by Jenn Bishop
“When’s the last time you saw him in person?”
“Not since that day at the library. I think his family’s on vacation this week, so he’s not in town. But eventually I’m going to run into him. Hitchcock’s small!”
“Do you think Avery knows?”
“I hope not,” I say. “Do boys really talk about that stuff? Like we do?”
“Definitely not like we do.” Kiersten hands me back my phone. “If I look at this screen anymore, I will barf. And no, not because of Gregg’s love for you.”
I glare at her and pretend to zip my lips.
“Sorry,” Kiersten says. “They’re sealed. I promise.”
It turns out reading the emails on my phone really did make Kiersten feel like she was going to hurl, so for the rest of the bus ride back, she stares out the window while I flip through them.
We don’t exactly reach a conclusion about what I should do, but I come to my own: pretend it’s not happening until it goes away. That could work, right? I delete the emails, one by one. It takes the whole bus ride, but when we pull up to the rec center, they’re all gone.
Not one shred of evidence of Gregg’s so-called crush on me.
It’s only in my head. And Kiersten’s now, too.
—
After dinner that night, I’m lying on Mom and Dad’s bed, watching a show on their TV, when my phone buzzes.
Another Gregg email.
So much for in-box zero.
But that’s not what it is this time. If only. It’s an email with the subject line Lost Dog.
My finger trembles as I click to open it.
Hello,
I saw your posting in the supermarket the other day and wanted to reach out to you. We lost our cat, Blinky, in the tornado. It’s such a hard thing to lose someone you love unexpectedly. I wish you all the luck in the world in finding your Hank.
Sincerely,
Effie Holden
I let out my breath. It isn’t good news or bad news. It’s no news at all.
Watching TV with Mom and Peg last night, I saw a special program about the tornado. They spotlighted stories about people that lost their pets. There was one lady saying how she couldn’t find her ferret. While the newscaster had the microphone in front of her mouth, one of the rescue workers discovered her ferret. She was so excited she was shaking and could barely hold on to her wiggly little guy.
“If I lost that ugly thing in the tornado, I don’t think I’d be so bent out of shape,” Peg said with a laugh.
But I saw Mom wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.
So what if ferrets are a little stinky and weird? That lady loved her ferret. That’s what makes it a pet, and not just any old animal. Love.
When the crew cleared off our lot, filling up dumpster after dumpster with rubble once we’d finished recovering anything valuable, they double- and triple- and quadruple-checked. Hank simply wasn’t there. It was like he’d vanished.
I write back to Effie, thanking her for thinking about me and Hank. I tell her how sorry I am about her cat, and then I shut down the computer for the night.
Mom and Dad are watching some lame grown-up movie downstairs with Avery’s parents and Peg and Frank, and Avery is over at a friend’s house, so it’s just me and Cammie upstairs. Well, and the cats. It’s not just Snickers. There’s also Louie and Stella. None of them are all that friendly either; they’re just your ordinary cats.
When I open our bedroom door, I accidentally step on one of Cammie’s library books.
“Jeez, Cammie. Can’t you pick up your stuff?”
“Sorry.” He sticks his head out from the tent he’s crouched under. Peg helped him string sheets from the bookcase to his bed to make a tent. He started sleeping underneath it in a sleeping bag, instead of in his bed. He even calls it his lair. I call it sleeping on the floor with the cats.
I know he’s not going to actually pick up after himself—he never listens to me, only to Mom and Dad—so I pick up his books one by one and stack them on the bottom shelf of the nightstand, where Peg keeps all her knitting magazines.
“Someone saw our poster and emailed me.” I climb into bed and pull a sheet over myself. The McLarens don’t have air-conditioning, so it gets pretty hot in our bedroom.
Cammie stands up fast, taking the sheet with him. He pulls it off his head and the whole contraption crashes to the ground. “Wait! What?” His hair sticks up from the static.
“False alarm,” I say. “She lost her cat in the storm. She wanted to say she felt bad for us.”
“Oh,” Cammie says. “Nobody else emailed you?”
I shake my head.
“Bummer.” Cammie tries to put his tent back together, but it’s too hard for him, and he eventually gives up and climbs into his bed. After we both read for a while, I turn off the light.
“ ’Night,” I say.
“ ’Night, Maddie.”
As I lie in bed, I listen to everyone downstairs watching the movie. Peg and Frank have a little trouble hearing, so the volume is turned up super high.
I hear the front door open and footsteps on the stairs. Somebody must have just dropped off Avery. A sliver of light shines under our door, and then the bathroom fan comes on for a second. I can never figure out which switch to flip for the bathroom light either. Footsteps down the hall, and then the door closing in the room next to ours.
There’s that jingle again. The Hank jingle. But I know Avery didn’t bring Hank home. If he did, I’d hear his four paws tapping all over the hardwood floors, doing his little I-can’t-decide-where-to-sit dance. If he did, Hank would be whimpering outside my door, begging to be let inside, to sleep on the end of my bed or Cammie’s.
But the jingle is only Avery’s keys.
A sticky hand presses against my shoulder as a bolt of lightning brightens the whole room.
