Hush-a-Bye

by Jody Lee Mott

  Antonia grumbled a little, but she didn’t argue. At least she knew better than to pick a fight with Mom right then and ruin her chance to go completely. That meant I didn’t have to think about it for a while either, which was fine by me. Unlike Mom, I wasn’t surprised someone asked her to the dance. Despite the duckling barrette, Antonia was a pretty girl. It was just a matter of time before some boy noticed. I just wished it was someone better than Gus.

  The rest of dinner went quiet, except for Antonia’s open-mouthed chewing. She finished first, like always, and scooted to our room. I followed after helping Mom with the dishes.

  When I opened our bedroom door, the room was empty.

  “Antonia?”

  After I closed the door behind me, I heard murmuring drifting over from the closet. Was Antonia talking to the doll in there again? She’d spoken to it behind the closet door every day since we found it, which was strange even for her. I could never hear what she was saying, though, and I got curious. What do you talk about to a broken doll’s head anyway?

  I snuck up closer and pressed my ear against the closet door. The murmuring stopped.

  “Antonia?” I said.

  The door slid open. Antonia was wedged in the little chair with Hush-a-bye set in front of her and stuck back on the cardboard box.

  The head looked different somehow. Not just the new eye. Her face had fewer scratches than before, and her chipped-up nose was more filled in. Even her blond hair seemed thicker and curlier. I figured Antonia must have been working hard to spruce her up, but something about the changes still unsettled me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Antonia shrugged. “Just talking to Hush-a-bye. Why?”

  “No reason.” Whatever. I jerked my chin at Hush-a-bye. “How does she like living in the closet?”

  “She’s tired of being stuck on a box,” Antonia said. “Tomorrow we’re going to look for her body.”

  I laughed. “Her body probably floated out to the ocean and was eaten by a tiger shark. Are you going shark-hunting?”

  Antonia glared at me. “Wait and see. You won’t be laughing tomorrow.” She slammed the closet door closed. The murmuring started up again.

  I stood there staring at the door. Antonia could be so touchy sometimes. I had half a mind to open the closet, grab the doll’s head, and toss it in the trash can behind our trailer. Instead, I pressed my ear against the door again and listened.

  Antonia’s voice was muffled. I put my finger in my other ear to hear better, but it didn’t help. Then my knee bumped against the door.

  Antonia’s voice stopped. I didn’t want Antonia to think I was spying on her, so I didn’t move a muscle.

  A few seconds passed. Still nothing but silence. My knees started to cramp, so I decided to give up and shuffle away as quiet as possible. I moved one foot back, and a thick whisper came through the door.

  “Good night, Lucy, sleep tight.”

  I backed away from the door, no longer trying to be careful, and banged into the side of Antonia’s bed. I crawled over it into my own bed and burrowed under my covers.

  As I lay there, I thought about the whisper I’d heard and played it back over and over in my head.

  Good night, Lucy, sleep tight.

  It was an oven under all those blankets, but I couldn’t stop shaking. The whisper from the closet was garbled and thick, like someone trying to talk through a mouthful of mud.

  But more than that, the voice I’d heard wasn’t Antonia’s.

  9

  I’D BARELY WOKEN up when Antonia pulled my leg so hard I slipped from under my covers and fell on the floor.

  “Ow!” I glared at her, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy tugging on her rain boots.

  “Come on already.” She screwed up her face as she tried to squeeze her size-six foot into a size-four pink boot. The boots were cracked around the soles and not a bit waterproof, but they were a Christmas present from two years ago.

  She only wore them on whatever she considered a special occasion—anything from Fourth of July fireworks to Mom bringing home a half pint of real imitation maple syrup for weeknight pancakes. I knew something was up if she was willing to suffer pinched toes.

  “What do you mean, ‘come on’? It’s Saturday morning.” I struggled to my feet and stood over her with my arms folded, trying to look serious. “I’m hungry. The only place I want to ‘come on’ to is breakfast.”

