The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [46]
“Cool,” I said, mostly about the family movie. We hadn’t watched one in months. Pa never liked the ones Ma let us kids watch, and he’d get all ornery if we cut into his time with the remote control, so we just gave up and did other things.
While Ma pulled the garlic bread out of the oven, Barbie reached the plates down from the cupboard and handed them to me. I set them on the table without bribery or blackmail.
Now Ma looked at me suspiciously. Or maybe it was just concern. “Hey, Seb, how’s that stomachache of yours? I was thinking, maybe we should take you to the walk-in clinic in Exton tomorrow. They’re open Sundays, and they take the government insurance for kids. Grum says if there’s a big copay, we can sell some cuckoo clocks.”
“That’s right, we can,” Grum chimed her agreement. She had just made herself comfortable on the couch with her feet up on Pa’s pillow and was channel surfing the home shopping stations. “Some things are more important than keepsakes. On Monday we’ll ride to Exton to sell them and stop on the way home to get Sebby some good sneakers.”
I was really touched. “Thanks, Grum, but you don’t have to sell any clocks. Well, maybe one, for sneakers, if you really want to, but not for doctor bills because guess what? My cookie dough came up a few minutes ago!” I announced this with a flourish of the forks I was setting on the table. “Ma, I hope you made a lot of food.”
It was typical Saturday night spaghetti, Ma style. She’d boiled the noodles to death and burned the sauce. The meat-balls were tiny hard lumps of beef that made my molars ache, with so many chunky onions in them that I started burping before I was even done eating. Best meal of my life.
After we got done cleaning up, it was already getting dark outside. Barbie and I grabbed our sweatshirts and headed for the door to rescue Barney’s harem and block off the tunnel.
“Where do you two think you’re going at this hour?” said Ma, squatting in front of the DVD player. “Don’t you want to watch the movie?”
Me and Barbie winced at each other. The disappointment in Ma’s voice was painful to hear. My stomach swam with a feeling I knew well, guilt.
“Of course we want to, Ma,” said Barbie. “We just forgot you had a movie, that’s all.”
“That’s right. We can . . . play outside tomorrow,” I said more to Barbie than to Ma.
“Kids don’t play outside like they used to,” Grum said.
She sat with her string in her rocker while Barbie and I cuddled with Ma on the couch. I felt warm and safe and, for the first time in a long time, like everything was going to be all right.
And then, when the movie was almost over, the phone rang. I felt Ma stiffen as we waited, hoping not to hear another ring so we’d know it was Jed, letting us know he was okay.
It rang again, and a third time. Who could be calling at this hour? A call this late could never be good.
“Sebby, will you get that?” Ma said, since I was on the kitchen side of the cuddle.
I didn’t want to get the phone. I was afraid it would be Pa calling to ruin the good mood everyone was in. But Ma asked me to, so I answered it, cautiously. “Hello?”
“Sebby, good, it’s you. Listen, I don’t have much time. Don’t let anyone else know it’s me.”
It was Jed! “What’s wrong?” I whispered into the phone. Something in his voice made me picture him looking over his shoulder, but I couldn’t imagine what he was afraid of seeing. I looked over my shoulder into the living room. They had paused the movie and the three of them were talking about something that had just happened.
“Things have gone too far,” Jed said. “As long as you have that cookie dough in you, you can’t stay home. Get off the property or who knows . . .”
“But—”
“Look, I can’t explain. Just do as I say.” And click. He hung up.
“Who was it?” Ma asked.
“Oh, just a courtesy call.” I smiled to myself. That should do it.
“How rude!” said Grum. “Up is down and war is peace, too. Those telemarketers . . .”
That night I was so tired, I don’t even remember going upstairs. I just remember waking up in the dark not knowing where I was, with