“I don’t like your ten-year-old opinion.”
“The shirt’s nice,” Mom says, “and the color is fine for you, but it has too many buttons. It’ll be a nuisance when you want to try things on. Didn’t I get you one just like that, Sprig?”
Sprig nods. “Mom,” she says, once Dakota goes to change, “do you remember what I told you last night?”
Mom has all her credit cards out on the table and is sorting through them. “What, honey? Ah, here it is, the one I was looking for.”
“Mom.” Sprig’s throat is tight. “Bliss and I had a fight.”
“Oh, right. I’m sorry, honey. Don’t brood over it, okay?” She’s putting all her cards back into her purse now. “I’m sure the two of you will make up.”
“Mom, I’m ready,” Dakota says. She’s changed into a green pullover.
Sprig stands at the window and watches as Mom backs down the driveway. Outside, the sky is gray, and wind whirls the snow up into flurries. Inside, the house is quiet, except for the rumble of the furnace. “Good,” she says out loud. “They’re gone.” But at once she feels lonely and presses her forehead against the cold window.
What now? She could do her vacation homework and get it out of the way. She could clean up her side of her room. She could think about what she’ll wear to Russell’s party tomorrow night. No, none of that.
She goes on the computer and plays solitaire and bores herself. She eats chocolate ice cream out of the carton, and it’s too cold and makes her sinuses ache. She punches in Bliss’s number on the phone, but as soon as she hears the ring, she hangs up. Finally, she puts on her boots and her fleece, crosses the yard, and goes up the stairs to Miss Ruthie’s apartment.
The door is locked. Sprig knocks and calls, “Miss Ruthie, it’s me!”
When Miss Ruthie opens the door, Sprig is shocked to see that she’s still in her old blue bathrobe. She squints at Sprig, almost as if she doesn’t know her. Her gray hair is wild, uncombed. “What’s the matter, Miss Ruthie? Are you sick?”
“I don’t know.” Miss Ruthie’s voice is slurred, like she’s drunk or something. “Sprig …” Her voice falls away. “Come … in.” She sits down abruptly at the kitchen table, pressing her hands slowly to her neck. “I’m a … I’m … dizzy.”
Cora whines and puts her head in Miss Ruthie’s lap. “Oh … don’t,” Miss Ruthie breathes, as if she can hardly get out the words.
“Come here, Cora,” Sprig says. “Miss Ruthie, do you want me to call the doctor?”
Slowly, she shakes her head. “No … no … it’ll pass,” she says, in the same slurred voice. She rises and shuffles unsteadily toward her bedroom, holding on to the wall. She makes it to the side of her bed, then just stands there, swaying.
“You better lie down,” Sprig says anxiously. “Do you want me to cover you up?” She pulls up the quilt, tucking it around the old woman’s shoulders.
“Cora …” Miss Ruthie says, her voice fading. “Foo …” Her eyes close.
“What about Cora, Miss Ruthie?” The old woman doesn’t answer. She’s breathing heavily.
In the kitchen, Sprig sees that both Plucky’s and Cora’s food bowls are in the sink, along with some dishes and pots. “Cora, did you get fed or not?” Sprig takes a can of dog food from the cupboard. At the sound of the can opener, Cora comes over, sits down expectantly, and grins at Sprig.
“Gotcha,” Sprig says. She fills the food bowls and the water bowls, and calls Plucky, who slinks into sight from behind a chest of drawers. While the animals are eating, Sprig punches in Mom’s cell number. What she gets is Mom’s mailbox. “Please leave a message….”
“Mom, Miss Ruthie’s sick. She has a virus or something,” Sprig says. “She really doesn’t feel good, I mean she looks terrible, Mom, and she’s in bed now, and I’m taking care of Cora and Plucky and —” She pauses for breath. “The thing is, she doesn’t want me to call the doctor, but do you think I should call anyway? Who is her doctor, Mom? Do you know? Call me back when you get this message. Miss Ruthie is sleeping, and I don’t want to wake her up. Call me! Okay?”
Cora has eaten all her food and is sitting down near Plucky, who’s still picking at his food. “Go ahead, it’s okay,” Sprig says to the cat. “Cora’s not going to eat your food, even if she is looking at it like that.”