  “We’ll eat after.” Her foot slipped into the boot with a loud pop.

  “I’m hungry now,” I said. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

  Antonia patted a lumpy towel I’d just noticed was lying next to her. “No, it can’t. She can’t breathe too good in there.”

  It wouldn’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to figure what was hiding in the towel. I pretended not to care. I’d already decided Antonia had been fooling with me the night before by disguising her voice. Still, the thought of Hush-a-bye being so close made me jittery.

  “So what’s today?” I asked, staring at the lump under the towel like I was waiting for it to answer.

  “You’ll see.” Antonia giggled. “Big surprise.”

  I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and followed Antonia out of our room. I didn’t like it when she played games with secret rules, but I was too tired to argue.

  Mom sat hunched on the couch, a steaming mug of instant coffee cradled in both hands. She looked pale and bleary-eyed, like she usually did first thing in the morning. I knew if I spoke fast enough she wouldn’t ask too many questions. Antonia had Hush-a-bye towel-wrapped and tucked under one arm.

  “Morning, Mom,” I said. She nodded weakly. “Antonia found this stale loaf of bread in the road and she brought it in, but I’m going to have her take it outside and break it up and feed the birds and then we’ll be right back, okay?”

  Mom nodded again. “M’kay, Peppernose,” she mumbled. I don’t think she’d heard half of what I’d said. I prodded Antonia in the ribs and mouthed, Let’s go. She nodded, grinning so hard it made my teeth hurt.

  Once outside, Antonia jogged toward the ginkgo tree again. She stopped under it and peered up through the branches.

  “Is this all we’re out here for?” I was beginning to feel exasperated with Antonia’s games. “I told you, it’s too early for the leaves to come down.”

  “Just a second,” she said. “I thought I saw one wiggling yesterday.” She opened up the towel a little to expose Hush-a-bye’s face. “What do think, Hush-a-bye? You think it’s time?”

  We both glanced at Hush-a-bye like we were expecting her to answer. But her unblinking eyes didn’t give any clue what she was thinking about. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the idea that she was thinking anything at all, and craned my neck upward.

  The undersides of the ginkgo leaves were pale green against the sky. They didn’t look like they were in a hurry to go anywhere any time soon.

  “See? Nothing happening today,” I said.

  “See? Nothing happening today,” a high-pitched, mocking voice said.

  Icy fingers, cold as February, dug their claws into my sides. I managed to turn my head far enough to see Gus Albero and his friend Zoogie straddling their dirt bikes on my street.

  I knew they liked to roam about on their bikes looking for trouble, but I’d never seen them around the trailer park before. I wasn’t ready for them. Not here, not now. I wanted to fly down the path behind our trailer, dive right into the water, and dig a tunnel deep under the island.

  Zoogie pointed at me with a long, dirty finger. “How about that, Gus?” he said, snickering in his usual weaselly way. “It talks.”

  The two boys had me trapped. There was nowhere I could disappear to, not with Antonia standing right next to me. My feet felt like they’d been spiked to the ground, and the icy fingers squeezed my brain and mad
e everything look hazy.

  “What’s that?” Zoogie said, putting a hand to his ear. “Did you say something else?” One thing I knew about Zoogie—if he thought a joke was funny, then repeating it twenty times was hilarious. And me being a silent weirdo was apparently as funny as it got.

  “Hi, Gus,” Antonia said, oblivious to Zoogie’s mocking. She’d hid Hush-a-bye behind her back and rocked on her heels with a big, goofy grin splashed all over her face.

  “How about that?” Zoogie said. “The other one talks.”

  “Of course I can talk,” Antonia said. “But I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Gus jerked his head over his shoulder. “Come on, Zoogie. Let’s go.”

  “What are you doing here?” Antonia asked. Gus only gave a microscopic nod in her direction. His eyes quickly darted over to Zoogie to see if even that was noticed.

  It suddenly dawned on me that Zoogie was the only one enjoying his jokes. Gus was red-faced and staring at his handlebars. Maybe Gus hadn’t realized we lived here, and he didn’t want to be stuck in this spot any more than I did.

