I hope y’all remembered to read this over last night….”
I didn’t. I don’t even remember her telling us to. What else is new?
THREE
Right now I’m in our room with the ceiling that leans in like it’s protecting our beds from the sky. Our room is the best part of the house, but Richard thinks it’s the worst. I suppose I can see his point, because even though it’s only May, it’s hotter than Hades in July and the only window up here has a fan in it that only sucks the air out of the room. When Richard moved in, he stomped up through the house with the boxes from the back of his truck and told us we’d better get on up the stairs with the string that pulls them down from the ceiling. No one’s gonna build our nest for us anymore, he said, so we better start getting used to it. Ever since he called our room the nest, that’s what we call it, too. I didn’t know what was up his sleeve but I went up the stairs first, which is surprising considering how Emma’s normally the brave one. Once we were at the top he pushed the stairs back up—something he still does to this day. Because it’s summer, the hot air in the Nest hits you in the face like the cloud of smelly smoke that shoots out from behind Richard’s truck every time he pulls out from the side of the house. There’s only that one side that you cain’t stand up straight in and that’s where our bed is. Our quilt on the bed we share is patchwork and reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.
The ceiling has a lot of cobwebs and all I can think of is Charlotte and Wilbur in one of my all-time favorite stories about the pig and the spider who get to be friends. I wonder if spiders can really spell like that in their webs. And since these webs are on the high side of the ceiling that’s not where the bed is, I let them stay … until I see a spider dropping down. Emma loves it up here. She knows now that you can’t jump up and down on the bed and it only took her three bruises to figure it out. She likes to put the window fan on and talk into it really slowly, and to tell you the truth I like that, too. At first she wouldn’t go near it because she thought her hair would get pulled off her head, but now she knows to put it in a ponytail and then there’s no risk. She says things like “I hate you, Richard” and “You will die” and “Leave us alone” right into the fan, knowing he cain’t hear a thing because the fan blades chop the air into little pieces and carry her words out and away from the house. I don’t think she cares if he does hear her, anyway, since sometimes, when he lays into Momma real bad, she shouts right into it before it gets itself up to speed.
I can hear Richard right now out in the second-floor hallway and I know it’s only a matter of time before he pushes the stairs up again and locks us in here. Momma hates it when he does this but I don’t mind it anymore. When he pushes the stairs up I know he won’t be bugging me and Emma. He used to do that all the time, but since we’re gonna be moving on and up I think he’s got other things to bug.
Uh-oh. Momma’s calling us. Here’s the problem—if we call out and let her know we’re up here, then she’ll see that the stairs are up. If she sees the stairs are up, then she’ll know Richard was being mean to us. If she sees that Richard’s been mean to us then she’ll lay into him about it and then he’ll start laying into her and it won’t end up like Little House on the Prairie, let me tell you.
“We better not answer her,” Emma says, and I’m thinking that’s a fine idea.
“But then we’ll be stuck up here all day,” I say, and Emma just squinches her shoulders up and then lets them fall back down again and I know it’s settled, whether I like it or not.
I’m tiptoeing over to the stack of books near the fan, which we cain’t turn on since the noise will alert Momma and then it’s all downhill from there, and I’m leafing through this battered old book of stamps from around the world. Someone who lived here before us left it behind, but I don’t think they missed it since they died and that’s how we came to live here. Anyway, I love to look at the different stamps and picture living somewhere really beautiful. Even though I’m old enough to know better, I think the countries are the colors on their stamps. It’s weird in geography class hearing how Finland is such a dark place since its stamp is so bright and colorful.
Uh-oh. Momma’s under the pull-string staircase. I can hear her calling out. I look over at Emma but she’s fallen asleep reading again. Richard must’ve been at her last night. When she sleeps that way during the day I know what’s happened the night before.
There’s that creaking sound the springs make when the stairs are pulled down and I know the day’s not going to end up well for Momma.
“Caroline? You up there with Emma?”
I hurry to the top step so she won’t wake Emma.
“Emma’s asleep,” I hiss to her. “You need something?” I ask real nicely so she’ll forget that Richard’s locked us in again. Maybe then she won’t go near him.
I can tell by the way she eyes the fold-out stairs and by the way she sighs that she doesn’t have the energy to take up for us today, and I’m glad. Well, sort of glad.
“I need you in the kitchen,” she says. “I’ve got to go out for a little while and you need to get everything ready for dinner.”
“Where’re you going?” I ask. “Can I come?”
“It’s none of your business where I’m going and no you cannot,” she says all in one breath. “Now, come on and get moving.”
Usually when Momma calls to me and Emma both that means she’s in a good mood, but I guess that’s not true today. Here’s the reason why she only calls on me most times—she likes me better than Emma. We both know it and so does Momma. She’s even said it out loud. “I don’t care what Emma wants to do, I’m telling you I only want you to go,” she says when we go to someplace fun. Or she’ll ask me for favors, not Emma. This really hurts Emma, even though she doesn’t admit it, because when I do the favor for Momma she’s really nice to me in return. Emma wants to be able to have Momma be that grateful to her, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.
I think Momma doesn’t like Emma because she looks just like Daddy and Momma says some things are best forgotten.
Like the first time Richard called to me from his room. You cain’t make an angry voice into a pretty one, but that’s what Richard is trying to do, I thought to myself at that very moment. Why is he calling me like I’m a little kitten. “Here kitty, kitty,” he calls. Come on up here, he says, like his room’s a fun place to be. “Come here, sweet girl,” he calls.
“Don’t go up there,” Emma says to me with those eyes of hers that know it all even though she’s two years younger than me.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, trying not to look scared, turning the day’s events over and over in my head. I didn’t do anything wrong, I think. Breakfast was my turn and I made the eggs just like he said to, I tell myself at the bottom of the stairs. I know from the sound in his voice it’s a trap. It’s the way you call to one of the chickens when it’s dinner. You don’t chase it, you let it come to you. You call it by trying to sound pretty. Here chicky, chicky.
“Coming,” I answer him.
The stairs feel steep so I hold on to the banister even though I go up and down them a million times a day without even thinking twice about it.
“What’s
