The Sister Solution

by Trudi Trueit

  “You think?”

  “Take it easy, will you?” She looks around to see if any of the other kids on the bus are listening.

  “Don’t tell me to take it easy.”

  “Temper, Jorgianna,” she says, which doesn’t help.

  I am hungry. I am tired. And for the past eight hours, I’ve been stuck in this awful forest-ranger uniform. I am in no mood for a lecture. “You shouldn’t even be sitting here,” I say. “We have a contract, remember?”

  “Fine.” The word snaps my ear like a rubber band. “You’re on your own. Good luck.”

  “Keep your luck.”

  Sammi pops out of her seat and heads to the back of the bus.

  Seven minutes later we are at our corner. The bus driver pulls the lever that flips the stop sign out from the side of the bus. Red lights flash. I trot down the ridged steps of the bus. The moment my feet touch smooth cement I take off. It’s the one thing I can do in these dumb shoes—run.

  “Jorgianna, wait!”

  She is too late. I am already in full stride. The tears welling in my eyes blur the path in front of me. I stumble on a cracked piece of sidewalk, but I don’t fall. I will not fall. And I will not cry. My heavy pack bashing into the back of my shoulder with each step, I let the wind dry my tears as I sprint for home.

  Sammi can’t catch me.

  She never could.

  NINE

  One Murder, Possibly Two

  LIKE ODETTE THE SWAN QUEEN, I prance into the kitchen and do a near-perfect ballerina pirouette. I get no response. At the table Sammi is deep into reading the back of the Cheerios box. At the stove my father skates a spatula around a pan of eggs.

  Take two. Chin up, shoulders back, I stretch one arm out gracefully as I glide past my father. He glances up. Through the haze of steam, our eyes connect. His lips slide up one cheek, but all he says is, “Morning, Sunbeam.”

  Hearing my father, Sammi looks up. She drops her spoon. It makes an ear-splitting clang against the ceramic bowl and sprays milk all over her steel-blue sweater. Sammi’s mouth is open so wide that if the three black crows bobbing on wires attached to the neon-orange felt Robin Hood hat on my head were real, they would have an unabated flight path to her tonsils. “Jorgianna Miriam Tremayne, you are not wearing that to school.”

  Mission: Fashion Shock and Awe accomplished.

  “It appears, dear sister, that I am.” I throw my head back, making the three faux blackbirds hovering above me bounce on their little wires. Hands on hips, I strike a pose in my tangerine blouse with five layers of chiffon petals around the neck and bell sleeves the size of sailboat masts. My sister’s horrified gaze travels down the frothy blouse, taking in the massive bow that ties at the hip of my black skirt, leggings in a black-and-white diamond harlequin pattern, and a pair of black leather ankle boots with brushed-nickel Pilgrim buckles.

  Sammi gasps. “Are those mom’s boots? Did she say you could borrow them?”

  I ease into my chair. “They are and she did.”

  My sister grabs a napkin and dabs at her milk-splattered sweater. “I don’t believe you. Those boots are way too expensive. She’d never let you—”

  “Well, she did.”

  “Daaaaad!” Sammi sounds like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

  Our father sets a plate of scrambled eggs and a piece of toast—cut on the diagonal (exactly the way I like it)—in front of me. He scoots the jar of orange marmalade close to my plate before casually leaning back to inspect my boots.

  I stretch out my leg. “Mom said it was fine.”

  “She’s lying,” spits my sister.

  “I am not.”

  “You so are—”

  “I am so not. Ask her yourself.”

  “Okay, okay, girls. Finish your breakfast. I’ll check in with your mother for the final word.” He chuckles. “It’s those birds that worry me, Sunbeam. Be careful, young lady, you don’t want to poke someone’s eye out.”

  As our father heads back to the stove, Sammi grumbles, “I should have put something about clothes in the contract.”

  “Contract?” Dad’s head pops up.

  “It’s a little agreement we made so I don’t embarrass her at school,” I say.

  My sister is giving me the stink eye. “This is your idea of not embarrassing me?”