  Antonia had been going on about Gus and the Halloween dance the night before. I’d thought she was making it up in her head. But the way Gus looked like he wanted to stick his head in the ground, it was clear she’d been telling the truth. It was also pretty clear Gus didn’t want Zoogie to know anything about it.

  Antonia picked up on none of this. She was all misty-eyed and beaming and practically floating two feet off the ground.

  “You still going to the Halloween dance?” she asked like someone who thought she already knew the answer.

  My brain screamed for Antonia to stop talking, for Gus to grab his stupid friend and ride off on their bikes, or for the river to rise up and crash down on all of us. It screamed and screamed inside my head until I thought my skull was going to split open.

  This was going to end badly, I just knew it. But my mouth stayed clamped shut. A six-foot crowbar couldn’t pry it open.

  Gus just sat like a lump on his bike, squeezing his hand brakes.

  “The Halloween dance?” Zoogie asked. His eyes darted from Antonia to Gus with some confusion.

  “I said I wasn’t talking to you.” Antonia gave Zoogie a quick scowl before replacing it with her for Gus’s eyes only grin. “I’m sure my mom will let me go. It’s going to be wicked fun. I hear they’re going to decorate the gym with black streamers and real pumpkins and lots of Halloween stuff. Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

  The light finally blinked on in Zoogie’s face. He bounced on his seat and howled with laughter.

  Don’t, don’t, please don’t, I begged in my head. It didn’t make any difference.

  “Gus!” Zoogie squawked. “You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend!”

  “Shut up,” Gus muttered.

  Zoogie kept laughing but in a forced, fake way.

  Antonia’s grin disappeared. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  Gus tried rolling his bike back, but Zoogie grabbed his handlebar and dragged him forward.

  “You going to tell me what’s so funny, or are you going to keep laughing like a hyena?” Antonia let her arms drop to her sides. One hand still gripped the towel-wrapped head while the other flexed in and out of a fist.

  Zoogie snorted. “Maybe I’ll keep laughing. What are you holding there?”

  Antonia looked down at the bundle in her hand, then quickly pressed it to her chest and folded her arms across it.

  “Nothing,” she said. “None of your business.”

  “Maybe I’ll make it my business,” Zoogie said with a sneer. He started to roll the bike toward us.

  Gus shot out an arm and grabbed his wrist. “Knock it off, Zoogie. Let’s get out of here.”

  Zoogie glared at Gus, and then a nasty grin spread across his face. “You protecting your precious girlfriend? That’s so sweet.”

  “Shut up,” Gus said.

  “Yeah, shut up,” Antonia said.

  “Aw,” Zoogie cooed. “That’s too adorable. I bet they crown you king and queen of the dance.”

  “So what if they do crown us?” Antonia said. “What’s it to you?”

  Gus’s face turned bright red. I could feel what was coming next, how bad it would be. I wanted to step in front of Antonia to protect her, or cinch her to my side and spin the two of us deep underground.

  But I didn’t. I didn’t do anything at all.

  Gus slammed his fist against his bike’s front reflector, bending it. “Will you stop?” he shouted, his face twisted and ugly. “I’m not taking you to any dance. I never said that. So stop. Just stop.”

  Antonia stood there with her mouth slightly open, staring ahead like she was trying to find something halfway around the world.

  “What?” she said in a thin voice.

  “You heard me.” Gus straightened his reflector and tried not look at her. Zoogie snickered.

  “But—”

  “Are you stupid or something?” Zoogie said, slapping his palm against his forehead. “He’s not taking you to any dance. What makes you think he’d ask some river rat like you?”

  “I’m leaving,” Gus said, and turned his bike around.

  Zoogie grinned and wiggled his fingers at us. “So long, Queen Ratso,” he said, and joined Gus.