“I’m scared.” My brother wraps his hand around my arm.
I jump up in bed. The bedroom window is wide open, rain spraying all over the windowsill and onto the floor. I get up to close it. Cammie follows me, even though it’s only a couple of footsteps from my bed to the window.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s just a storm.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance, and another flash of lightning makes Cammie’s face look white as a ghost. He clutches his stuffed turtle with one hand and cuddles up against me.
“How do you know?” he asks. “How do you know it’s a regular storm and not a bad one?”
“I just do,” I lie, squeezing his hand.
Another lightning flash. I count in my head, waiting for the thunder. One, two, three, four…It rumbles right after I count to eight. It must be coming closer.
Someone knocks on our door and Cammie startles.
“Yeah?” I say.
The door creaks open. Avery stands in the doorway, wearing basketball shorts and a Dustin Pedroia T-shirt. His hair is sticking up in all directions. “I thought I heard you guys,” he says. “Can I come in?”
“Okay.” I smooth down my hair.
The whole room is lit up by another lightning flash and this time I’ve barely started the count when the thunder hits. Boom. Rumble. Boom. The whole house shakes.
“I’m scared,” Cammie whimpers. He hops off the bed and heads for the door, still clutching his turtle. “Maybe we should go down to the basement.”
I glance at Avery. Maybe we should. Just in case.
“Hold on.” Avery darts past Cammie and down the hall.
“Where’s he going?” Cammie asks. “Is he going to the basement?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so.”
I rub my fingers together, like I always do when I get nervous before a test. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s only a thunderstorm.
Lightning flashes again and there’s a big crackle, like it hit a tree right outside. Or a power line. But I glance over at the clock plugged into the wall and it still works. Cammie presses up against me.
Cammie walks behind us on the bed, squeezing his head in between ours to see.
“ ‘Severe thunderstorm watch,’ ” I read from the screen. “What does that mean?”
“It means that there’s a likelihood of severe thunderstorms,” Avery says. “The kind with high winds and hail.”
Likelihood, I think. Who actually says that out loud? Avery, of course. Genius Avery. “But it’s not hailing,” I say.
“Right,” Avery says. “That’s why it’s only a watch. ‘Watch’ means it’s not for sure. Only that there’s a good chance. Then you have a severe thunderstorm warning. ‘Warning’ means it’s definitely going to happen.” He swipes his thumb across the screen to show a map of the state, with green and pink and purple blobs moving from left to right. “That’s the radar map. So you can follow how the storm is moving.”
“And that,” he says, spreading his fingers to zoom in on a pink zone, “is where we are.”
“Peg really likes pink,” Cammie says.
Avery laughs. “Pink means thunderstorm. It doesn’t have anything to do with Peg. But you’re right. She really likes pink. There’s so much pink in my room that sometimes when I wake up, I wonder if I’ve turned into Miss Piggy in the night.”
Cammie giggles.
“Since when did you become such a weather guru?” I ask.
Avery hands his phone over to Cammie. “I’m not a weather guru.”
“Yeah, you are. You probably even know what Doppler radar is.” I’ve seen the weather lady explain it on TV about a dozen times and I’m still not sure I get it.
“Actually, Doppler radar isn’t even really a weather term. It’s just any radar that uses the Doppler effect to figure out velocity data about objects at a distance.”
“You’re officially making my brain hurt,” I say. “It’s called summer vacation for a reason.” I mean it as a joke, but Avery doesn’t smile. Maybe you’re not supposed to joke with people you’re barely talking to.
“So, you know when you need to go in the basement by looking at this map with all the colors?” Cammie asks.
“Pretty much. Plus, my phone sends me alerts for tornado watches and warnings.”
“So, we don’t have to go in the basement?” Cammie asks.
Avery shakes his head. “Not if all this data is correct.”
Cammie tosses his stuffed turtle back onto his bed. “Just a normal thunderstorm, huh?”
“Yup.”
Rain lashes against the window, and another bolt of lightning brightens the room. This time the thunder doesn’t sound quite so loud and the walls don’t feel like they’re shaking. The house feels sturdy. Like it has seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of storms like this before. And it’s no big deal. It will see hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions more.
“Thank you,” I whisper to Avery.
He scratches his head. Maybe he realizes that his hair is totally crazy bedhead. He tries to pat it down, but then he gives up.
Now that I’ve calmed down about the storm, all that I can think about is that there is a boy in my bedroom. On my bed. Not just any boy. Avery. But it’s all wrong after what happened at the dance. And worse: this is the most we’ve talked since we both moved in here—the most we’ve talked in almost two whole weeks.
Avery clears his throat and looks right at me. “You know, even with all that data, I still get scared sometimes, too.”
“Was anyone else woken up by the storm last night?” Dad asks, pouring a glass of orange juice just as Avery comes down the stairs.
I’m about to answer when Avery beats me to it. “There was a storm?”
My mouth shuts real fast. Did I dream it all?
No. I couldn’t have. Cammie and I talked about it first thing when we woke up.
“Kind of a doozy,” Dad says. “Woke us up pretty good. Would’ve been nice to have been able to fall back to sleep.” He glances at me, sitting at the table, as I shovel bite after bite of Lucky Charms into my mouth.