Sprig sits down at the table and tries to think what to do next. She’s sure she shouldn’t leave Miss Ruthie alone, but shouldn’t she do something else? Why isn’t Dad here! He would know what to do. She goes to the bedroom and tiptoes over to the bed. Miss Ruthie is lying there, her mouth open. Her skin is damp and she looks really, really pale.
When Sprig is sick, Mom brings her magazines to read, and lets her lie on the couch and watch TV and eat special food, like baby pear sauce. None of that is any good for Miss Ruthie, so Sprig straightens the newspaper on the table next to her bed, centers the little lamp with its bluebird lampshade, and checks to make sure the window is tightly closed. Miss Ruthie’s black lace-up shoes are in the middle of the floor next to a crumpled pair of slacks, as if she tried to get dressed and couldn’t. Sprig hangs up the slacks and puts the shoes in the closet. Then she tiptoes out.
In the kitchen, she watches Cora and Plucky, who both watch her. Cora plants herself directly in front of Sprig and gazes at her with half-blind eyes. “What?” Sprig says. “You want me to do something else? What, Cora? You want me to wash the dishes? Okay, I’ll do them.”
She runs hot water in the sink and thinks about how she’ll tell Dad this whole story when he calls later. He will call later, won’t he? “He will, he will, he will, he will call,” she says out loud, but quietly. “Yes, he will,” she tells herself again, placing another clean dish carefully in the rack. After she finishes washing the pots, she tiptoes back into the bedroom. Miss Ruthie hasn’t moved. Her breathing is thick and rapid, as if she’s gasping for each breath.
Sprig dials her mother’s cell again, punching the numbers in hard.
“Please leave a message….”
“Mom! Why don’t you have the cell phone on? Why aren’t you answering? Call me!” Nearly an hour has passed since she called the first time. “Mom, hurry up and call me. Please!”
Who else could she ask for advice? Bliss? No. What about Mr. Julius? “That’s a good idea,” she says out loud. She finds the phone book on the bottom shelf of one of the cupboards. She peels away the thin pages, looking for his name. She finds M. Jukes and Patryk July, but no Thomas Julius.
“What do I do now? What do I do now?” She paces back and forth, peeks into the bedroom again, then looks out the kitchen window and across the field, where she saw Thomas Buckthorn skiing away on that other Saturday. If he were here now, she would even ask him what to do.
She cartwheels across the kitchen, just to do something. When she stands up, Cora is gazing at her again. Sprig kisses the dog. “You’re really worried too, aren’t you? Do you want me to call the doctor, Cora? I don’t know her name! I could call 911, but that’s for emergencies.” She looks into Cora’s eyes. “What if it’s just a cold or something ordinary like that, wouldn’t it be stupid of me to call, Cora?”
Sprig sits down on the floor and puts her arms around the dog’s neck. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking what if it’s something really bad, like the Ebola virus, the one that kills you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Cora?”
Cora keeps her blurred gaze on Sprig. Yes, she’s saying, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. Sprig stands, goes to the phone, and punches in the three numbers.
“AND last, on the six o’clock news report, we have a story of a young girl saving the life of one of our senior citizens with her quick thinking,” Bob Engelhard, the evening news anchor, says.
“Oh my god,” Dakota cries. “They’re talking about you, Sprig. Mom! Come in here,” she calls. “Sprig is on the news.”
Mom sits down on the arm of the couch, just as Bob Engelhard turns to Mary Roman, his co
anchor, and says, “Mary, fill us in.”
“It’s a pleasure, Bob. We have so many downbeat stories, but not this one!” Mary looks into the Ewings’ living room. “This afternoon, ten-year-old Grace Ewing had the presence of mind to call in the emergency folks, when her seventy-eight-year-old neighbor, Ruth Levin, became ill.”
“Oh, no,” Sprig says, covering her face. “This is so embarrassing.”
“You’re famous,” Dakota says. “My sister’s famous! Maybe they’re going to show your picture.”
Sure enough, Sprig’s class picture from last year —“I look so young,” she cries — flashes on the screen, followed by a picture of their house, then the garage, and Miss Ruthie’s windows, and the little porch.
