’m only eight,” I say, my face getting all red for some reason. “Are eight-year-olds allowed to have jobs?”

Mr. White looks at me the way I think my own daddy used to look at me and I don’t feel embarrassed anymore. I feel relieved. “Honey, with what all you’ve been through,” he says real soft-like, “seems to me you could use a little break now and then. Place to get away. You know.”

And right then I guessed I did know what he was talking about. I nod. He pats me on the hand, shakes his head and turns to go back out to the store.

“Little Caroline Parker,” he says more to himself than to me. “Little Miss Caroline Parker.”

I wonder what Emma is going to think when I tell her. Maybe Mr. White would let her come with me to work. She’s scrappy but she’s strong, that’s for sure. No telling how many boxes we’d get through, working together. She sure could use a break now and then, too.

A little while later Mr. White comes back.

“I reckon that’s about all the work we can force out of you today,” he says, smiling again. It’s hot back here in the storeroom and he wipes his shiny forehead with his handkerchief. I don’t know why anyone would want to keep a used handkerchief in their pocket, but that’s exactly where the kerchief headed after he was through with it.

“I promised your momma I’d take you on home, so let’s get this show on the road.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, stepping on top of the box I’d emptied and untaped so it just fell flat like a pancake when my foot said hello. I s’pose Richard’ll find his own way home sooner or later. Unfortunately.

Mr. White’s car is hotter than the storeroom and the Nest put together since it’d been baking in the parking lot all day. The car seat scorches my rear end so I tilt up, pushing my weight into my shoulders until the air cools the seat off. Mr. White doesn’t seem to notice and I’m glad.

Pulling out of the parking lot, he starts talking. “Your momma was the belle of the ball back when she was just a hair older than you,” Mr. White says. “Now, you know we went to school together, don’tcha?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. I’m testing the seat but it’s still hotter than a butcher’s knife. Back when I was little, I used to study Momma’s high school yearbook—she looked like a movie star in it and Mr. White still had all his hair and looked funny, all dressed in black, the mean look he was trying to give the camera turned out to be just plain goofy. There was a haze around Momma’s head that made her look like she belonged up in heaven. Her hair was shiny, not quite brown and not quite yellow, and it was in a poufy hairdo that made her look older than she was. Her smile was perfect and it was from looking at that picture that I realized she has dimples. You’d never know it now. Her eyes were wide and sparkling with no trace of the lines that carve up her face now. She was wearing pearls that I know for a fact she borrowed from her grandmother just for that picture. The famous pearl necklace. I’d heard so much about the pearl necklace that I felt like I was actually there, later on that same picture day, when Momma and my daddy slipped in back of the school to kiss. Daddy was holding her head between his hands when the school principal came out, caught them in the act, startling Daddy so his hands slipped. They caught the necklace and sent the pearls scattering across the asphalt to their ultimate doom down the town drain. Momma was beaten within an inch of her life when she went home, shamed.

“Did she mention she went to school with me?” Mr. White looks over at me, and when he does I can see, just for a second, how he looked back then.

“I don’t remember. I guess I just knew it, is all.” No need to tell him about the yearbook. I bet he’d be embarrassed about his picture, anyway.

“Oh,” he sighs. “Well, all the boys were in love with her. ‘Cluding me, I reckon. But back then I didn’t have sense enough to come in outta the rain, so I surely wasn’t going to ask your momma out on a date. No, sirree,” he whistles. “Your daddy did, though, and truth to tell, I don’t know if I ever forgave him for taking my Libby away from me.” He winks at me, which is a relief because I don’t know if I could stand hearing Mr. White say anything bad about Daddy.

“We were all real jealous of your daddy,” he says, nodding. “I s’pose I thought they’d light out of this town once they got married, but your momma wouldn’t have it. No, sirree …”

While he’s talking, I ease my rear down onto the seat real slow. Phee-you, it feels good to sit normal.

“… she dug her heels in and I reckon they grew roots so they stayed on.”

I don’t quite know why, but all of a sudden a cloud comes over Mr. White’s face when he says this. So I keep my mouth shut. Nothing different from what I’ve been doing, really, but now it feels like I should be coming up with something to say.

“How’s school going?” Mr. White asks after we turn onto Route 5. We’re only about two minutes from my house, so luckily this won’t be a long part of the conversation.

