I squinted through the bright sunlight, and then visored my hand over my eyes. The only thing I could see was Creeper Mountain, which was so close I could actually make out individual leaves on the trees. The inside of my mouth felt cold as the truck sped closer and closer, and my heart beat so loudly I could hear it in my ears. We couldn’t possibly be staying here. It just couldn’t be. There was no way.
Aunt Marianne made a sudden, sharp turn and brought the truck to a stop. “Well, what do you think?”
Russell was leaning up against the window, both hands pressed against the glass. “Cool,” he breathed.
I turned a little to look in his direction. Unless I was mistaken, we were parked in front of Mr. Rawlins’s old horse farm. Dad had taken me here a few times in third grade to look at the horses, but he’d gone a different way, which must have been why I didn’t recognize it until now. He’d made me sit on an old gray mare named Traveler, even though I was scared to death that the animal would turn its head and bite my leg, and we’d strolled the grounds afterward, throwing corn to the chickens and licking ice cream cones. There was the rolling patch of pasture, fenced off by split posts and some heavy wire, which sat just in front of Mr. Rawlins’s small two-story house, with its bare windows and sagging porch.
Except if I remembered correctly, Mr. Rawlins’s house had been light brown.
This house was bright purple.
New white shutters flanked each of the four windows, and the door—which was also white now—had an enormous wreath of dried sunflowers on the front.
Russell edged his way to the rim of the seat. “Where’s Jackson?” he demanded.
Aunt Marianne pointed past an empty henhouse. “Look over by the pear tree, Russell.”
Russell scooched even farther along the seat, the upper half of his body hanging out the window. “Where? I can’t see him!”
I put my hand out, pulling him back gently. “Russell, just hang on. We’ll get him.”
He swatted my hand away. “I can’t see him!” he yelled, kicking the bottom of the dashboard with his feet. “Lemme out! I wanna see Jackson! I need to see Jackson!”
“Russell!” I yelled. “Don’t kick!”
Aunt Marianne looked startled for a moment but then regained her composure. “Hold on, Russell,” she said. “That door sticks on the inside. I have to let you out on my side.”
“Lemme out!” Russell yelled. “Lemmeoutlemmeout!”
Aunt Marianne pushed her side of the truck open and stepped back as Russell scrambled out. Jackson barked as Russell raced toward him, and strained against his leash.
“Jackson!” Russell yelled. “Jackson, I’m here!”
“Go ahead and untie him!” Aunt Marianne called. “Now that we’re back, you can let him run wherever he wants!” We watched as Russell collapsed against his dog and buried his face in the animal’s fur. Jackson licked Russell’s face over and over again until Russell started to laugh. For the first time all day, I could feel something loosen up inside.
Aunt Marianne turned back around. “Boy, it’s a good thing your dad remembered Jackson. Otherwise, I think we would’ve been up the creek without a paddle.”
I nodded, avoiding her eyes. Aunt Marianne was a little too—what was the word?—friendly—for me. It wasn’t that I wanted her to be unfriendly; I just wished she’d slow down a little.
“Your father already brought your things,” she said, slamming the driver’s side door. “Your suitcase is up in your room. Let me show you around downstairs, and then you can go up and get settled. How does that sound?”
I nodded, still keeping my eyes on Russell, who was heading our way. Jackson trotted next to him, licking his hand.
“Why’s your house purple?” Russell yelled. Jackson barked, as if he, too, were demanding an answer. “I’ve never seen a purple house in my whole life! It’s crazy!”
I turned away so that Aunt Marianne wouldn’t see me smile. Dad told me once that part of Russell’s Asperger’s meant that he was missing the stop-and-think-before-you-say-it filter the rest of us have. He didn’t realize he was being rude. It was just the way he was. And as embarrassing as this part of him could be sometimes, it could also be kind of great. Like just then, for instance, when he asked the very first question that popped into my head the minute we drove up to the house—and which I never would have had the guts to ask.