  “I’ll stay out of your way, but I’m not changing myself for you or anybody else,” I say firmly. “From now on, I wear what I want to wear.”

  “Fair warning—” Sammi glances up at my birds—”you’re going to get teased in a big way at school.”

  “I’ll take that risk.” I plunge my knife into the marmalade. “A bird must sing its song, even if it is alone in the forest.”

  “Shakespeare?” asks Dad, passing behind me.

  I grin. “Jorgianna.”

  “You look like a Halloween court jester being attacked by a flock of crows,” says Sammi.

  “It’s not called a flock of crows. It’s called a murder.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “On the upside, you’re both dressed in complementary colors,” says my dad. His eyes go from my orange blouse to Sammi’s blue sweater. “And you know what complementary colors do, don’t you?”

  “They bring out the best in each other,” I say.

  “Not this time,” growls Sammi. “This could be your worst outfit ever, Jorgianna. I absolutely hate it!”

  “I absolutely love it!” screams Patrice when I stroll into the Tonasket Middle School atrium.

  The girls swarm me.

  “That hat is craze-amaze to the tenth power,” squeals Tanith. “Did you make it?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Where did you get that wicked top?” asks Cara.

  “I got—”

  “I love your Pilgrim boots, Jorgianna.” India jumps in. “Did you get them online at Sweet Feet?”

  “These? They’re—”

  “Are those Get a Leg Up tights?” asks Desiree.

  “Actually—”

  “Can I borrow your skirt?” asks Mercy. “Please, oh please, oh please—”

  “Whoa!” Patrice steps in to wave them back. “Let her finish a sentence, why don’t you? Go ahead, Jorgi.”

  I turn to Tanith. “I didn’t make the hat, but I did add the crows and sequin trim.” I do not tell her it was one of Banana’s thrift store discoveries. I’m not sure if Patrice and her friends are into thrift stores, but based on their clothes, I doubt it. I swing to find Cara. “I got the blouse for Christmas last year from my grandmother, but I picked it out. It’s a Leena James top from Nordstrom’s.” To India I say, “These are Monkey See boots, and I borrowed them from my mom.” I wave to Desiree. “I love Get a Leg Up, but these are Stems,” and finally, to Mercy, “Sure, you can borrow my skirt.” Again, I decide not to reveal that it’s yet another treasure from the Helping Hands thrift shop, but I do add, “When I’m not in it, of course.”

  Everyone laughs.

  “I told you she had a killer style,” says Patrice, practically bursting with satisfaction.

  India digs in her purse. “I want to take a picture of you—oh, poo, I think I left my phone in my locker.”

  I groan. “I still have to find mine.”

  Desiree giggles. “Your phone or your locker?”

  “My locker.”

  India stops her search. “You haven’t found your locker yet?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “904.”

  “904? Isn’t that one of the—”

  “India, do you have a dollar?” asks Patrice.

  “Sure.”

  “I said I’d help you find your locker, Jorgi,” says Patrice. “Girls, let me handle this one, okay?” She giggles, though I don’t get what is so funny. I suck in my lips to keep from saying this is the third time she has said that and still, I remain lockerless.

  “I’ll bet it’s in G wing,” says Tanith, “by the library.”

  “Or
on the other side of the janitor’s closet,” says Desiree. She nudges Cara, who says, “Right, right. Or it could be near the gym. There’s that long bank of lockers near the boys’ locker room.”

  I am rooting for G wing.

  “Maybe it’s a typo,” offers Mercy.

  A typo! Why didn’t I think of that? And I’m the one with the skyscraper IQ. I check my silver watch with the pearly face. Four minutes until the bell. If I leave now, I’ll have enough time to stop in the office and find out if the mystery locker even exists. I am gathering up my stuff when Mercy says, “Uh-oh.”

