What Happened to My Sister

by Elizabeth Flock

  Nothing about Cricket is empty. Cricket’s the opposite of empty—I never seen someone so full of smiles and words.

  “You doing okay in there?” she calls through the door. Her voice gives me such a start I nearly break the perfume bottle I’m smelling.

  “I’m fine! I’ll be right out!” I call back.

  I give the toilet a flush to make like I used it and I wash my hands because Mrs. Bickett said to always wash up after relieving yourself. That’s what she called going number one: relieving yourself. Oh my goodness, even Cricket’s soap smells pink.

  “Hey,” I say, coming back into her room. She’s at her desk bent over something.

  “Hey. You all right?” she asks me.

  I never seen someone wait for an answer to that question, looking like they really wonder after your health and all.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. Hey, I like all them pictures you got up of your family. Is that your sister and you? In front of the Christmas tree?”

  “What? Oh. The one of us in matching nighties? Yeah. That’s us about six years ago. Before she got sick the last time.”

  “Those are nightgowns? Wow,” I say. “I thought they were dresses they’re so fancy. Wait, your sister—she’s sick?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where is your sister? Y’all don’t hang out together I guess,” I say. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. It’s just that I cain’t think what else to say to keep her talking about Caroline, the girl that looks exactly like me. There’s a family picture in a frame by Cricket’s bed and I pick it up to see it closer.

  “My sister died,” Cricket says. “Three years ago today.”

  No wonder they were staring at me like I was a ghost.

  “Oh” is all I can think of to say. Another dumb comment from me. “Hey, what’s that?”

  “It’s my laptop, what do you think?” She smiles and turns back to it, her fingers pecking at the machine. “Don’t even tell me you never saw a laptop before or I’ll die of, like, shock or something.”

  “This is the nicest place I ever been in, your house,” I say. “Where I come from this is better than the White House even. The president could live here and not even know the difference. You’re so lucky y’all are rich.”

  “Nuh-uh, we’re not,” she says. “If we were rich we wouldn’t be living here at my grandma’s.”

  “Look at all the stuffed animals you got,” I say, picking up this real cute teddy bear holding a heart that reads “Get Well Soon.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, some of those are my sister’s from all the hospital times,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at them for a split second then turning back.

  “Um, wait, let me just close this window,” she says. “Okay, sorry.”

  “You’re lucky you had a sister. I mean, for so many years. I dream of having a sister,” I say. It’s not a full-on lie since I do dream about Emma all the time. “So how’d she—? I mean, what happened with your sister?”

  “My grandma says it’s because God didn’t finish making her,” Cricket says, shrugging while she twirls her chair to face me. “She had this rare kind of cancer. A form of leukemia, which Grandma says is because she came out before He was done making final touches on her. So the doctors had to go in and try to finish the job. God withdrew His hand too soon, she says. It’s so funny, the way she says it. She’s great, my grandma. You’ll meet her in a sec. She’s right downstairs. This is her house. Wait, duh, I just told you that. Anyway, she says Caroline had to go back to her Maker and that someday we’ll see her again. And then you show up.”

  I take care moving around Cricket’s backpack that’s wide open, books spilling out … Wait! Lookee here!

  “You’ve got the Encyclopaedia Britannica? I love the Encyclopaedia Britannica. You think I could borrow it sometime?”

  “What? Oh, no way. I love the encyclopedia too! It’s, like, the best set of books ever. My dad got me and Caroline started on it when we were little. He said the Internet knows some stuff but you can’t trust it and anyway the Encyclopaedia Britannica knows it all. He’s such a dork, my dad is. But kinda in a good way, you know? Anyway, he used to read to us from it. Just weird stuff. Then, when Caroline, um, well—I just decided I’d keep doing it. Looking up and memorizing all the things I can so I can tell her all about it when I see her again. That’s from the library, though. It’s not, like, mine or something. And it’s just the L, which I was going to take back today to trade for the M but my mom said we couldn’t which is ridiculous because we totally could have, it doesn’t take but a second but whatever. Hey, come here, I’ve gotta show you something.”

  She’s a whirligig, twirling around in her chair, waving me over, hunching back over her laptop.

  I bring the L with me. I love the thin pages. And the smell of it. It opens to “Lilacs,” which are some of my favorite flowers ever. It’s a sign we’re supposed to be true-blue friends forever and ever, me and Cricket.

  “Hey, don’t tell my mother I just said that about Caroline and the books,” she says. “I don’t think she remembers that today is the anniversary, and I don’t want to make her sad by reminding her. Okay, so, you’ve got to see this new music video. I wanted it to download all the way before you saw it. Wait, so you never told me what music you like. Did you say you like Miley Cyrus?”

  Then she’s curling her legs under her and calling out more names of singers.

  “Okay, let’s do it this way,” she says, slowing down like her speed’s what’s the problem. “What’s on your iPod? Er, I mean, um, your CD player? Where do you get your music? Wait, I’ve got to show you this YouTube video—have you seen that surprised kitten one? Where the guy holds up his hands like it’s a stickup and the kitten does the same thing? The kitten, like, copies him.”

