The Book of One Hundred Truths

by Julie Schumacher

  Truth #57: Of course I was the one who invented the game.

  Truth #58: The game went like this: I took the bag of Monopoly markers from my jacket pocket, where I always kept them, and Gwen and I lined ourselves up beside the big gray rock.

  Truth #59: My favorite marker was the shoe. Gwen’s was the race car. The idea was to lose something you loved and then find it again.

  Truth #60: The sun had been out all day. Gwen wasn’t wearing a scarf or a hat.

  Truth #61: I reached into the bag and counted the pieces: the shoe, the race car, the hat, the dog, the iron, the ship, the thimble, the cannon, the soldier, and the wheelbarrow. Ten. It had to be ten. I closed my eyes and threw them. They made a quiet clattering sound when they hit the ice.

  Truth #62: Ice always has cracks in it. Even ice in the ice cube tray, if you look at it closely, is full of cracks.

  Truth #63: “Come on, let’s start,” Gwen said. The object was to be the first person to find five of the markers and make it back to the big gray rock. And we had to touch the rock every time we found a marker.

  Truth #64: I stole the markers from Nenna’s Monopoly game after losing to Liam about two years before. I never told her. (I’m sorry, Nenna.)

  Truth #65: Sliding on outdoor ice isn’t easy. The ice on Three Mile Creek is bumpy and uneven, full of frozen snow. Sometimes you’ll find pennies that Richard Lemon and his younger brothers have dropped and spat on, creating copper constellations under their feet.

  Truth #66: Gwen said, “Go!” and we started running. It wasn’t getting dark yet, but the color in the day had faded. The sky was gray and looked as if someone had draped it over the trees like a giant tarp.

  Truth #67: Even before we reached the first markers, I could feel someone watching us.

  Truth #68: Gwen had been my friend since kindergarten. Her parents liked me. Her mother used to say I was “full of beans.”

  Truth #69: I found the hat, and Gwen found the race car. We both turned around and ran back to the rock, dodging tree roots and low-hanging branches. I skidded toward the opposite bank and grabbed the iron (where was the shoe?) while Gwen found the soldier. Laughing and slamming into each other, we both touched the rock. I found the thimble and Gwen found the ship. We still had to look for the wheelbarrow and the cannon, the dog and the shoe.

  Truth #70: That’s the last good memory I have of Gwen.

  Truth #71: Gwen’s sister, Marie, was supposed to be sick that day; she had stayed home from school. But there she was on the ice behind us.

  Truth #72: I used to wish I had a sister. But Gwen always said I shouldn’t wish for a younger one.

  Truth #73: Marie was nine.

  Truth #74: We should have just finished our game and gone home.

  Truth #75: “You’re not supposed to be here, Marie,” Gwen said.

  Truth #76: A drowning person, because she is desperate, can easily drown somebody else.

  Truth #77: Marie stuck out her tongue and picked up a pine branch and started using it like a broom. She was sweeping the ice, scattering twigs and stones and dirt and the four metal markers we still needed to find. I saw one of the markers zip past and tried to grab it but missed.

  Truth #78: “You have to pick those up,” Gwen said. She grabbed Marie by the collar of her jacket.

  Truth #79: I found the wheelbarrow right away. Then in a clump of leaves downstream, I found the cannon and the dog. The shoe—it was really a tiny silver boot, with a wrinkle just above the heel—was about three feet from the drainage pipe. “Marie has to go get it,” Gwen said. “Tell her, Thea.” I looked at the pipe.

  Truth #80: I could have bought a new Monopoly game. I could have borrowed someone else’s pieces.

  Truth #81: But I wanted that shoe. Marie looked at me. “You’d better go get it,” I said. Somehow I knew she would do what I asked her. Marie probably weighed about seventy pounds.

  Truth #82: Like a crack of thunder but sharper and quicker. Like a giant pop-top opening.

  Truth #83: Even though I had never heard that sound before, I knew what it was.

  Truth #84: Marie disappeared into the ice, the gray water surging up around her. One minute she was standing on the creek in front of us; the next she was a blur of freezing water, ice, and mud. I knew that her shoes and her heavy jacket would weigh her down.

  Truth #85: My mother had signed me up several months earlier for the Red Cross first aid and emergency class. That was the first thought that came to me: I have taken the Red Cross emergency class.

  Truth #86: I knew how to stop, drop, and roll. I knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Gwen was screaming. I knew that ABC stood for airway, breathing, and circulation.

  Truth #87: Marie came up through the ice several times, flailing her arms, but she couldn’t find anything to hold on to. Her hands clawed the surface. I couldn’t move.

  Truth #88: What is the myth about the Greek or Roman girl who gets stolen into the underworld, and because she is missing, spring will never come?

  Truth #89: She just needs to put her feet on the bottom, I thought. The water is shallow.

  Truth #90: I still wasn’t moving. Persephone, I thought. That was the Greek girl’s name. We had read about her in Mr. Hermes’ class the year before.

  Truth #91: We needed a rope. Gwen was shouting that it was all my fault. “It was your idea to go to the creek,” she screamed. “It was your stupid game.”