  A tall, thin boy in a white long-sleeved tee, jeans, and tennis shoes is marching toward us. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. I don’t recognize him. He’s cute, in a disheveled way. He doesn’t seem threatening, yet everyone in my group has the expression of a victim in a horror movie right before the killer’s chainsaw comes ripping through the door. Overgrown mahogany hair hangs in angled slices in front of his eyes. He sweeps them aside, and light-green eyes go from one girl to the next to the next. They pause briefly on me as if to say “you are a surprise,” but then move on to find his target. “Patrice,” he clips. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Enough with the texting—”

  “Okay, okay.” Patrice takes his arm and turns him toward the wall of windows. Glancing at Tanith over her shoulder, she jerks her head and, suddenly, I am being whisked out of the atrium by my friends. They shuffle me out so quickly, I have to throw up a hand to keep my bird hat from going airborne.

  “This is it,” says Tanith once we reach the hallway.

  “I’m not surprised,” says Desiree. “It’s been coming for a long time.”

  “Still, it’s so sad when it does,” says India.

  “So, so sad,” echoes Mercy.

  “What is going on?” I whisper to Cara.

  “That’s the boy Patrice likes. They’re not getting along.”

  I’d never had a crush before. Most of the boys I knew at Greenleaf Elementary School were annoying. They were always throwing food and paper and rubber bands at you. Plus, they smelled like the inside of old tennis shoes left in the rain. I don’t know if the boys in middle school throw less and shower more, but I doubt it.

  “It’s probably a big misunderstanding,” says Mercy. “You know, like all of the other times. I bet they are in there right now working it all out, like all of the other times.”

  “We can dream,” says Cara.

  I lean toward Desiree. “Do they do this a lot?”

  “About once a week.” She bites her lip. “But this time is . . . different.”

  “Why?”

  She doesn’t answer me.

  India sighs. “It’s so sad.”

  “I’m afraid Tanith is right,” says Cara. “It looks like this is the final straw.”

  “Then we’ll have to be incredibly supportive when she comes out,” I say.

  “Incredibly supportive?” Tanith snorts. “Who says that?”

  I open my mouth to snap back, “I say that,” but hear my sister’s voice in my head saying, “Temper, Jorgianna,” and I clamp my lips together.

  “Jorgi, unfortunately, you’re going to be the last person Patrice will want to see,” says Mercy.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Stop doing that,” snarls Tanith.

  “Doing what?”

  “Asking why. You’re always asking why. It’s soooo annoying.”

  I’m annoying? Tanith has known me for, what, nineteen hours? How can she say I am always doing anything?

  I am about to tell her this too, when India pats my arm. “Jorgianna, it’s not you . . . it’s the whole situation . . . it’s all so . . . complicated.”

  Where have I heard that before?

  “Great!” Patrice’s voice echoes through the hall. She flies around the corner, barreling straight for us and muttering, “Boys. Idiots. All of them. Boys.”

  Tanith rushes to meet her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fantastic,” she hits the ts so hard little flecks of saliva fly out of her mouth. “Happy as can be.” Not slowing her stride, Patrice’s icy gaze locks on to me. “Be sure and thank your sister for me, Jorgi.”

  “My . . . sister?” I bite down, snapping off the “why” a millimeter from the end of my tongue.

  “Yes, let’s all send a thank-you note to Sammi Tremayne for stealing my boyfriend!” Patrice steams past me, stirring up a breeze that sends a chill up me and sets the three little black birds on my hat swaying.

  Tanith, India, Cara, Mercy, and Desiree scurry after her.

  The slam of the door goes through my entire body. I am alone in the hallway, the hair on my arms still on alert, the little crows above me still trembling. I am not sure what to do. I’d focused so much energy on making sure I didn’t spoil Sammi’s social life, it never occurred to me that she might be the one to ruin mine.

  TEN

  Color Me Shocked

  IT’S SATURDAY MORNING AND FOR the millionth time I pound on the bathroom door.

  “In a minute!” comes the millionth and one reply.

  “You said that ten minutes ago. You’d better be in there cleaning, because you’re on bathroom duty. Or did you forget about losing our crepe tossing bet?”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  I bang on the door again. “Jorgianna!”

  “Use Mom and Dad’s.”

  “I don’t have to go. I have to talk to you.”

  “I’m not deaf.”

  “Eden told me Hanna heard from Stella that Desiree said Patrice flipped out at you last week.”

