I had to make things right, or at least I had to try. That was the plan, anyway. It was a horrible plan, for sure, but it was the only plan I had.
22
“HERE WE ARE,” the bus driver said. “Two houses down on your right. The big yellow house. You can’t miss it.”
I stepped off the bus and opened the umbrella, silently thanking Mr. Capp for the gift. The rain was coming down so hard I probably would have drowned before I made it past the first house.
The downpour was hard to see through, but I could still tell this neighborhood was nothing like mine. These people had money. I felt like the windows of every house looked down on me, whispering nasty comments about my dirty sneakers and cheap clothes. Even the sidewalks looked more expensive than the cracked slabs near the trailer park.
It was worse when I opened the gate to Madison’s house—except it wasn’t really a house. It was a mansion, like something out of the movies. Tall Greek columns, neatly trimmed hedges, and an expensive-looking car waiting in the long driveway to take Madison and her family places I wasn’t welcome. The plan was already crumbling in my brain.
My shoulders slumped, and I plodded my way to the front door. Despite the heavy rain, I stood for several minutes on the stoop, waiting for lightning to strike me. It didn’t, so I rang the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately. I pulled the umbrella down over my face.
“Oh my, come in, come in,” a man’s voice said on the other side of the umbrella. “Lord love a duck, look at all that rain!”
I closed up the umbrella while I was still outside, forgetting about the downpour, and I was instantly drenched. A large hand took hold of my elbow and led me in.
“My word, you’ll catch your death of cold standing out there,” the man’s voice said. He spoke with a slow drawl, and it gave his words a strange and wonderful kind of music. I wiped the rain out of my eyes and stared.
The man had a close-trimmed gray beard, and he wore a dark blue suit. His eyes were light amber, bright and warm. He smiled at me—a Mr. Capp kind of smile.
“I’m guessing you must be Lucy Bloom,” the man said as he shook out my umbrella. “I’m Dr. Underwood, Maddie’s dad. The school office called and told me you’d be coming over with her homework. As luck would have it, my root canal canceled this afternoon, so I was able to get home in time to let you in.”
I handed over the now-soggy homework folder. Dr. Underwood held it by a corner. He pursed his lips as it dripped, then set it on a marble side table. “I’m sure it’ll dry out in no time. That was awful kind of you to bring it, especially on such a nasty day. Can I get you a towel? How about some cocoa?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine, thank you. Would . . . would it be okay if I talked to Madison, uh, Maddie?”
Dr. Underwood stroked his beard and nodded. “I get it. You’re worried about her. It’s been a hard week for all of us with Maddie’s, um, condition, and my wife up half the night with the baby.”
“The baby?” I had no idea Madison had a new sibling. She’d never mentioned it to either one of the Oslo twins during those times she wasn’t talking about me.
“Oh yeah,” Dr. Underwood said. “Little bugger’s had a bad case of colic lately. We’ve tried walking him and rubbing his back and a whole bunch of other things. None of it seems to do any good.” He sighed and shook his head, then laughed. “But here I am yapping away about my problems. Let me take you on up to Maddie’s room. I’m sure she’d be happy as a clam to see a friendly face from school.”
Dr. Underwood led me up a staircase with a banister that looked too polished to touch. I hoped he couldn’t hear the rumbling in my stomach or the blood pounding in my ears. He’d been so pleasant—so un-Madison-like. It was obvious he had no idea his daughter might not exactly consider me a “friendly face.”
For all I knew, she might take one look at me and start screaming for her father to boot out the Trash Licker who’d nearly killed her. Or maybe she’d just point at me and laugh while I stood there like a statue and took it. Or worse yet—what if Ashley and Gretta were already in there, ready to gang up on me?
We reached the landing, and my mind raced. What am I doing here? What do I hope to accomplish? I hadn’t given any thought to what I might say like I had with Mr. Capp. With every step, I grew more and more certain this plan to get the sash was doomed to failure. Everyone would be better off if I ran away and forgot all about it.