  Truth #92: I should have been looking for tree limbs or boards—something we could use as a life preserver. I have just killed a person, I thought.

  Truth #93: In my nightmares Marie is still flailing underneath us, her dark hair tangling like a mermaid’s. Her eyes are searching for the surface. The world is a silver smear above her head.

  Truth #94: “You can never tell anyone what happened,” Gwen sobbed. Her face was white. “This was your fault, Thea. You have to promise.” We were splattered with mud and freezing water.

  “But it was an accident,” Jocelyn said. “You couldn’t save her.”

  Truth #95: I promised.

  “Did you go to her funeral?” The room was crowded but quiet. Even the doctor and the nurse were listening.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  Truth #96: Marie is alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When we got back to the house, I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I would have gone to the beach to be alone, but it started to rain. I ended up in Nenna and Granda’s garage.

  About an hour went by. Maybe it was two hours. I was sitting on a giant coil of hose between the lawn mower and the volleyball net. I was thinking about how I had almost killed two people—and now everyone knew it. Spiders were getting ready to use me as an anchor in their webs.

  Celia opened the door. “I thought I might find you here,” she said. “I suppose you knew we were looking for you.”

  I nodded. Maybe they were getting ready to vote me out of the family.

  “Jocelyn’s fine, you know.” Celia pushed a bag of weed killer against the wall with her foot. “No concussion. No bleeding from the ears or mismatched pupils. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot. How’s your arm?”

  “It’s okay.” Actually, it hurt, but I didn’t feel like I deserved to say so.

  “Can we get you anything?” Celia opened the door a little wider and I saw Ellen standing next to her. She had her hands on her hips, but she waved a few fingers.

  I waved back.

  “I think we’ll sit down for a while,” Celia said. “We’ll take a load off. Do you mind?” She didn’t wait for an answer but pulled two folding chairs off a hook on the wall and set them up on the cement in the doorway. It was starting to get dark. Celia pulled the string that turned on the lightbulb over our heads, and then she and Ellen sat down, facing me.

  “That hose doesn’t look very comfortable,” Ellen said.

  I told her it was fine.

  “We spoke to your parents.” She started arranging the
croquet balls on their metal stand. “It seemed like a good idea to call them, since you ended up in the hospital.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Oh, they had a few questions. How did it happen and so on, and why were you riding an ancient tricycle on the other side of town, and why were you so badly supervised. That sort of thing. We told them you would fill them in on the details later.”

  “Oh. Okay.” There was a click from the croquet balls.

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Celia said. “How did you figure it out?”

  I shifted around on the garden hose. “You mean twenty-one Bay?”

  I had planned to argue with them when we had this discussion. I had planned to accuse them of treating Nenna and Granda badly. But who was I to accuse them of anything when I had nearly killed Jocelyn? “We saw you at the realtor’s,” I said. “And then we saw the key with the address on it. We overheard you talking and pretty soon one thing led to another.”

  “So Jocelyn knew,” Celia said. She leaned back in her chair. “I wondered.”

  “I’m so angry at Trisha I could spit,” said Ellen. She set the final croquet ball in place. “I told her it was ridiculous not to tell them.”

  “She wanted to wait.” Celia sighed. “‘Irreconcilable differences.’ I could have told them that when they got engaged.”

  “When who got engaged?” I asked. “What are you talking about? I thought we were talking about the nursing home.”

  Above our heads, the lightbulb flickered.

  “What nursing home?” Celia blinked.

  “The one you’re sending Nenna and Granda to. At twenty-one Bay.”

  My aunts looked at me oddly.

  “Twenty-one Bay isn’t a nursing home,” Ellen said. “It’s an apartment building.” She picked up a croquet ball, weighed it in her hand, and put it back down. She glanced at Celia. “And it isn’t for your Nenna and Granda. The apartment’s for Trisha.”

  “Trisha?” The coils of the hose pinched my leg. “You mean Jocelyn’s mom, Trisha? Why would Aunt Trisha need an apartment?” The lightbulb sputtered once more, and suddenly we were sitting in the dark. “Is she moving out?”

  The light came on again, just long enough for me to see Celia and Ellen turn toward each other. Then we were plunged back into darkness.

  “Are Trisha and Gray—” I said. “Do you mean—Are they getting divorced?”

  “I thought that was what we were talking about,” Celia said.

  A door seemed to open inside my brain. “But they’re on vacation,” I said. “Who gets divorced when they’re on vacation?”

  “Trisha’s leading a tour.” Ellen’s voice came from the doorway. “And Gray had a conference. Each of them wanted some time on their own before—”

  “They wanted to explain it to Edmund and Jocelyn together,” Celia said, “when Trisha gets back. Ellen and I told them it didn’t make sense. And we’ll remind them of that when we call them later. People always think kids won’t pick up on this kind of thing.”

  “So Jocelyn knows.” I shook my head. “She figured it out. She didn’t think it was a nursing home.”

  “She must have suspected something,” Celia said. “And then when the two of you started following us—”

  “We’ve been trying to get the apartment ready for them,” Ellen said. “We were driving over there when we saw you. There are three small bedrooms—”

  “That’s why she didn’t want to see the building,” I said. “She must have recognized the address. She knew.”