“Why’s our house purple?” Aunt Marianne asked, repeating Russell’s question. “Well, I guess because we like the color purple.” She paused. “And because Silver and I decided recently that we wanted to start living out loud.”
“I like living out loud!” Russell shouted. “I like to live out very loud!” He paused. “What’s living out loud?”
Aunt Marianne grinned. “It means we’re doing things our way, whatever way that might be. You know all the rules that say houses have to be white with green shutters, or that you have to eat dinner at six o’clock every night in the dining room? If Silver and I feel like taking some peanut butter sandwiches out in the field and eating them while the sun goes down at eight o’clock, then that’s what we do. And when Silver said she thought this house would look great in purple, I told her to do it.”
“You let Silver paint the house?” I asked.
Aunt Marianne laughed. “Well, we did it together. But she picked out the color. And frankly, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Purple has been her favorite color since she was in first grade.”
I looked around, dumbstruck. When Dad had worked on our house last year, putting on a new roof and adding more siding, he had never once asked my opinion about any of it. But the thought of him asking me to help had never entered my mind, either. Having to go up on a ladder was dangerous, and everyone knew that if you slipped and hit your finger with a hammer, your nail would turn black and fall off. But now the possibility of being able to choose a color for a family house, and then going ahead and painting it, sent little shivers of glee up and down my spine.
Russell started to pick his nose. “Does Mr. Jones like the purple house?”
I swatted his finger away from his nose. “Russell. Don’t.”
“Well, does he?” Russell asked, examining the finger that had just been inside his nostril. There was a booger on it.
I looked away, mortified.
Aunt Marianne didn’t seem fazed by the booger or the personal question. “Actually, Mr. Jones doesn’t live with us anymore. He stayed back in Florida, where we used to live. Just Silver and I live here.” She paused. “And the horses, of course.”
“You have horses?” Russell and I asked the question simultaneously.
“Two of them,” Aunt Marianne said. “Roo is mine and Manchester belongs to Silver. They used to be Mr. Rawlins’s. But they came with the property when he passed away, and neither of us could imagine not keeping them.” She looked at me. “Do you know how to ride a horse, Wren?”
“Not really.” I paused, remembering how high off the ground I’d been that day when Dad had taken me. Just thinking about it now gave me goose bumps. The horse had looked big from the ground, but sitting on top of him felt as if I was at least three stories up. I’d cried and cried until Dad had taken me off, and then clung to his neck until I stopped shaking. “I sat on one, once,” I offered.
“Well, if you can sit on a horse without falling off, you’re already halfway there,” Aunt Marianne said. “If you want, while you’re here, you can try again.”
I smiled politely and looked at my shoes.
Russell grabbed Jackson’s collar. “Come on, Jackson, let’s go watch Captain Commando.” He looked up at Aunt Marianne. “Do you guys get Captain Commando on your TV?”
“Of course we get Captain Commando,” Aunt Marianne said, pointing to a room through the kitchen. “The TV’s in the living room, Russell. Help yourself.”
“Yesssss!” Russell pumped his fist in the air. “Let’s go, Jackson!”
“Wren?” Aunt Marianne looked back at me. “What ca
n I do for you, honey?”
Maybe it was because Aunt Marianne was being so nice to me, or maybe it was the fact that Russell and Jackson were getting ready to watch Captain Commando—which, before she started spending all her time sitting at the kitchen table, meant that Momma would have been starting dinner soon—but just then, I felt like crying. “I think I’m going to go upstairs for a while and lie down,” I said. “Russell should be okay as long as Jackson’s with him.”
“Of course,” Aunt Marianne said softly. “Let me show you to your room. You rest as long as you’d like. I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”
The bedroom that Aunt Marianne showed me to did not belong to Silver. When I realized I was not going to have to share a room with her, I almost sank to the floor in relief. Now I could get undressed, and do my pencil-spinning and squirrel-checking every morning in private. Plus, what if Russell needed to come in during the middle of the night the way he sometimes did with Momma and Dad at home? I would die if Silver saw Russell climb into bed with me.
