Carry Me Home

by Janet Fox

  “ ‘To Whom It May Concern.’ ”

  Jack leaned over and began to write.

  “Can you make it look like grown-up handwriting?” Lulu asked.

  “Um, what’s grown-up handwriting?”

  “You know, neat and all.”

  He watched her.

  “ ‘Please let Lulu Johnson bring her sister Serena home from after-school.’ ”

  Jack wrote, then sat back. “Um…”

  “ ‘Sincerely, John Johnson.’ ”

  Jack put down the pen. “Wait. I’m writing a note from your dad?”

  Lulu pushed what was left of her lunch around the plate, suddenly not hungry. She didn’t look up when she said, “Is that a problem?”

  There was a long silence. Then Jack bent over and finished the note, and pushed it and the pen back to her.

  “Is your dad okay?” he asked in a voice so quiet and full of concern that Lulu had to fight hard to keep those tears locked up.

  Finally she nodded. “Just can’t write,” she said, because she couldn’t say more.

  “Oh! Golly. Gosh, you know, my mom teaches adults to read and write. You know, the ones who can’t. She’s really good at it.” Jack was talking so fast, like he was filling up an empty bucket with words.

  That wasn’t what Lulu had meant, but it was a relief, and she realized, a great way out. Yes! If her daddy couldn’t read and write, of course he couldn’t write a note! She looked up at Jack and nodded. “Thanks. I’ll tell him.”

  When I see him.

  I’ll tell him. Lulu looked down again.

  I’ll tell him. Lulu clenched her fist.

  I’ll tell him. Lulu would not cry.

  She reached across the table to take the note and the pen, and forced herself to smile at Jack as she forced her other feelings deep, deep down inside.

  27 Before

  LULU HAD already started leaving things behind long before she pulled herself up into the Suburban to head north, and not just the stuff in her life.

  When Mama got sick, Lulu had the feeling that some of her friends thought it might be contagious and that Lulu might be a carrier. Or maybe they thought that it was too darn hard to talk to Lulu who had a sick mama and what was the right thing to say, anyhow? Her friends began to avoid her, give her these weird looks, and she was too busy to do anything about it.

  When Mama was gone Lulu felt like everything was done, and she just didn’t have the strength to try.

  The worst was when they had the last big yard sale and Lulu put out her favorite chair, the one her mama had rocked her in and then rocked Serena in when they were babies, the one with the seat cushion that Mama had made out of a patchwork of their baby clothes. Lulu’s best friend’s mama bought that chair for all of twenty dollars, “because it’ll need a little fixing up with those scratches and such.”

  How could she ever go into Olivia’s house again, with that chair in Olivia’s bedroom, with that seat cushion on Lulu’s chair? Or worse, with the seat cushion cast aside, replaced by some floral fabric that matched Olivia’s floral wallpaper?

  From that moment on, Lulu crumpled up inside and closed everything away, closed all the doors and windows, all the closets and curtains. She locked the entry and threw away the key.

  When Daddy pulled out of Aunt Ruth’s driveway before dawn on that June morning, Lulu didn’t look back.

  28 Now

  “LULU,” MISS Baker said on Thursday, “please stop by my desk on your way out.”

  Lulu heard the snarky whispered words from behind her. Deana shoved Lulu’s shoulder slightly as she passed.

  “You too, Deana,” said Miss Baker.

  At that, the whole world stopped turning.

  Everyone froze for an instant, and then there was a mad dash for the door to the classroom as the rest of the class except Lulu and Deana left. No one wanted to be caught in the middle.

  Deana froze just inside the doorway, her hand on the jamb.

  Lulu, who was already waiting at Miss Baker’s desk, concentrated on a series of scratches in the wood desktop, scratches that ran in circles, in loops, like a group of acrobats soaring in two dimensions.

  “Girls, I want you to be partners in the writing team program for the next two weeks. Deana, you know the ropes, so I hope you’ll help guide Lulu.”

  “Now, Miss Baker,” Deana said, in a voice full of pain. “You are aware that I have allergies.”