  It was exactly what I’d feared. I had a feeling Patrice would take out her anger at me on my little sister. This was all my fault. I should have been straight with Jorgianna and told her everything that first day we rode home on the bus together. I was not about to make the same mistake twice.

  I pound again. “Jorgianna, open the door!”

  Hinges squeak and suddenly a massive cloud of steam rolls out of the bathroom. I cough and wave it away. The hot fog evaporates and I see my little sister in the two-sizes-too-big jelly-bean print terry cloth bathrobe Aunt Ellen gave her for her birthday. Still trying to grow into it, she’s had to wrap the belt twice around her tiny waist. A white bath-towel turban perches on her head. It leans to the left, reminding me of Mrs. Vanderslice’s hairdo.

  “It’s all yours.” Bare feet skitter past. “BTW, it’s Jorgi.”

  “What is?”

  “My name. From now on, call me Jorgi.”

  “But you hate nicknames.”

  “A person can evolve.”

  Since when is a nickname evolving? “Okay, Jorgi,” I say, though it feels weird on my tongue. “Tell me what happened—”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “That’s not what I heard.” I follow the damp footprints to her room. “I heard Patrice yelled at you. I heard she yelled at you about Noah and me.”

  She pokes through her underwear drawer. “Yelled is a strong word.”

  “Did she or didn’t she yell at you?”

  “You mean like you’re doing now?”

  “Arrrrrgggh!” My sister can be so exasperating.

  “If you must know,” says Jorgianna, “Patrice was pretty steamed you stole her crush.”

  “I didn’t steal—”

  “And she might have taken out her frustration on me when he decided to embarrass her right there in the atrium in front of all of her friends.”

  I crumple against her doorframe. “He didn’t.”

  “Yes.” Grabbing a ball of red socks out of her drawer, she sits on the edge of her bed. “He did.”

  “He probably didn’t know any other way. Patrice is a very . . . uh . . . determined person.”

  “So you’re saying it’s Patrice’s fault?”

  “Yes. No. Partly.”

  “Multiple choice? You want me to wait while you pick one?”

  “Look, the thi
ng you have to understand about Noah and Patrice is . . . see, they don’t . . . they’re not . . . what I’m trying to say is—”

  “It’s quite the Gordian knot.”

  “Huh?”

  “Complicated. So very complicated,” she says, using her superior-intellect voice. Grrrrr. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from wringing her neck. How do I explain the situation to her? She’s too young to understand.

  “You can’t steal a person’s heart, Jorgianna,” I say. “They have to give it to you. They have to give it of their own free will. You can’t make a person like you or, for that matter, not like you. Look, I know you’ve never had a crush before—”

  “How do you know?” Her head snaps up. “You don’t know if I’ve ever had a crush on somebody. You’ve never bothered to ask.”

  Her tone stings, but she is right. “Have you?”

  She bites her lip as she slowly slides the stretchy red fabric over her foot, and I have my answer. “Patrice said she was sorry for getting mad,” she says softly, pulling the sock up to her knee. “Everything is fine.”

  I want to talk to her more about Patrice, but maybe now isn’t the best time. I can tell that temper of hers is simmering. “Banana and I are going to the aquarium this morning and then to Miss Larkspur’s for lunch,” I say. “You know what is right across the street from the tea room, don’t you?”

  Jorgianna gives me an irritated look. Of course she knows where the Whitaker Art Gallery is.

  “You want to come?” I ask.

  “With you?”

  “Yes, with me, who else?”

  “You’ve never let me come with Banana and you before.”

  “I know, Jorgianna.” I am trying not to make The Face, but she isn’t helping. “I’m asking now. Come with us.”

  “Sorry. Can’t.” Both socks on, she hops off her yellow comforter and heads for her closet. “But when you go to the art gallery, be sure to see Patrice’s photo.”

  “Patrice has a photo in the show?”

  “Yeah. It’s amazeballs. It’s a picture of a little girl looking at a giant Pacific octopus at the aquarium.”

  Every hair on my neck stands at attention. “A little girl? An octopus? At the Point Defiance Aquarium?”