“Fine, thank you.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s good. That’s real good,” he says as he turns his big boat of a car onto our dirt road. His car looks so out of place driving where Richard’s truck does.

“Here we are,” he says, trying to sound cheerful, but the look on his face doesn’t match his voice. So I hop out of the car fast.

“Thanks again, Mr. White,” I call out to him.

“You betcha,” he calls back. “Now, you talk to your momma and have her call me once y’all work out when you want to come in again. You can come anytime you like, Caroline. Anytime at all.” He winks again and I shut the door and run up the front porch stairs to find Momma and Emma to tell them about my day at White’s.

Mr. White is just like everybody else here in Toast, North Carolina—it’s never occurred to him to leave. Imagine that. I mean, I can understand it when you’re my age, but when you’re old enough to get out of town, why wouldn’t you?

“Momma?” I holler before the porch door even slams shut. “Guess what?”

Momma’s in the kitchen smoking with one hand, stirring something in a pot on the stove with the other.

“Momma, Mr. White gave me a job! I cleared out all the boxes from the storeroom and he said he never saw it so neat and clean and he hired me right there on the spot. I can eat penny candy anytime I want. Momma, please say I can do it, please.”

“Slow down, Jesus H. Christmas, slow down,” Momma says, turning to the icebox and staring at what’s inside. “Go on and get me that molasses out of the pantry, will you?”

“Momma, can I work there after school? Can I?”

“Just get me that molasses can first of all,” she snaps at me. “We’ll have to talk about it.”

“Why cain’t I? It’d be great. I’d earn my own money and I get to have candy anytime I want. Please, Momma.”

Momma’s back stirring again, the wooden spoon turning slowly on account of whatever’s in there being too high up next to spilling over. I creep up closer to her ‘cause I can hear her mumbling something, but I know by now you cain’t push Momma too hard or she’ll turn around and do just the opposite of what you’re hoping for.

“Storeroom clerk …” she’s saying. I think. “Moving …”

See, all I get are snippets of words or phrases, so I know she’s working something in her head.

“Momma?”

“Goddamn son of a bitch.” The spoon picks up speed so it’s only a matter of time till something slops over the edge.

It’s like she’s reciting a grocery list in her sleep; her words don’t make any sense.

“Momma? Can I? Please?”

“What?” She whirls around like I startled her out of the conversation she was carrying on in her brain, still holding the spoon but forgetting, I guess, that it was no longer over the pot so the red sauce dripped onto the kitchen floor like blood. Splat. I watch each drop spread into neat circles on impact. Splat.

“Can I work at White’s?” Splat.

She’s sizing me up like she just now realized I’d grown out of my jeans a month ago.

“Just until we move? Please?”

“Oh, why the hell not,” she sighs, and turns back to the bubbling blood on the stove.

I forget for a second and hug her from behind, I’m so happy. When she stiffens up like a board I remember I shouldn’t touch her.

“Go on and get,” she says woodenly into the pot.

I run up to the Nest to find Emma to tell her my news.

“Emma? Emma!” I take the stairs two at a time. “Where you at?”

“Up here,” she hollers back to me.

“Guess what I’ve got a job at White’s Drugstore and I can have penny candy anytime I want,” I say all at once since I’m out of breath from coming up the stairs so fast.

Emma’s on the bed with Mutsie, her favorite stuffed animal. “What?”

I straighten up after letting my breath catch up with my body. “Mr. White? He offered me a job after Richard up and left me behind at the drugstore to go I-don’t-know-where.”

I fill her in on everything and, just like I figured, she got to the number one obvious question: “Can I work there, too?”

I’d like to think it was ‘cause she wanted to be with me and not here alone in the Nest while I’m gone, but I betcha it’s the penny candy. I don’t mind. Me and Emma, we’re slaves to candy.

“I bet Mr. White’d let you come on and help,” I tell her. And I honestly believe it’s so. “He even said he needs all the help he can get. That back room’s messier than a flower bed in February.”

And that’s how we came to work at White’s Drugstore nearly every day of the week after school.