  Silence. The acrobats whirled and twirled.

  “And?” said Miss Baker.

  “Well, I mean,” Deana drawled. Lulu thought she could be from Texas, the way she stretched her words thin and long like taffy. “The, you know. The odors.” She fanned her face.

  “I’m sorry?” said Miss Baker.

  Deana heaved an Academy Award–worthy sigh. “Miss Baker. I mean, does she have any other clothes?”

  Silence. Miss Baker pursed her lips. Then she said softly, “Deana, I think you’re better than that.”

  Deana said, “Miss Baker.” But she sounded weird, her voice pinched now, the taffy hard.

  The acrobats flew into the air and turned turned turned, with circles like pinwheels. Lulu swallowed so hard she was sure Deana could hear it.

  “You and Lulu will be partners. Starting Monday. No excuses.” Miss Baker’s voice was tight, and when Lulu glanced up, she was surprised to see a smile on her teacher’s face. “Thank you, Deana.”

  Deana left, shutting the door hard behind.

  Lulu traced the circles on the desktop with her finger now. Then she turned to leave.

  “Lulu. Stay a sec.”

  Lulu sucked in air.

  “You’re a talented writer. You’ve shown that in just these few weeks.”

  Lulu glanced up quick, then back down at the acrobats. Miss Baker had just told her she was a talented writer. What did that mean?

  “Deana is… challenged with writing. But she has other skills, like her imagination, that she hides because she wants to be popular. She can help you make your great writing even better, and you can help her channel her ideas into great writing. Now, I know she can be difficult, but I think if the two of you work together, you can bring out each other’s strengths. Can you help Deana with that, Lulu?”

  Could she? Could she help someone else, when Lulu felt like she was drowning? Could she help someone else when her world was crashing around her like those acrobats that were falling to earth without a net? Could she help anyone but herself and Serena and, and…

  Step up. Do what needed doing. Yes, she could.

  “Okay.”

  Miss Baker reached out and patted Lulu’s hand. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  29 Way Before

  SHE LOOKED so small. Shrunken.

  “Mama?” Lulu whispered.

  Lulu was afraid to touch her. Afraid she would break her own mama with her touch.

  Lulu’s mama had been a superhero.

  Super librarian.

  Super mom.

  Super wife.

  Super strong.

  Riding a bike like she rode in the Tour de France. Moving furniture like she performed in the WWF. Singing in the church choir—not just like an angel—like she was an archangel, with a voice to reach the throne of heaven.

  And then.

  The doctors were in and out, in and out, but they didn’t seem to be doing much, because maybe they couldn’t. There were lots of tubes and liquids and nurses and beeps and machines and this stuff, it was all happening over and over, lots of terrible medical things, ever since that day when Lulu’s mama had thrown her hand to her chest and said, “Oh!”

  Just that.

  “Oh!”

  And then, boom.

  The only other thing Lulu knew was that her daddy was watching the doctors and asking questions and trying to keep track, and every night, he looked at papers in a stack on the table underneath the yellow globe light, a stack that grew very tall, but mostly he was trying to breathe, just breathe, as Lu
lu’s mama was breathing less and less, and Lulu and Serena were needing more and more, and everyone else around them seemed to need more, too, and there just wasn’t any more to give.

  Lulu was alone in the darkened hospital room with her mama. Daddy had taken Serena to the bathroom and Aunt Ruth had gone to call the nurse because the beeping had gone funny. Lulu leaned over her mother, so tiny now, so fragile. “Mama?” she whispered.

  In that moment Lulu suddenly couldn’t breathe right, like her breath was stuck inside her chest.

  Lulu’s mama opened her eyes, looked straight at Lulu, and said, her first word in days, “Lulu.” Then her eyes grew wide and she looked far past Lulu, far far away. She whispered, sounding amazed, “Look at all those wings.”