“Grace was alone with the elderly woman and had no idea that Ms. Levin was the victim of a stroke,” Mary is saying. Now the camera shows the exterior of Memorial Hospital and then the red EMERGENCY ROOM sign. “Doctor Raymond, a heart specialist, told this reporter that time is of the essence in strokes.” Mary turns to Bob, and he picks up the narrative.
“Mary, had the Ewing girl — she’s only ten years old, isn’t that amazing? — had she not acted so rapidly, Ms. Levin might have been seriously incapacitated for the rest of her life.”
“I know, Bob. There’s got to be some grateful people out there tonight. As it is, her chances for recovery are very good. I was reading something the other day about this being the Me Generation. I don’t think so!”
“I should say not,” Bob says. “And now, let’s look at the weather, Mary….”
“Wow,” Dakota says. “My little sister is a hero.”
Sprig sags against the back of the couch. Everybody says they’re so proud of her: Mom and the doctors at the hospital, and now the six o’clock news. But what Sprig keeps thinking is that she let too much time pass before she called 911. She waited to see if Miss Ruthie felt better, she waited for Mom to call her back, she fiddled around looking for Mr. Julius’s phone number. She waited too long. The moment she saw Miss Ruthie swaying in the door, uncombed, still in her bathrobe, she should have known something was wrong.
They’re all telling her she saved Miss Ruthie from having a lot more damage. Damage. It sounds like a caved-in car, like a house smashed by a hurricane, like Miss Ruthie covered with tubes and wires and so sick they won’t let anyone in to see her for more than a minute.
Later that evening when Dad calls, Mom tells him the whole story — everything, including that Sprig was on the evening news. “Your dad wants to talk to you now, Sprig,” she says.
“Me, first?” Sprig glances at Dakota.
“Go ahead,” Dakota says. “You deserve it. This time,” she adds.
Sprig takes the phone into the other room. “Hi, Dad.”
“Sprig,” Dad says. “I’m so proud of you for your quick thinking.”
“Dads.” Sprig leans in to the phone. “I waited too long to call.”
“Sprig, you saved Miss Ruthie’s life. It could have been a whole lot worse.”
“I guess so,” she says. “But what if there’s damage and it’s my fault because I —”
“Sprig.” His voice deepens. “I want you to listen carefully. I want you to hear this, all the way from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Alliance, New York. You can’t second-guess yourself. Sometimes we only get one chance, and then we live with what we choose to do or not do. What you did was a good thing, and we’re all lucky — Miss Ruthie is very lucky! She’s lucky that you were there. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” Sprig says after a moment. “I hear you, Dad.” And then she asks the question she always asks. “Are you coming home soon?”
And he gives the answer he always gives. “Soon as I can. Soon as my work is done.”
LIGHTS sparkle in every window of the sprawling Ezra-Evans house. Dakota is out of the car almost before Mom stops, but Sprig lingers. “Mom,” she says, “you know what I wish? I wish I’d stayed home. Bliss is going to be here at the party,” she explains.
“Well, honey, there’s only one thing to do. Make up with her,” Mom says, as if there’s nothing to it. “It’s never as hard as you think. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be. I’ll be here at ten to pick you both up,” she adds, as Sprig finally gets out of the car.
Russell’s parents, two tall, smiling people, greet her at the door. Inside, Dakota has already taken off her boots and is putting on her black ballet slippers. She’s wearing black tights and a new glitter tee shirt, and her hair is piled on top of her head. Spurts of music, talk, and laughter pour out of the living room.
Sprig hangs up her jacket in the jammed closet and kicks off her boots, then realizes she forgot to bring her sneakers. “Oh, no! Dakota, what should I do?”
Her sister looks at Sprig’s dog-patterned socks and shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Your socks are cute.”
“Are you sure it’s okay? It doesn’t look too weird?”
“It’s fine!” She gives Sprig a push toward the living room. “Lighten up, this is going to be fun. Do I look okay?” She fingers the tiny silver hoops in her ears.
Sprig nods. “You look —” She’s about to say “beautiful,” but Dakota has spotted Krystee and run off.
The living room is huge, crowded, and hot. A pool table is set up in front of the two long windows, and in the group around it, Sprig sees Bliss and Russell, side-by-side. Big Russell in a white shirt and a red tie, and tiny Bliss in a red blouse and white skirt. What did they do, color-coordinate their clothes? A funny thought, only Sprig isn’t laughing. It’s Russell and Bliss who are laughing, who are having fun together. Who are together. Sprig’s legs quiver, as if she’s outside in the cold, cold air. She is outside. Out in the cold.