FOUR

“I don’t s’pose y’all ever seen the Box?” Miss Mary looks over at Emma and me from her spot behind the cash register. She’s folding her book back up and takes off her reading glasses. Miss Mary’s been real nice to us all week, but I guess that’s nothing new. She’s always patting our hair like we’re her pets or something. The other day she even put some of the bright pink barrettes from the dime basket next to the register in Emma’s hair, one on either side of her face so she could see without strings of hair blocking the way. Miss Mary doesn’t have kids herself so I guess we’ll do.

“What’s the Box?” Emma asks.

“Ooooeee, the Box is sumthin’ you got to see to believe,” Miss Mary says with a smile that spreads out across her wrinkled face. “It’s real scary. You have to be old enough even to ask about it.”

“Are we old enough?” I ask her, but Emma talks at the same time.

“Where is it?” she asks. Not one single breathing soul’s come into the store yet and it’s already four in the afternoon. I bet it’s on account of the heat that looks like it’s melting the tar right off the road.

“I thought ev’rybody knowed ‘bout the Box.” Miss Mary pats her lap and Emma crawls up in it like I’ve never seen her do with anyone else. “It’s over at Ike’s place and the kids go in one by one—if they brave enough to go into the room it’s in.”

“Yeah? Yeah?” We both want her to keep talking about it. I rub my arms so the gooseflesh will settle down.

“How big is it?” Emma.

“A little bigger than a shoe box,” she says.

“What’s inside it?” Me.

“No one knows for sure.”

“I bet it’s boogers,” Emma says from Miss Mary’s lap. She’s leaning her back into Miss Mary’s front and her legs are dangling on either side of Miss Mary’s, which are pressed together to make a nice spot for Em.

Miss Mary shakes her head. “Whatever’s in the Box has them kids runnin’ scared for years,” she says. “I ain’t never heard of no one who be able to stay in the room long ‘nough after the lid comes up to know for sure what all’s so creepy.”

“We’ve got to see the Box,” I say. Emma nods.

“I don’t know,” Miss Mary says, smiling her smile that makes her skin look even more crinkly. “I don’ know if y’all’re up to it.”

“Yes we are!” Emma pushes away from Miss Mary so she can swivel around to face her. “We most certainly are.”

“We?” Miss Mary says to her like she was only meaning me in the first place. She knows that just cements it in Emma’s mind that she’s going to be on board no matter what it is we’re doing.

“Miss Mary, if I go, my little sister is sure to follow.” Which is straight up true. “Everyone knows that.”

“I’m not scared of anything.” Emma’s nodding. Which, of course, is true. If only Miss Mary knew that I’m the scaredy-cat of the both of us. I mean, if I’m scared of spiders I can’t even think of what I’ll do when I’m in the room with the Box. But I’ve just got to see it. I’ve got to.

“Where’s Ike’s? Jinx!” We ask about Ike’s at the same exact time but I call jinx first so I’m the winner.

“Way over in Lowgap, by the Knob,” says Miss Mary. Lowgap is this little-bitty place on the edge of a forest near the Cumberland Knob, which is called that for a reason I don’t know. Momma says it’s on account of the shape of the mountain right above the town, but I just don’t see what she’s talking about—the mountain looks just like every other mountain in the world to me, not some ole knob. Lowgap’s a creepy place on account of all the trees shading it from the sun. When we were little and went there I thought the sun forgot to shine over the whole place, that’s how shady it is. On a day like today, though, it might kindly be the place to be. The sun in Toast is making up for no sun in Lowgap.

“Carrie, we got to get to Lowgap.” Emma’s jumped down from Miss Mary, who’s smoothing out the place on her lap where a little girl used to be. “How’re we gonna do it?”

“Let me think on it a minute,” I say, annoyed-like since that’s what I am. I know we got to get to Lowgap, I just cain’t imagine how we can pull it off.

“We-ell,” Miss Mary says all long and dragged out, “I got a friend outside Lowgap at a place so small it ain’t on the map. They been at me for a visit for’s long as I can remember … I s’pose I could—”

“Please take us with you, Miss Mary!” We both jump on her at the same time. “Please! We won’t be any bother.” Emma tugs on her skirt and I grab her arm and yank it up and down for a reason I don’t know. “Please. Pretty please with sugar on top and whipped cream and a cherry and nuts even!” I throw that last part in since I bet for a grown-up the nuts are the big draw, from the way Momma hoards her Mr. Peanuts.