I sat down on the bed next to the window and looked around. It was a nice enough room. The bed had a wrought-iron headboard with swirls and curls that met in the middle. It was covered with a blue-and-yellow quilt, and had a matching pillowcase with lace on one end. The floor was hardwood, and except for a little throw rug next to the bed, the rest of it was bare. There was also a dresser with a mirror on top, a closet, and a straight-backed chair next to the window. Aunt Marianne had put my brown-and-red suitcase on the chair.
I lay down on the bed and rolled over so that I was facing the window. Momma’s bird necklace caught against the buttons of my shirt and I reached up, fingering the smooth edges with my thumb. Beyond my curtains, the strange landscape stared out at me. Old Betsy was parked sideways a few feet from the pear tree. At this angle, I could see a bumper sticker on the back, which read FLORIDA GIRLS ROCK!
Past the truck was a small stable with a riding ring behind it. The soft earth in the middle was tamped down with fresh hoofprints. Behind the ring was an enormous pasture filled with tall yellow grass, and beyond that was the base of Creeper Mountain. We were much too close to see any trails of smoke that might have been weaving their way up through the middle of it, but that just meant we were too close, period. Leave it to Aunt Marianne and Silver to buy the only place in Sudbury that afforded them a front-row seat to Witch Weatherly’s personal place of residence. I wouldn’t make a huge fuss right now, of course, what with Momma in the hospital and everything, but as soon as I was able to talk to Dad again, I’d tell him about it—and why we had to go stay with someone else immediately. Until then, I’d spend every waking moment staying as far away from that mountain as I possibly could.
I rolled away from the window and tried to think things all the way through again. When exactly had Dad called Aunt Marianne? Before Russell and I left for school? Or after? Was the answer he had given me this morning about getting Momma back into bed just a lie, or had she really gone in for a check-up? I squeezed my eyes, thinking about what Russell had said in Mr. Pringle’s office about Momma dying. It had sounded ridiculous, but the truth was that I had thought the same thing.
Even before Grandpa William died, I knew that Momma carried a heaviness inside her, something that was always there, like an invisible stone in the middle of her stomach. I could see it when she was doing the dishes after dinner, when she would stop suddenly, and lean her whole weight over the kitchen sink, as if something was pressing down on her shoulders. I could see it when I glanced over at her while the four of us were watching TV, and caught her staring at something else across the room—the bookcase, maybe, or the family portrait on the wall, a million miles away from the rest of us. And a few times I caught her crying while she was sitting in Dad’s big easy chair, or folding laundry on top of her big bed. There was no reason for it; nothing had actually happened. It was just as if the sad heaviness inside had leaked out a little, as if she could not bear to keep it in for one more moment.
But there were plenty of times when the heavy part of her seemed to lessen, like when she told us stories, when Dad or I made her laugh, or when Russell crawled into her lap while she was knitting and fell asleep against her chest. Those moments were the best, when her eyes lost that glossy look and it felt as if all of her was really there—right there—with us.
They just didn’t come around that often.
And now that I thought back, I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been like that at all.
I reached inside my pocket for my pencil. My heart began to slow down a little as I started spinning it across the top of my hand. Some of the tightness inside my chest eased up as I moved it around my thumb and started over again. That’s the thing about pencil spinning. It was more than just a cool trick. It also helped me to stop thinking so much. At least for a little while.
The slam of a door downstairs startled me. I blinked as the edges of the pencil came back into focus, and then shoved it back inside my pocket. I could hear Silver’s voice downstairs.
“So she’s here? Right now?”
“Shhh!” Aunt Marianne said. “Yes. She’s upstairs. I think she’s sleeping.”
“Why didn’t you tell me they were coming?” Silver sounded annoyed. “Geez, Mom.”