  30 Now

  LAURIE SQUINTED as she read the note. She looked up at Lulu, then back at the paper in her hand. “Okay,” she said, not sounding like it was okay at all. Sounding like she could tell that the letter was a fake. Lulu had been so nervous about its fakeness that she didn’t give it to Laurie yesterday. “At least you finally remembered to bring a note.” Laurie turned away and turned back again. “But I’d really like to speak with your father as soon as he’s better. Okay?”

  Lulu nodded. As soon as he was better.

  “Um,” Lulu said, “there’s another thing. I’ll be a little late tomorrow.”

  “Like how late?” Laurie sounded impatient.

  “Maybe closer to five thirty?”

  “We’re supposed to close at five.”

  “I know,” Lulu said. “But there’s something I really want to do.”

  Laurie sighed. “No later than five thirty. I’ve got things to do, too, you know. I don’t live here. Plus, they lock up the school.”

  “Okay. I know. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll be here.”

  Laurie moved away, muttering.

  Lulu sat down next to Serena, who was folding paper again. She pushed her homework aside and began folding, too.

  “What’re you making?” Serena asked in an unusually soft voice.

  “A paper crane,” Lulu said.

  “I wish you could make a pair of boots.”

  Lulu bent down and touched Serena’s sneakers. They were still damp. “I’ll figure something out,” Lulu said. “The snow’s melted, at least.” She tried to sound happy.

  It had melted but it was still cold outside, and wet, and even Lulu’s feet still felt soggy. What would she do tomorrow if their shoes didn’t dry?

  By the time they left the after-school, Lulu had made nineteen paper cranes. Her fingers were achy. She tucked the cranes carefully inside her backpack so they wouldn’t get crushed. Only nineteen. Nine hundred and eighty-one to go.

  The days were growing short now, so as they walked back to the Suburban the sky was purpling with a thin band of pink in the western horizon. Maybe that meant it would be sunny the next day. Lulu sure hoped so. Serena’s hand felt cold and she realized they needed gloves as well as boots.

  Daddy hadn’t planned for the Montana winter, had he? Lulu wondered if he’d really known. And now she couldn’t ask him because he’d gone missing.

  As they passed Mrs. Rogers’s trailer, the RV park manager stepped out through the door and called to Lulu.

  “Where’s your daddy, honey?”

  Lulu, still walking, answered, “Working a late shift.” She sped up her pace.

  “Next week’s rent is due Monday,” Mrs. Rogers called.

  Lulu waved her hand. Next week’s rent. Twenty dollars. She only had fifteen and change.

  When they’d first arrived in the RV park, Daddy had said Mrs. Rogers “looked the other way” about them living there. But without Daddy and especially without the rent Lulu couldn’t trust that Mrs. Rogers would keep on looking the other way.

  She didn’t glance back to see if Mrs. Rogers was still watching as they made their way to the Suburban.

  By the time they reached the car Serena was sniffling. Lulu bundled them both into the shower, turning the water up hot. The whole time, she thought about smelling nice instead of having “odors,” so she used extra soap from her bottle, even though it was running low. When they got out of the shower, Lulu used the hand dryer to dry their hair—which kept shutting off, of course—and then she held their sneakers under the hand dryer until Serena complained about being hungry.

  Lulu heated some soup on the camp stove, and then tucked Serena into the blankets. She felt Serena’s forehead. It was warm.

  What would she do if Serena got sick?

  Lulu spent most of the night staring at the inside roof of the Suburban, her eyes tracing the curves from the middle of the roof down to the fogged-up windows.

  31

  LULU, YAWNING, started the car the next morning for the first time since their daddy had disappeared. To warm it up inside. Just to be able to get dressed in warmth.

  She knew she couldn’t keep it running for very long because at some point during their trip Daddy had told them that it was unhealthy to sit in a running car without driving. “Fumes,” he said. “They’re like poison, inside a running car when the air outside is cold.”

  Plus, she could see that the gas tank was down to a quarter.