Miss Mary’s laughing, and when she does her belly folds into and back out of itself like it’s a whole other set of lips. Then Emma seals the deal. She climbs up onto Miss Mary’s lap and gives her a big ole hug.

“Don’t you be gittin’ me all messed up now while I in my work clothes,” Miss Mary says into the side of Emma’s hair in the middle of the hug. “Go on and git an’ let me think on it awhile.”

But we know it’s settled. We’re going to see the Box tomorrow after school lets out and we show up for work. Tomorrow’s Miss Mary’s day off so she says she’ll pick us up in back of the store after we ask Mr. White for time off “on the HH.” That’s Miss Mary’s code for “hush-hush.”

“Look out, here comes Scary Carrie!” Tommy Bucksmith yells out across the map of the country that’s painted on the tar in the middle of the recess yard. “How’s your boyfriend, Charley?” I’m trying to pretend I don’t hear him.

Charley Narley is a guy in town who everyone makes fun of. His body grew up but his brain forgot to. Momma says he lost his marbles. She says every town’s got a Charley Narley but I can’t imagine that. He’s big like a bear and all anyone knows is his first name’s Charley. Someone somewhere long ago started calling him Charley Narley ‘cause of the rhyme, I suppose. He doesn’t comb or cut his hair and it’s all matted up underneath and most likely dirty to boot. When you go down the street he follows along like a puppy saying out loud what all you’re doing. It goes like this: You walk to Alamo Shoes and look in the window and from behind you, out loud, you hear, “Now she’s stopping at the window. She’s looking inside at the white shoes. No, it’s the pink shoes she’s looking at.” Then you keep going and you hear, “She’s going on down the street. She’s getting something out of her pocket. It’s a piece of gum! She’s unwrapping the gum. She’s putting it in her mouth. She’s chewing.” Like that. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, Charley Narley. What the boys will do is walk along and get Charley to follow and talk and then one will drop back behind Charley and imitate him talking about them. Like this: “Now Charley’s watching Tommy. He’s slowing down. He’s looking at Tommy. He’s talking.” Charley gets all confused and wants to get behind whoever’s talking about him and gets more confused and then he starts yelling even louder and then the boys run and Charley gets in trouble with the sheriff. Once they packed sand into an old stocking like the kind the ladies wear at church and hid it in the bushes so that just the tip was peeking out. When Charley Narley came by and saw it they wriggled it to look like a snake and Charley screamed all high like a girl, thinking it was real or something. Just last week they threw stuff at him like he was a target (“ten points if the Coke can hits his right arm!”) and me and Emma went out to try to get Charley to go in the opposite direction. Mr. White came out after us and told the boys to scat but ever since then they call Charley Narley my boyfriend.

“Oh, hush up,” I say under my breath, thinking Darryl Becksdale’s a good distance away and can’t hear me.

“What’s that?” Uh-oh. He heard. “You sticking up for your true love?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“You think you’re so smart,” I say without even thinking first about what I’m going to say, “but you don’t know anything.”

“Yeah?” he says, trotting alongside me while I walk toward the doors to the inside of the school. “Ask me anything—I bet I know the answer to it. See? You can’t think of anything!” He starts fake laughing. I know it’s fake ‘cause it’s louder than his real laugh, plus he’s looking around for an audience.

“Okay,” I say, just before I go inside where it’s just as hot but I don’t have to be in the sun that burns the part line in my hair, “you know about the Box?”

For a second I think he’s stumped ‘cause he’s not saying anything, but then he says, “The Box isn’t real, moron.”

“It is, too,” I say.

“You’ve seen it?”

“Not yet,” I say, smiling for real, knowing I’ll be seeing it in five hours and twenty-two minutes.

“You lie,” he says, and then he backs away from me and goes over to his friends, who’re showing off how they can form a bridge with shuffling cards.

“Mr. White?” My hands are sweaty and it’s not on account of the heat.

“Yes, Caroline,” he says, putting down the pad of order forms. “What can I do for you?”

“Um …” I clear my throat. Maybe that’ll make some room for the words to come out. “I was wondering …”

“Yes?” he says.