  Ellen was grappling with something on a shelf in the corner: a flashlight. She pushed a button and lit up a circle of cement at our feet. “By the way,” she said. “Jocelyn told us what happened. It wasn’t only your fault. She shouldn’t have tried to stand up when the trike was moving.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Celia said, “Ellen dropped your father down a flight of stairs when he was a baby.”

  “And I seem to remember,” Ellen added, “that you nearly killed Phoebe several times. You convinced her to hide in the neighbors’ trash can.”

  “That’s right, I’d forgotten about that,” Celia said.

  I stared at the circle of light between us and remembered the hole in the ice, Marie plunging through it. When we’d finally pulled her onto the bank, she had gasped for air like a fish on a hook. We took off our jackets and wrapped her up; her hair was dripping with mud and leaves. She probably hadn’t been underwater as long as it had seemed.

  “I should have made Jocelyn wear a helmet,” I said.

  Celia agreed that wearing a helmet was important.

  “And I should have told my parents what happened to Marie.” I had never wanted anyone to find out what had happened at the creek, but now that they knew, I felt lighter, easier. I felt as if my body had more room inside my skin.

  There was a thump from above. “What’s everyone doing upstairs?” I asked.

  Ellen stood up and brushed herself off. “More of the usual. When we left, there were a couple of card games going on, and the TV and the radio were both playing full blast, and it was impossible to hear yourself think.”

  “It’s what you’d expect,” Celia said. “Havoc and chaos with a little mayhem. Your Nenna’s making a big pot of soup, and we’re going to eat a late dinner.”

  I stood up and took a deep breath. The air in the garage was damp and soft. “So Nenna and Granda aren’t moving,” I said. “They’re staying here. And Granda’s okay?”

  Ellen turned off her flashlight. “People don’t get better when they have Parkinson’s,” she said.

  Celia folded the chairs. “He’s going to keep slowing down.”

  It was hard to imagine my Granda getting any slower, but I knew they were telling me the truth. The truth has a weight, a certain shape you can recognize. And it comes in only one color.

  “Do you think he’d mind that we borrowed his trike?” I asked.

  “I think he’d be very happy to hear it,” Ellen said. She closed the garage door behind us, and we went upstairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The conversation I had with my parents was fairly awkward. I told them that my elbow was okay (six stitches), and that Jocelyn’s head seemed to be all right also (eleven stitches). Then I apologized for being a liar and a terrible disappointment to them, and I said I was sorry that I had almost murdered someone—twice.

  “You aren’t a disappointment,” my father said. “Besides, I think Ellen almost killed me once. She dropped me down a flight of stairs when I was a kid.”

  They asked me to tell them exactly what had happened at Three Mile Creek, and I found that it wasn’t as hard to tell the story the second time.

  My parents didn’t say anything for a moment. I wondered whether they wanted to disown me. Then I heard my father say, “It’s all right, honey. Thea’s fine,” and I realized that my mother was crying.

  “I’m so sorry we didn’t know,” she finally said. “This happened to you months ago—months—and you didn’t tell anyone. You could have told me.” She said that being alone with the truth for so long must have been very hard.

  “It was hard,” I said. The lies I had told weren’t very good company.

  My father asked whether I wanted to come home early. “We can change your plane ticket,” he said. “You can come home tomorrow.”

  I’d been facing the wall, for privacy (everyone in the kitchen was pretending not to listen in), but now I turned around. Celia and Ellen and Phoebe and Nenna were all getting in each other’s way in the kitchen, Austin and Liam were playing cards with Edmund, and Granda was watching the Weather Channel. Jocelyn, a bandage wrapped around her head, was sitting by herself in a rocking chair on the porch. I told my parents not to change the ticket. I needed a few more days in Port Harbor before I went home.

  “Hey there,” I said, opening the sliding door to the porch.

  Jocelyn didn’t turn around. “Look: I used that new cream. It mad
e my skin better.” She held up her hands. I thought they still looked awfully scaly, but at least she wasn’t wearing gloves.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m sorry your parents are getting divorced. I’m sorry they lied to you. I’m sorry I lied to you. But you really shouldn’t have read my notebook.

  Truth #97: I’ll have to tell Gwen that I broke my promise.

  “I never told you what the fortune-teller said to me.” Jocelyn rocked back and forth.

  “I guess you didn’t.” I was watching the stars begin to display themselves over the ocean.

  “I asked her if you would invite me to Minnesota,” Jocelyn said. “And she told me you would.”

  “That was your fortune? You could have just asked me that,” I said.

  Jocelyn tucked her hands into her armpits. “Also, she said if you don’t invite me, I should ask your mother, and she’ll make you invite me, because I’m your cousin.”

  “You don’t have to force me,” I said. “I’ll invite you. I’m inviting you now.”

  Truth #98: I don’t mind that Jocelyn’s going to visit. If I don’t see her for a while, I’ll probably forget how annoying she is and even want her to come.

  “Thea?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think you’ll ever be friends again? You and that girl? The one who had the sister who almost died?”