  But, oh, boy, was it nice to have that heater running this morning, and she rested their sneakers right on top of the defroster vent. She even turned on the radio, soft, to help cheer up Serena, who was sneezing a lot. They ate their Pop Tarts to Taylor Swift. Lulu counted two Pop Tarts left from their jumbo box—she’d have to find some other breakfast at the food bank. She boiled some water and made weak coffee out of what Daddy had left. She dug out clean clothes from the duffel to go with her soapy shower smell. It was Friday, after all, and laundry day was Saturday, so she could wear something clean and not worry about having nothing to wear later.

  Wait. It was Friday.

  The day of the tryouts. A small tickle ran through Lulu’s chest and she hummed along to “ME!” hoping to loosen her froggy vocal chords. She wanted so much to feel again the way she felt when she and Jack had practiced.

  While Serena brushed her teeth, Lulu lined up the paper cranes on the Suburban’s still-warm dashboard. They were a riot of color.

  One thousand paper cranes for the wish to come true, as the legend said. One thousand, made within one year. Lulu didn’t have a year. She and Serena needed boots, like, yesterday. She wanted her daddy to reappear, like, right now.

  Nine days now. Nine days missing. Things were getting harder and harder, but she had to stand up and make it all right. So, if she believed that her wish to have him back would come true, she’d have to work fast, making all those paper cranes. Because making those cranes, which were supposed to help make her wish come true, was her only hope.

  The cranes made the Suburban look festive, even from the outside as Lulu locked the car.

  Their sneakers were dry now, and it hadn’t snowed again. In fact, the sun was shining when they left the RV park. Lulu sped past Mrs. Rogers’s trailer as fast as she could, clutching Serena’s warm little hand.

  With the sun and the boost she got from the coffee and the image of those bright cranes and the anticipation of the tryouts and the sudden hope that she could make her wish come true by doing something so, so simple as making paper cranes, Lulu’s heart lifted. She started to hum “ME!” again, and then managed to get Serena to sing it with her, even though Serena sneezed every few minutes.

  By the time Lulu reached her classroom her heart was so light it felt like one of those colorful cranes. In fact, it felt just like the rosy pink crane that Lulu had placed in the very center of the Suburban’s front window.

  32

  THE DAY went either way too fast, or way too slowly.

  The morning crawled. Lulu hadn’t studied for the spelling test but she’d aced it anyway. History was all about the American Revolution, and she knew just enough to squeak through the classroom questions. Math was geometry, and she couldn’t help noticing the triangles, whic
h reminded her of the folds she made in the paper cranes.

  Then suddenly it was lunch and she was sitting across from Jack, whose face was pink with excitement, the same pink as the crane. As her heart.

  “So, I’ve had this idea,” he said, breathless. “What if we both sang?” He shoved a much-crumpled sheet of paper toward her. “What if we alternated the lines, sort of like we were performing it?”

  Lulu turned the paper so she could read it. Jack had detailed the lines, with a J beside some and an L beside the others.

  “Wait,” said Lulu. “You can dance and sing?”

  “Well, I don’t sing like you,” he said, and fiddled with his mac and cheese. “I mean, I can carry a tune. But you’re amazing. But if we both sang, it would be really fun.”

  Lulu’s face went hot. She fiddled with her own mac and cheese. “Sure. That’s a neat idea. But, um, I can’t dance.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got a plan. It’ll be great. I promise.”

  After lunch, the day raced, as Lulu grew more and more nervous. She’d never auditioned for anything before. She’d never thought about auditioning for anything before. She sang in the church choir because her mama did, and nobody had asked her to audition.

  She didn’t know what to expect, except that when the three o’clock bell rang, it was like those paper cranes were flying around inside her stomach.

  Jack had signed them up for a slot at four so they could watch some of the other auditions first. Everyone had ten minutes. Lulu sat with Jack to one side. The three teachers who were judging sat at a table right up front. Mr. Franzen, who taught English but was in charge of the drama program, went on a bit about how the auditions worked and how not to be nervous although it was okay to be nervous (a little laugh) and how there was a role for everyone to play, even if it was tech support (another little laugh), just do your best and break a leg, all of which made Lulu even more nervous.