“I didn’t have time,” Aunt Marianne answered. “And please keep your voice down.”
“But …” Silver’s exasperation was rising. “Did you even stop to think how awkward this might be? I mean, we barely even know them. Why can’t—”
“You’re being rude, Silver.” Aunt Marianne’s voice was solemn. “Stop it.”
“I’m just saying,” Silver said.
“Well, don’t.” Aunt Marianne sighed. “We’re still family, whether we know them well or not. Besides, it’s not like anyone planned for this to happen, honey. Uncle Bill called me this morning. You were already in school. Russell and Wren didn’t even know anything until a few hours ago, the poor things.”
Silence. And then:
“Is Aunt Greta going to be okay?” Silver sounded less aggravated.
Uncle Bill. Aunt Greta. That was what Silver called Dad and Momma. I stared at the ceiling as Aunt Marianne lowered her voice, and then I sat up, straining to hear her answer. But it was no use. She was speaking too quietly.
I got up off the bed then, walked over to the door, and slammed it as hard as I could.
They could talk about me all they wanted.
But when it came to Momma, well, that was a different story.
Dad had packed several pairs of my jeans, a bunch of my favorite T-shirts, an extra pair of sneakers, and my two best hoodies. He had, however, forgotten a few other very important items. I snatched clothes out of the suitcase, looking frantically for my bras and underwear, but there were none. Zero. Zilch. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to slow my breathing.
The truth is that I’m pretty sure I could get away without wearing a bra to school. If I had to, I mean. It’s not like I have much there yet, and I am so skinny that no one would really notice. But I draw the line at going to school without underpants. Besides being gross, it would also be majorly uncomfortable. But what could I do? It wasn’t like I could go across the hall and ask Silver if I could borrow a pair of her underwear. That was just weird. Plus, she’d probably tell Jeremy about it, which meant that in less than two hours, I’d be dubbed with some horrible nickname like Zit-Pit, which is what he calls Carmela Callahan whenever her face breaks out. Like I wasn’t dealing with enough already. Maybe I could just wash the pair I had on now every night and hide them in the closet to dry. People did that sometimes, didn’t they? As long as they were clean, who would ever know?
I froze as a knock sounded outside my door. “Yes?”
“Let me in!” It was Russell.
My insides relaxed again. “Hey, buddy. You doing okay?” I watched as he strode into the room, walking on the balls of his feet, taking everything in. His eyebrows sat high on
his forehead and his fists were clenched. Jackson trotted in behind him, a purple bandanna tied around his neck.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked.
“This is my room,” I said. “Where’d Jackson get the bandanna?”
“Silver gave it to him.” Russell sat down on the edge of the bed, bounced on it twice.
“She did?”
“Yup. She said her horse has one, too.”
I shuddered at the mention of the horse. “Did she take you to see him yet?”
“I don’t want to see him,” Russell said. “I don’t like horses.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re crazy. And they have big teeth.”
I grinned and put my arm around my little brother. That was one of the reasons I was afraid of horses, too. Big teeth, hooves that could stomp you to pieces, and the ability to move at breathtaking speeds. A bad combination, no matter which way you looked at it. “Listen, how’re you doing? You feeling okay? Do you want to talk about anything?”
“I feel hungry,” Russell said, shrugging my arm off. “When’s dinner? Does that lady know I like pancakes?”
“She’s our aunt, Russell, not some lady.”
“Does she know I like pancakes?” he persisted.
“I don’t know, but if she doesn’t have them, you have to promise you won’t make a fuss.”
“What do you mean, if she doesn’t have them?” Russell frowned. “This is America! Everyone has pancakes!”
I sighed. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Russell bounced up and down again on the side of the bed. “Is this where we’re sleeping?”
“This is where I’m sleeping.” I stood up and took his hand. “Come on, I’ll show you your room. It’s right next …”
“Uh-uh.” Russell hung back. “No way.”
The World From Up Here Page 5