  I thank the Lord Jesus she’s busy fiddling around with the letter keys, pictures popping up as fast as she names them, so she cain’t see that I have no earthly idea what she’s talking about. On the far side of Cricket’s bed, which is high as Princess and the Pea, is a second nightstand chock-full of more nail polish in shades of pink and purple, a clock that’s the shape of Snoopy from the funny papers, and a beat-up book. I cain’t hardly take it all in.

  And then I see it, which is funny because I think my eyes are closed when it lights up. It happens real fast, same as the other times. Like a flash. Or when lightning hits and you can see ever-thing for a split second before it goes dark. In my head I see a book with real thin pages and a lady-hand holding a match to the edge of them. Before it goes dark the flash picture shows the lady-hand tossing the book into the fireplace where it lands on top of already burning logs, the cover about to go up in flames. I squeeze my eyes closed tight to make sure and yup, yessir, there it is, plain as day written on the cover: The Bible.

  “Earth to Carrie,” Cricket’s saying. “What happened? You feeling sick again?”

  “What? Oh, sorry,” I say. “What’d you say?”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I’m not gonna tell her what I just saw or what I’ve seen before. Heck, I don’t even know what I just saw. Why would a lady burn the Bible? Lord, please don’t let me turn crazy having these visions all the time. Please?

  “Okay, it finally loaded,” Cricket says, pulling me close to her side. “Scootch in so you can see better. Check it out.”

  I cain’t believe she’s being so nice to me. She smells like bubble gum and lemonade. When she’s thinking on something she twitches her nose to the right and left, you have to watch real close for it. But what if she’s just being nice because that’s what her momma taught her to be? And because I look like her dead sister. Maybe she’ll want to be around me for that but then when she sees I’m not as great as her sister was she’ll get tired of me. She’s just being polite is all. Oh Lord, please don’t let good manners be the reason she’s being nice to me.

  But maybe it’s not that at all. She does really and truly seem like she’s glad I came over. Mayb
e she really does like me—after all, she don’t know anything about me. She’ll just know what I tell her. So from here on out I was the most popular kid in school back home. Who’s to say different? She’d never find out the truth. Just look at her. She flicks her hair back like she’s a model, not even knowing she does it. I wish my hair fell over back behind my shoulders like hers does. Mine’s shorter but I’m gonna grow it long like Cricket’s. I was going to anyway. I’ll get the rat’s nests out and I’ll brush it lots before bed so it’ll get silky like hers. People might come to think of us as sisters. Cricket Ford went and found herself another sister, they’ll say. I can show her some of the fun stuff me and Emma used to do. Emma. I haven’t thought of her this whole entire day practically! Usually by now I’d have turned her name over in my head at least a hundred times. Emma, if the ghost of you is floatin’ around, reading my thoughts, don’t be mad, okay? I promise I won’t ever stop thinking about you. I’ll show Cricket how to do that log-fence-balance thing we used to love. I’ll teach her how to play marbles and jacks. Someday I might could take her to see our creek back home. I’ll show her your favorite rock, but don’t worry I won’t let her set on it because it’s yours. So if you’re reading my mind right now or if some other ghost is telling you about what I’m thinking, remember that I love you best of all. Cricket comes in second, I swear. You’d love her just like I do. She’s busy looking at pictures on her laptop right now.

  “What’s that?” I say.

  She looks up and around the room to see what I’m talking about. “What’s what?”

  “That,” I say, pointing to where her hands are resting.

  “This? It’s a MacBook,” she says. “You’re on a PC? You’ve so got to go Mac—it’s way better.”

  “What’s Mac?”

  She looks up at me and cocks her head like Brownie the dog used to do when he thought he heard something off in the distance. “Huh?”

  “What’s a Mac? I don’t know what that is,” I say, pointing again to the thing with pictures she’s been pecking at with her fingers. I hate it that my face gets red hot when I’m embarrassed. It’s like I have a secret and it’s being flashed on a neon sign above my head.

  “Wait, you don’t know what this is? This. This whole thing.” She waves her hand in a circle over it. “You don’t know what a computer is?”

  My cheeks are on fire.

  “I, um, I know what a computer is, Jeez Louise,” I say, the red not getting any better—like it knows I’m lying and won’t go away until I tell the truth. “I …”

  “You don’t know what a computer is,” she says. She’s not saying it mean. It’s more that she’s thinking out loud. As if she was at the zoo and the teacher told her monkeys like bananas and she’s repeating it so she can understand it better. Monkeys like bananas, she’d repeat it to herself, to make sure she got it right.

  “So y’all didn’t have computers up in the mountains?”

  I shake my head. No sense lying now that I know she sees the truth.

  “Maybe other people did,” I tell her, “but not us. And not Orla Mae—she’s my best friend. And not Mr. Wilson who lived next to us.”

  I’m ready for the names to start flying. Dumbbell. Stoop (for stupid). Instead, she just shrugs her shoulders, turns back to the computer, and says, “Wow. Okay, well, this is a computer and the first thing you should know is that computers have answers to everything you could ever possibly want to know. You can do anything on a computer. You can listen to music. Watch videos. You can chat with your friends—if they have computers, I mean. Anything. Think up a question and I’ll Google it and get you the answer. First I want to show you something: what was your old address?”