“Um, if it’s okay with you, sir—” I clear my throat again “—could Emma and I please have this afternoon off of work? We worked superhard yesterday lining up all the bottles to the front of the shelves like you said and we got to the Ms already even though you said G was enough, so if you could spare us we’d sure appreciate—”

“That’ll be fine,” he says before I can even finish. He picks up his order-form pad again like the subject’s closed so I hate reopening it to ask him to keep it quiet, and somehow the thought of asking a grown-up to keep a secret embarrasses me but I know I have to do it.

“Um.” Ahem.

“Yes?” He looks back up at me all serious over the half-moon glasses holding on to the tip of his nose.

“I was wondering if you might be able to keep this just between us?”

What did I just say? Of course he’d be able to! He’s not a baby, for goodness’ sake. Stupid, stupid me.

I can tell he’s thinking on it and I’m burning red because I’m sure he’s insulted I’m treating him like a baby and then he says, “I think I can pull that off.” Phee-you.

“Thank you so much, sir,” I say, and I’m almost out the door when he calls out.

“Oh, Caroline …”

I turn around and catch him smiling just like his high school picture. “Yes, sir?”

“Y’all better be careful,” he says, “the Box is the scariest thing you’ll ever see.”

He knows! Could he have heard us yesterday? I stumble back-first out the door while my mind tries to wrap itself around this question, and then I see the noisy old rusty car Miss Mary borrows to drive herself to town pull up, the windows sealed up tight to keep in the little bit of cool air that trickles out of the one unbroken vent, and I hurry to grab the front seat before Emma can call it and I forget all about Mr. White and how he came to find out about the Box.

“Emma, I’m older, I get it!” We’ve both grabbed the front door handle and are trying to push each other out of the way. It’s one thing to ride in the back in Momma’s car—I do that ‘cause Emma’s so picked on by her. But this is a horse of a different color. Emma gets plenty of attention from Miss Mary so I think I should get it. Plus, I was the one we decided had to do the Mr. White asking.

“Em-ma!” I jimmy my shoulder in between her head and the car door, but she’s strong from beating up so many people after school so she isn’t about to let go of the handle without a fight. Now Miss Mary has herself halfway standing, halfway sitting out her side of the car, calling out to us, “You better git in ‘fore I change my mind and that’s that.”

We cain’t get into the car fast enough. The cool air gives me gooseflesh at first but then I settle into it.

“So? Y’all ready for the Box?” Miss Mary says as she pulls the car out of the parking lot and onto the main road that leads out of Toast.

“Is it alive or dead?” Emma asks.

“Don’t be startin’ on me with all them questions. This ain’t no game show.” I can see the top half of Miss Mary’s face in the cracked rearview mirror looking back at the both of us, the lines around her eyes crinkled from smiling. I once heard one frown line on an old person’s face is caused by one hundred thousand frowns all added up. If the same’s true for smiles, then Miss Mary’s been a happy person all her life ‘cause she has a ton of lines around the corners of each of her eyes.

“Just say,” Emma says. “Is it alive or dead?”

“I just do not know,” Miss Mary says. She’s at the blinking yellow light that keeps you from getting hit by an eighteen-wheeler racing fast as can be through Toast and on to bigger and better places. Not one today, though, so Miss Mary pulls out slow and onto the highway toward Lowgap.

“I bet it’s a head cut off of someone’s body,” Emma says.

“I bet it’s a pig’s tongue,” I say. “You know, Daddy used to eat tongue—did you know that?”

“I bet it’s blood,” Emma says, not paying any attention to this tidbit of Daddy information I parcel out to her. Too bad for her.

“That’s not all that scary,” I tell her. “I mean, who hasn’t seen blood before? No one’d hightail it out of the room over a box full of blood.”

“I’m telling you, it’s boogers,” Emma says, crossing her arms and sitting up straighter so she can see the road we’re driving on. I don’t know why she’d care about that, though, since there ain’t a thing on it to see.

“What if Ike won’t let us see the Box?” This is what I’ve been most worried about. “What if he says we’re not old enough?”

“He let you through,” Miss Mary says.

“How big is it again?” Emma asks.

“She already told you.” I roll my eyes just like Momma says not to. “It’s about the size of a shoe box. Jeez.”

Miss Mary says, “Y’all start that bickering an’ this drive gits longer an’ longer so quit it.”