But before I knew it, we were standing in front of Madison’s bedroom door. Dr. Underwood laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll be back in about ten minutes,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t want to overdo it right now. She’s doing better, but the first couple of days after her . . . collapse . . . were pretty hard.”
I nodded, digging my nails in my palm. Dr. Underwood smiled and opened the door.
If the house was like something out of the movies, Madison’s room was like something you’d see in a teen fashion magazine. Pastel curtains and matching wallpaper, a glass desk with an enormous laptop, another table with a wide mirror and enough product to open a salon, a flat-screen TV hung from the wall like a picture frame, and an enormous frilly bed with more pillows and plush cats than any three people might need.
In the middle of the bed lay Madison, shooting me a stare that would have frozen Mount Vesuvius.
“Maddie-kins?” Dr. Underwood said. “Look who’s come out to visit you on such a rainy day.” Dr. Underwood stood there looking back and forth between me and Madison. Neither of us said a word.
“Okay, then,” Dr. Underwood said with a chuckle. “You can’t have any of your girl talk with an old man like me puttering around. Lucy won’t be able to stay for too long, though, Maddie. I’ll be back to shoo her out in a few minutes.”
He smiled again, completely unaware of the arctic frost covering every inch of the room, and closed the door.
The silence stretched between me and Madison. She wore no makeup, and her hair looked a little squashed against her head, like she’d just woke up. All she wore were sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt.
I’d never seen her so un–put together. She looked smaller somehow, like she’d shed a skin or two. Then again, even like that, she was still prettier than I could ever hope to be.
At the same time, seeing her looking so alone in her huge bed, like a raft adrift in the ocean, my nervousness dissolved a little bit. She didn’t seem as scary as she used to—she was just another girl.
I took a step toward the bed. Madison stiffened, so I stopped.
I still didn’t know what to say to her, any more than I knew if she planning to leap off the bed at any moment and scratch my eyes out, but I decided to start talking anyway. I hoped either something would come to me, or at the very least she wouldn’t go for the eyes first. “I like your room,” I said. “It’s bigger than the one me and Antonia share.”
“Antonia?” Madison mumbled.
“My little sister. She sits with me on the bus.”
Madison nodded, but I couldn’t tell if she was listening. Her eyes darted all over the room, looking everywhere except at me. I plowed ahead anyway.
“Your dad said you have a little baby brother now.”
“Thomas.” Madison frowned at the name. “He’s always crying.”
While I was talking I’d been inching closer to the bed without really thinking about it. Madison didn’t seem to notice or care. She just twirled a strand of hair around her finger while her eyes buzzed about the room. But then I tripped over a shoe and stumbled against the bed.
Madison gave a little shriek and shrank back. “What are you doing here? What do you want?” she asked, like she’d suddenly noticed I was in her room. She pulled the comforter tight against her body. I stepped back, a little stunned. Then I took in a breath and let it out slow.
“I need the red sash you took,” I said
. “The one tied around the doll’s dress. It’s important to me.”
Madison stared at me like I was speaking gibberish, and then understanding slowly crept into her eyes and she blushed.
“Oh, right.” She let go of the comforter and slid off the far side of the bed. I’d been worried she might deny she’d taken it in the first place, but I supposed all the fight had been drained out of her, at least for the moment. At her dresser, she opened a jewelry box studded with what looked like gumdrops and pulled out the sash, holding it gingerly between her thumb and finger like it was a worm.
She walked over to me, doing her best not to look me in the eyes, and dropped it in my open palm. “I don’t know why I took it.” She quickly scuttled away back to the center of her bed. “I’m . . . I’m . . .”
Sorry is the word you’re searching for, I thought to myself, but bit my tongue. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, poking the sash in my pocket. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” Madison chewed on her bottom lip. “Is that the only reason you’re here? For the sash?”