  I watched Antonia, waiting for her to scream or cry or pick up the largest rock she could find and chuck it at those two idiots. But all she did was bury her face against the towel bundle and pull at her baby-duck barrette. My heart crumbled.

  With the boys going, my feet finally unglued from the ground. I shuffled closer to Antonia. Better late than never, I figured, even though I had no idea what to say to her.

  As I got nearer, it looked like she was chewing on the towel, which wasn’t a good sign. Soon enough she’d start on her nails until they were a ragged mess. She and Mom were both fingernail worriers, and it was a wonder they had any nails left between the two of them. But a closer look showed me she wasn’t chewing anything.

  She was whispering to Hush-a-bye.

  10

  I COULDN’T HEAR the words Antonia was saying to Hush-a-bye, but from the way her wet, red-rimmed eyes were glaring, I could guess. And for some reason, it scared me.

  “Antonia, don’t—”

  Before I could get out the words I knew wouldn’t do any good, something drew my attention.

  Gus and Zoogie were about a hundred feet up the road, facing away from us on their dirt bikes. Their hands gripped their handlebars, and their feet were planted flat on their bike pedals. The strange thing, though, was they weren’t moving at all. Their bikes stood upright, perfectly motionless, pinned there like dead bugs on a display board.

  The stillness didn’t last long. The boys’ heads and elbows and shoulders started jerking back and forth. First they jerked just a little, and then their movements grew more frantic.

  “My pedals are stuck,” Gus said. “Give me a hand, Zoogie.”

  “I—I can’t,” Zoogie said. “My hands won’t let go.”

  Gus bounced up and down on his seat like a piston. Zoogie arched his back as if he was trying to lift his whole body in the air. Their hands and feet remained rooted to the bike.

  “Somebody put glue on this or something!” Zoogie screamed. He turned his head back as far as he could and bared his teeth at us. “You stupid rat! What did you do?”

  Antonia lifted her head from the bundle. “Go ahead and leave.” Her voice trembled. “No one’s stopping you.”

  “When I get my hands on—” Zoogie’s voice suddenly cut off. The bike wheels had started rolling.

  The boys’ feet moved with the pedals, but in a strange, uneven way, like some invisible hand was forcing them up and down. The two dirt bikes rolled forward a foot, then circled about slowly, so slowly the bikes should have fallen
over. But they didn’t.

  I stood there shaking. I’d expected the boys to be furious, but their faces were ghost white. Whatever anger they’d stewed in before had been replaced by a feeling that something very bad was about to happen.

  “Gus, what’s going on?” Zoogie said, all the smirk gone from his voice.

  Gus just shook his head back and forth, blinking his eyes rapidly like someone trying to wake from a terrible dream. Their wheels spun a little faster, and the bikes rolled down the road toward Antonia and me. I ran and took hold of her shoulders.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered.

  Antonia didn’t budge.

  “They’re going to run us over,” I said a little louder, and tried to pull her away.

  She shrugged away my grip and planted her feet. “Wait and see.”

  The bikes were picking up speed. The spokes were spinning so fast they were a blur. The bike wheels smoked, shooting pebbles left and right. They were heading straight in our direction.

  Gus bent his head forward and closed his eyes. Zoogie opened his mouth wide. Nothing came out except a strangled whimper.

  I wrapped my arms around Antonia as the bikes barreled down on us. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for being such a useless big sister. I wanted to say I should have stood up for her, told those boys to suck eggs or go find the toilet they’d flushed their brains down, told them anything to show them no one could speak to my sister the way they did.

  But I didn’t say anything. Not one word.

  The bikes were so close now I could practically see the little red veins in Zoogie’s bulging eyes. I held Antonia tight.

  Just as I braced for impact, the two bikes veered off to the side. A rush of air breezed over us as they zoomed past. I felt a thud in my chest when my heart started beating again.

  Antonia didn’t even flinch.

  I twisted around and watched as Gus and Zoogie sped around our trailer, crashed past the winterberry bushes, and rocketed down the path to the river. Antonia grabbed my hand and yanked me in their direction.