Dimly, she remembers the stupid quarrel with Bliss, and then she remembers that other moment when their friendship almost foundered. She’d saved the day that time, and it hadn’t been hard. She’d thrown her arms around Bliss and hugged her. Was that all it would take now to bring her in from the cold?
“’Scuse me.” Sprig pushes through the crowd toward Bliss. She has gone only a few steps, when Bliss turns around, looks across the room, and — what is it they say in the stories Sprig reads? — their eyes lock. Yes, that’s it. Sprig’s eyes and Bliss’s lock. Then Bliss unlocks them. She spins around and says something to Russell that makes him laugh out loud. That big barking-seal laugh of Russell’s — at her? — is like a wind blowing Sprig out of the living room, across the hall, and into another room.
“Close the door,” someone calls to her. A group of kids are clustered near the fireplace. They’re chanting and counting. “Go, go, go … thirty-three … thirty-four … go, go, go … thirty-five … thirty-six …” Sprig moves closer and sees Thomas Buckthorn in the center of the group, kissing a girl Sprig recognizes as Amanda Griggs. Amanda is one of Dakota’s classmates, and she’s kissing Thomas back with unmistakable enthusiasm. If only Sprig had the nerve to say what she’s thinking! Stop that, Thomas Buckthorn. Stop that right now. You kissed my sister. You’re supposed to be her boyfriend.
“… forty-six … forty-seven …”
“Go for a minute,” somebody urges. “Break the record.” But a moment later, Amanda pulls away from Thomas, fanning her face. Thomas grins and pretends to stagger.
“Girl number six for fifty-one seconds,” a boy cries out like a sports announcer. “Who’s going to be the lucky number seven? Who’s going to go for the minute record?” His eyes land on Sprig. “Hey, cute little socks girl, come on over here and try your luck.”
“No, thanks,” Sprig says, backing away. “Seven isn’t my lucky number.”
She hears the laughter as she ducks into yet another room, where food is featured, two long tables full of food. She quickly eats five tiny hot dogs, each one impaled with a colored toothpick, and drinks two glasses of punch. Now she’s calmer. Food is always calming.
“Whew,” she says softly, and puts a handful of chocolate kisses in her pocket for
later.
Someone hip-bumps her. It’s Russell. “You like chocolate kisses?” he asks.
“I’m not stealing them,” she says.
“I like chocolate … kisses too.” He smirks.
Oh, what is it with boys tonight? “I like anything chocolate,” Sprig says, pretending she doesn’t notice the smirk. “I never saw you wearing a tie before.”
“Do you like it?”
She surveys him. “It looks good. And you got your hair cut too.”
Russell puts his hand on his head. “My dad took the clippers to me. He says he always wanted to be a barber, not a lawyer. Maybe I’ll wear the tie to school,” he adds.
“I didn’t say it looked that good,” Sprig says. “So, how many rooms are there in this house, anyway?”
“Counting bathrooms … lemme see … fourteen.”
“That’s a lot,” she says.
“Uh-huh. You want to see the upstairs?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“Are you having a good time?” he asks, leading the way up the wide winding staircase.
“Uh, sure,” she says. “I guess so.”
He stops on the landing halfway up, and Sprig sits down on the window seat below the triangular stained-glass window. If she lived in this house, this would be where she’d come to read and daydream. “I like your house. This window is cool.”
“My dad calls this house The Barn.”
“That’s funny, it’s nothing like a barn.”
“Except it’s big.”
“But so are you all,” she says.
“Yeah, supersize.” He sits down next to her. “That’s what you call me, isn’t it?”
Sprig’s face heats up. “Maybe. Sometimes.”
“I don’t care. Like my dad says, people are going to say things, and if you care or don’t care, it doesn’t mean anything to them, so you might as well not care.”
“That makes sense,” Sprig says.
“My dad’s got a really responsible job. I mean, not to boast or anything, but he’s sort of important and, still, people he doesn’t even know will come right up to him and ask, ‘How’s the air up there?’ and stupid things like that.”
Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear Page 6