  “Why do you want my old address?”

  “Just,” she says. “It’s too hard to explain—I’ll just show you. You’ll see. It’s so cool. What was it?”

  Her fingers are hovering over the letter buttons, waiting for me to tell them what to press. “Twenty-two Turn River Road,” I tell her. “Hendersonville, North Carolina. I don’t remember the zip code, though.”

  She pecks the words in and says, “That’s okay. I don’t need it. Now watch this.”

  There on the screen is a picture of Planet Earth. Cricket taps something and it starts moving—like we’re watching a movie or television right here at her desk! It shows the planet getting closer—like we’re birds flying to Earth from outer space … getting closer …

  “Whoa,” I say, almost feeling carsick watching it fly.

  And closer …

  “What in the Sam Hill?” I cain’t help cussing. I never seen anything like this ever. It’s like a little movie.

  “I told you!” Cricket says, and I can feel her watching my face. “Wait. It gets better.”

  Closer still …

  And then you can see we’re heading to America. We keep flying and I wince feeling like we might crash-land. Then I can make out trees—real live trees not cartoon pictures of them—and mountains …

  “That looks just like …”

  Now roads and buildings. I cain’t be certain but it looks like …

  “Here we are!” Cricket says as the bird slows down to land lightly. “Home sweet home! Twenty-two Turn River Road. Hendersonville, North Carolina!”

  If my eyes were any wider they’d peel back from my own head.

  “Told you it was cool,” she says, smiling big. I know how she feels. I feel—I mean I felt—that good whenever Emma got tickled by something I showed her.

  “Google Earth,” she says. Like that’s supposed to explain it. “I just downloaded it. It’s been around awhile, I just hadn’t gotten around to signing up and then we moved in with Grandma and everything. See? You can put in any address—anywhere in the world—and it’ll fly you there and put a little red pin. Sometimes it’s a bit off of the exact address. Like now. Here, let’s sweep along till you see your house. Just tell me when you see it and I’ll slow it down. See it yet?”

  “No,” I say. “Wait, go back a second. Oh, no. I thought that was it. Wait! There! That looks like Mr. Wilson’s house! It is! No way—that’s Mr. Wilson’s house right there! His fence lost the two middle beams a ways back and he’s always saying he’ll fix it when the beams come out of hiding so I know for a fact that’s his house. So if that’s Mr. Wilson’s ours should be right … there … on the other side of that thicket. Why ain’t—isn’t—why isn’t it there?”

  That’s when I remember the rumors going around town before we left. They said they were gonna tear the house down. Momma said at the time it’d suit her just fine—no good memories in this godforsaken house—but I guess I didn’t think they’d really go through with it. Now what do I do? I cain’t tell her oh, I just remembered they said they were going to wreck the house because then she’d ask how come and then what would I say? Because my stepdaddy was murdered there and oh by the way I’m the one who murdered him? Oh Lord, I promise, cross my heart promise, that if you help me figure out what to tell Cricket I will never ever ask you for anything ever again.

  “You didn’t really come from there, did you?” Cricket asks, her voice quiet and grown-up and serious. “It’s okay. You can tell me what’s up, you know. I’m really good at keeping secrets. Are you in some kind of trouble, you and your mom?”

  Mr. White from the drugstore back in my first hometown, Toast, used to say the truth may hurt but it hurts a whole lot less than a lie.

  “I ain’t—I mean, I’m not, we’re not in trouble, Momma and me,” I start out. “And yeah we’re from Hendersonville, but I think, well, I’m not sure but they might have tore our house down after we left. That’s why it ain’t—that’s why it’s not there.”

  “Oh-Em-Gee, this is exactly the kind of thing computers are perfect for,” she says, sounding almost happy to have a mystery to solve. “We can check the town records and see if the house was condemned or knocked down or whatever. Let’s see. Hendersonville Town Hall. Okay here’s the home page. Now let
’s go to the tabs up top. ‘Records.’ Let’s start there.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Let’s see, there’s birth records, death certificates, zoning.” She’s talking to herself as much as she’s talking to me. I realize too that she can read a whole lot faster than me. She can do ever-thing a whole lot faster than me. Words pop up on the screen then vanish. Pictures too. All before I can make anything out, it goes so quick.

  “This is so cool,” I say.

  It’s true. I never had any kind of fun like the kind I’m having now.

  “You should come over like all the time,” Cricket says. “Wait, what school are you gonna go to, you think? You shouldn’t come to my school—I hate my school. They’re all like mean. In bad moods all the time. You’re in, what, fourth grade? Fifth? I hated fifth grade at my school. This one girl? Gummy Brainard? She would always cross something when you said no crossies counts but you wouldn’t know it and then she’d steal whatever secret you told her and blab it all over kingdom come. That just tells you what kind of a person she is. I’m just saying. Oh-oh, before I forget, lemme show you that cat video on YouTube I was telling you about just now.”