“Well, no,” I told her. “I wanted to see if you’re doing okay.”
“Oh.” Madison snatched a tissue from an end table and dabbed her red-rimmed eyes. “What are they saying about me?” she asked. “Did Ashley and Gretta say anything about me?” She stared down at the crumpled tissue in her hand and sniffed. “They all think I’ve lost it.”
It sounded like Ashley and Gretta hadn’t visited her since the field trip. Probably no one had. No one but the Trash Licker.
This should have been my big moment, the part where I’d point out how pathetic and friendless she was, where I’d rub her misery in her face and say See how you like it.
But the spite was all burned to ashes in me. The loneliness in her voice hit me hard, because I knew how it felt. There’s no one you can tell who’ll believe you. You’re all alone. Sure, she’d been nothing but vicious to me ever since I’d known her, but I figured my almost getting her killed and her friends thinking she’d had some kind of breakdown evened things out more or less. So instead, I said what I thought was the one thing Madison needed to hear the most.
“I was there with you, Madison, remember?” I said. “I was there with you and the Gypsum Man. I saw what he did to you. I saw it all.”
Madison lifted her head and stared at me, her eyes glistening. She opened her mouth to say something, when the door opened.
“Sorry, girls,” Dr. Underwood said. “Time’s up. But don’t worry, Maddie-kins. You’ll be seeing her back at school before you know it.”
Madison turned away to grab another tissue. “Okay,” she said in a choked voice.
I couldn’t think of anything else to add, so I walked toward the door. Then Madison spoke and I stopped.
“Bye,” she said, then added, “Lucy.” She faced me again, and the barest of smiles crossed her lips.
I grinned and paid back the smile double. “Bye, Maddie.”
23
DR. UNDERWOOD INSISTED on driving me home. The endless rain pounded against his beautiful car all the way back to the trailer. I didn’t care. I was too happy to care.
I’d broken the Rules with Mr. Capp and Dr. Underwood, and even with Maddie. Somehow, the world hadn’t cracked in half, a stray lightning bolt hadn’t zapped me into a black smudge, and God knows what else I thought was going to happen. I was still all in one piece.
I remembered Hush-a-bye was lying in the garbage can, waiting to be thrown in the river. The funny thing was, it didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. What did one spooky, mixed-up doll matter? I’d talked to people, including my worst enemy in the world, and they’d talked back. Nothing was impossible for me. Not anymore.
I thanked Dr. Underwood as he dropped me off at the side of the road near the trailer. The rain gushed down like all the cloud spigots had been broken wide open. I didn’t care about that either.
I closed up the umbrella and let the rain soak me. I stomped my way home and squished my sneakers through the chain of puddles covering the ground, making sure I didn’t miss a single one.
I’d already decided to waste no time and take care of Hush-a-bye immediately, rain or no rain. I’d dump her sorry little doll butt in the river, and then I’d break the news to Antonia.
No more lies, though. I’d tell her everything—about the Rosetta story, the strange dream I’d had, the way the Gypsum Man nearly killed Maddie, and why I decided to bury Hush-a-bye in the muddy Susquehanna. Antonia might not like it at first, but she’d come around in the end. After all, we were sisters. Nothing could come between us for too long.
As I drew closer to the trailer, I just barely made out the ginkgo tree through the heavy sheet of rain. I couldn’t believe it. In spite of the wind and the constant hammer of the downpour, all its leaves still hung on.
“Good for you,” I said. I blew a kiss to the tree and laughed. Then I spotted Mom’s car parked alongside the tree, and my laughter cut off as quickly as it started.
It didn’t make sense. Mom was scheduled to work late that night. She shouldn’t have been home for another five hours. Something was wrong.
I ran the rest of the way to the trailer and banged open the door. Mom stood by the couch with the phone in her hand. Her eyes looked wild, and when she saw me, she froze.
“Mom?” I said.
