The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [12]
“Marigold and Goldenrod are well disposed,” said Cluster, handing me the goat cheese in a recycled tofu container. “Thank you for asking. They sent Blue Moon and myself for the eggs because they’re . . . busy.”
“Busy doing what?” I said. It didn’t occur to me that I shouldn’t have, until all eyes in the room laser beamed holes in my head. The mouths opened to spit fire at me too. I threw up my hands and yelled, “Sheesh, sorry!”
At that Blue Moon woke up and howled. Cluster forgave me with a nod, gave her regrets to Barbie on the card game, and took off like dandelion fluff in a high wind. We heard Blue Moon until his wails faded with distance.
“What do you suppose is ailing that baby?” said Grum. “It couldn’t be colic, could it? His mother is so careful about her diet.”
“Don’t you mean about his diet?” Pa said.
“No, Marigold breast-feeds,” Ma said. Pa turned red and cranked up the TV volume.
“The baby must be teething, then,” said Grum.
“Like Sebby,” Barbie threw in, getting quite the laugh out of all except the one person who was glaring. Which was me.
I know this may seem entirely coincidental, but at that very moment a bunch of little knives stabbed inside my stomach. It was all I could do not to wail like Blue Moon.
“You think it’s funny to have four toothaches and all kinds of growing pains and a bunch of little knives stabbing in your stomach?” I doubled over with the cramps and started to cry. That was proof of my sincere misery. I can’t fake cry, and to be honest I would never even want to.
Ma got up from the sewing machine and came running to my side. She soothed me and forced the pink chalk medicine down my throat and tucked me in to bed. To help me sleep I held a pebble in my hand next to my cheek, the smooth greenish oval with dark specks that I’d found on the beach once when the whole family went camping at Lake Exton—fishing, swimming, playing Crazy Eights half the night under the gas lantern with bugs flying around it. Those were days to remember.
4
Friday morning instead of her typical “Up’n at ’em, Seb, chickens waiting, don’t forget to close the doors,” Ma’s first words to me were, “Honey, are you all right? Do you need to stay home in bed today? Grum will nurse you.”
When she put it that way, the aches and pains in my body hardly made me want to wail at all. I could live with them. Because my chances of having an okay day were way better out of bed than in it with Grum on guard and Pa in control of the remote. He watches too many horror movies. Besides, I just remembered I’d never hunted down those chickens that Jed’s Stupid Cat had let out. Ma would kill me surer than my mysterious debilitating illness if she did my chores and found out how I’d slacked off.
If it hadn’t been pouring rain I would have hunted down every last chicken that morning. I did glance around the yard as I ran to the henhouse, but I didn’t see any signs of hens on the loose. Barney and his harem were in the same state as the day before, and I found barely a dozen eggs.
At breakfast Grum said I’d grown another inch since yesterday and no wonder I felt so achy. Barbie stood back-to-back with me to compare heights, then turned around and glared. I’d caught up with her!
“Don’t worry, Shish, you’ll always have browner eyes and better grades than me,” I said. “And longer fingernails. What does it matter if I get taller?”
“I haven’t grown one bit since we got our school clothes this year, Seb. I don’t care if you’re taller than I am. I want to be taller than I am!” At that she ran up the stairs crying.
“Your sister has growing pains too,” Grum said, nodding wisely.
Now that I thought about it, half the girls and a few of the boys in sixth grade had outgrown Barbie this year. Now she was just average. Did being tall mean that much to her? Now I felt bad for her, but I didn’t know what to say, so I ate more cereal.
Ma sent a note to school about my not feeling too good last night, so Ms. Byron didn’t keep me after for detention even though I forgot to get my homework signed and Spiderman didn’t get it