After I finally swallow, I say, “Guess I slept right through it.”
I stare at Avery as he sits down across from me, but he doesn’t look back. He empties out the Lucky Charms box into his bowl, pulls out his cell phone, and laughs at whatever he’s reading like I’m not even here.
Like last night didn’t even happen. Like I imagined it because I wanted it to be real.
But it was real.
By the time Avery had gone back to his room, Cammie was asleep again. He wasn’t scared anymore. Me neither. So why’s Avery pretending it didn’t even happen?
Instead of slurping it up like I would at home, I spoon the rest of the purple milk into my mouth and carry the bowl over to the dishwasher.
Frank comes down the stairs, with Peg trailing behind him. He heads straight for the sofa and flips on the TV. “Hey, Dan, you want to check out this golf match?” On the TV screen, a little white ball rolls straight toward a hole in the ground.
Peg taps me on the shoulder. “Maddie, I picked up some new seeds from the garden center, and I’d love some company. Maybe you can fill me in on how things are going at camp?”
I look up at Dad, who’s staring straight at me. He clears his throat. “Thanks for the offer, Frank. Actually, Maddie and I were about to head over to check on the guys for a little while. Maybe later, though.” He means the construction guys. Whenever he has a chance, Dad loves to stop by to see how they’re progressing with our new house.
“I think I have to go with my dad,” I tell Peg.
“Of course,” Peg says. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep myself busy.”
I glance back at Avery, who’s still texting. I wonder if he’s telling his friends how scared Cammie and I were last night, if that’s what he’s really laughing about.
—
When I’m in my and Cammie’s room getting ready to head over to the site, I hear Avery’s parents talking loudly in their room.
I pop my head out into the hallway. The door to their room is closed, but that doesn’t make much of a difference. Mr. Linden has one of those loud voices that just carry no matter what.
“Things will not fall into place, Naomi. It doesn’t work like that! We don’t live in a fairy-tale land. The bills just keep coming. We’re not going to be able to keep up with them.”
“I wasn’t saying—”
“No, I know exactly what you’re saying.”
“You can finally read my mind? I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
I wonder if Avery can hear from down in the kitchen. He must.
Dad’s sneakers squeak against the floor. He peeks his head into my room as I’m putting on my socks. Avery’s parents are still going at it, but at least their voices have gotten a little quieter.
“Come on, kiddo,” Dad says. “Let’s give them some space.”
I follow him down the hardwood stairs, almost slipping on them in my socks.
When we walk through the kitchen this time, Avery’s got his headphones on. The music blasts through them, so even I can hear.
There are so many things I want to say to him I don’t know where to start. Maybe with I’m sorry?
But I don’t think Avery wants to hear anything right now, except his music.
I slide my feet into my sneakers and close the door behind me, following Dad out into the bright sunshine.
—
Dad pulls the rental car into our old driveway.
He stretches his arms over his head and lets out a big sigh. “Finally, I feel like I can breathe.”
I know what he means. At our house, Saturday mornings were Dad’s time to read the paper and drink coffee as slowly as he liked. To savor the peace and quiet, he’d say. Peace and quiet doesn’t exist at t
he McLarens’ house. At least, not with all nine of us. And that’s not even counting the cats, one of which managed to pee on Dad’s work shirts right after he brought them back from the dry cleaners.
“No kidding,” I say, but then I wonder if that’s mean. It’s not like Peg is trying to drive me crazy. It’s just—sometimes I want to move at my own pace in the morning. Sometimes I’m not ready to go out and garden and answer all of Peg’s questions about my life right after I wake up. Maybe that’s another reason Avery’s always wearing headphones.
“You know, you’ve been a good sport about everything. I don’t think your mom and I tell you that enough. It can’t be easy sharing a room with your brother for the whole summer.”
“It isn’t,” I say with a laugh.
“Well, we appreciate it. Really, kiddo.”
We get out of the car and take a look at what the “guys” have accomplished this week. The construction crew finished digging out the extension to the basement and poured in the concrete. Since we have a chance to start from scratch, Dad said we could go a little bigger this time. As I stare at it, all I can think about is Avery’s house, with its blue tarp still flapping in the breeze.
It’s not fair that we get to build this bigger new house when Avery’s parents are still waiting to see if their insurance company will come through for them.
“What do you think, Mads?”
“It looks…good?” I finally say.
Dad takes off his hat and stares for a while at the concrete-edged hole in the ground. When he looks at that spot, does he see our old house? Sometimes I do. It’s like how every time I get a really short haircut, it feels so strange to run my fingers through my hair and have them come out way before I’m ready for them. I still expect to see my bedroom window up there, with the shade half drawn.
But if I look at the spot long enough, I feel like I can see into the future. Not for real, like I’m some fortune-teller or anything. But I can picture a new house coming up in the old one’s place, like that picture book Cammie was obsessed with a few years ago, Building Our House. First the floor, then the walls and the roof. The siding, the pipes, the electrical wires. Trucks coming by to drop off new furniture. A rolled-up rug sticking out of the back of Mom’s station wagon.