Mom slammed down the phone, rushed over, and grabbed me hard by the arms.
“Where the hell were you?” she shouted in my face, her fingernails digging painfully into my skin.
I stood there, stunned, my heart banging against my ribs.
“I—I was with a friend,” I stammered out. My eyes grew hot with tears.
“A friend,” Mom repeated. The wild look drained from her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. She pulled me into a tight hug and buried her face in my neck.
“Mom?” Her hug scared me more than the shaking. “Is something wrong?”
Mom pulled back and wiped her face with the back of her hand. She forced a smile. “I—I’m so sorry, Peppernose. You gave me such a scare when I came home and you weren’t here.”
“Why are you home so early? Did something happen?”
Mom stood and crossed over to the sofa with the bird-of-paradise slipcover. Her old brown suitcase lay open on top of it, half-full of clothes. It was the same suitcase she’d taken when we’d snuck out of Chautauqua County at midnight last year.
“We haven’t got much time,” she said as she folded a pair of pants. “I need you to go to your room, get out of those wet clothes, and pack everything you can in the bag I put on your bed. Clothes and toiletries are a priority. And make sure your sister is getting her own butt in gear too.”
“Why?” I pleaded. None of this made any sense, and none of it was helping keep my heart from banging right out of my body. “Why do we have to leave now? What’s going on?”
Mom stopped folding and tilted her head. “Oh, Peppernose, I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. The river’s flooding because of all this rain. It’s already crested the bank, and they think it’s going to reach the trailer park by midnight.”
“The river?” I mumbled, too numb to think straight.
“We’ve got no choice,” she said, and continued packing. “The town’s set up a temporary shelter in the high school gym. We’ll stay there until this passes and, God willing, we can return. Now, don’t just stand there. I want to be clear of here within the hour. Git!”
I headed to my room, but my brain was spinning wildly. Why was this happening? Things had seemed so wonderful only a few minutes before. I’d torn up all the Rules, I’d had an actual conversation with Mr. Capp, and something like one with Maddie of all people. Then a flood had to barge in and make a mess of one of the best days ever. I just couldn’t catch a break.
Then again, I figured one good thing would come from the rising waters. I w
ouldn’t have to pull Hush-a-bye out of the trash and toss her in the river because the river was coming to take her back all on its own. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad day after all.
The cold damp of my clothes stuck to my skin, and I shivered. I grabbed a towel from the bathroom, then headed into our bedroom, eager to dry off. Antonia sat on the far edge of her bed with her back to me, her head bent forward.
“Mom says we need to get moving, Antonia,” I said. Antonia didn’t say anything.
I peeled off the wet clothes, toweled myself off, and put on dry jeans and a sweater. Antonia hadn’t moved the whole time.
“Come on.” I tossed the wet towel against her back. She didn’t budge. I shrugged and raked a comb through my hair. “We’re going to hang out in the high school gym. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
Antonia lifted her head but still didn’t look at me. When she spoke, her voice sounded strange, like she was struggling to get the words out.
“What did you do to Hush-a-bye?”
I stopped combing and swallowed. Why would she ask a question like that? She must have forgotten the story I’d told her that morning, but something about the strangled tone of her voice unsettled me. Still, I figured she was probably worried about the flood and what would happen to all her precious treasures, including that awful doll.
I had planned to tell her the whole truth about Hush-a-bye right then, but with the floodwaters coming and us needing to get out, it didn’t seem like the best time to come clean and get into a big battle over what I’d done. So I stuck with the original fib.
“I told you, she’s in my drawer so Mom wouldn’t find her,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll pack her away with my stuff.”
Lightning lit up the sky. For a brief moment, I could see the limbs of the ginkgo tree thrashing through our bedroom window. And right then, Antonia let loose a scream that shot like an electric current through my whole body. It wasn’t her usual howler-monkey squeal either. There was nothing joyful in it at all—just pure, wild rage.
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