This, of course, makes no sense a-tall since bickering cain’t make the distance between two places any farther. But I’m not about to point this out to Miss Mary. We’re so lucky her friend lives near Lowgap.

Soon we’re slowing down in the middle of the main road in Lowgap. “The City on the Rise!” it says on a signpost right before the stores start lining up. It doesn’t feel like it’s on the rise, though, since not many of the places are open. Some have windows so dusty they look like they’ve been locked up for a thousand years. Miss Mary pulls up to the curb outside a glass window with a sign: Dot’s Kountry Kafaye.

“Reckon you as hungry as I am,” she says, fishing in her purse on the seat next to her. She finds her lipstick and shimmies up to the rearview mirror so she can reapply. She doesn’t have those tiny smoker’s cracks outlining her mouth, like Momma does, so the lipstick stays where it’s supposed to. On Sundays Momma’s lips look like they’re bleeding. Miss Mary pops the cap back on and throws the lipstick back into her bag and turns to face us.

“We better get some food in your stomach ‘fore it gets too tied up in knots over this ole Box.”

I was hungry up until now, but once Miss Mary says the word Box I lose my appetite all over again. I couldn’t eat dinner last night, even though Momma made biscuits and gravy—my favorite.

Dot’s Kountry Kafaye looks just like Mickey’s Country Kitchen in Toast. There’s a counter where you can watch them make your food or there are booths if you want to be surprised. I like the counter and lucky for me that’s where we go. The seats at Dot’s swivel all the way around! At Mickey’s they only make a half a circle.

Miss Mary says we can order one thing and split it on account of the fact that she’s paying and we aren’t so we decide on a hot dog.

“All the way?” the waitress asks.

“Yes, please,” I say. The bell on the top of the glass door jingles as Miss Mary turns to back out through it.

“Y’all going over to Ike’s after this?” the waitress asks me and Emma after she clips our order slip onto a metal tree that sits on an island between the kitchen and the restaurant.

“Yes, ma’am,” we say at the same time.

“I expected you would.” She nods, all serious like Mr. White was. “Good luck,” she says, and the way she says it I know I won’t be doing any more than picking at my share of the hot dog.

“I’ll tell you what,” the waitress says, trying to sound cheerful, “I’ll bring you a Coke with a side of peanuts, on the house since y’all ain’t never seen the Box ‘fore.”

We both sit up straight and swivel. Peanuts and Coke! It’s the best thing in the universe.

“I call I get to drop the first one in,” Emma practically shouts.

“Let’s shoot for it,” I say. And I lose.

The first peanut into the Coke causes the most bubbles, and this time when Emma drops it in is no different. It’s like a science experiment, the foam gets high up to the edge of the glass and then, just as quick-like, drops back down. The rest of the peanuts just plop in. But they make the Coke taste even better than when it’s on its own.

“Aw-right, here you go.” The waitress pushes the sloppy hot dog in front of the both of us. There’s a pickle on the side for good measure.

I eat my share but then my stomach lurches and it occurs to me I might throw up so I ask if I can visit the washroom before we go.

“Sure, sugar,” the waitress says. “Lemme unlock it for you.” She takes a wooden mallet with a little chain and key attached from behind the register and flicks her head to the side, which means I’m to follow her. We go past the kitchen and the smell makes me swallow hard. Uh-oh. She unlocks the door just in time for me to run in and lean over the toilet to throw up hot dog and Coke. I hear the door click closed behind me, and before I can reach for the toilet paper to clean myself up I hear a tap on the door and Miss Mary’s voice. “You okay, chile?”

I cain’t answer her ‘cause I’m still gulping air, but she doesn’t wait for my answer, she’s through the door and stroking my back and then I feel her cool hands smoothing my forehead and pulling my hair back from my face and up from my neck. It feels so good that I stay leaning over even though I don’t have to anymore.

“I went too far’d with the talk of this Box,” she says. She’s talking soft, like you’d talk to a baby bird. “Don’t you worry anymore about it. We go on back home if you like. We just stop by my friend’s house to say howdy and then we hit the road—”

“No! Please, no,” I say, whipping around to face her. She dabs my chin with tissue from out of her purse that has the same Miss Mary smell of flowers mixed with cleaner fluid. “I feel fine now, for real. Please? I have to see the Box. I just have to.”

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