by Amy McAuley
I don’t tell Mom this when I talk to her on the phone, but I’m really happy here.
The headphones to my portable CD player are tangled up in my hair. Guess I fell asleep while listening to Ryan’s CD again last night. I tug the headphones free and set them on my dream journal and plastic pencil case. I’ve got my own small office on the top bunk. Yawning loudly, I stretch out along the wall, my bones popping and cracking like I aged thirty years overnight. I flop over on my other side and come face-to-face with Kalli, who’s standing on the bunk bed ladder, gawking at me with eyes so wide her eyebrows have disappeared behind her bangs. But there’s a sliver of a smile on her lips.
“What are you doing, you weirdo?” I cry. How often does my whacked-out sister study me while I sleep? Geez!
“I heard you. I heard you talking in another language while you were sleeping. I’ve been here listening for, like, five minutes. It sounded like Italian or something, and I know you can’t speak Italian. You can barely speak English.”
“Yeah, right,” I say, scuttling down to the end of the bed. I throw my legs over the side and drop to the floor. “If I was talking in my sleep, it was probably gibberish that you thought was a real language. And don’t ever watch me again while I sleep, you’re creeping me out.”
Kalli squawks. “Fine, don’t believe me then.”
I hate that I have to tilt my head back to look at Kalli. I’m the big sister, damn it.
“I don’t believe you. Now let’s take Sandy for a walk and get some donuts for breakfast. You in?”
Kalli’s tanned arms fold across what little chest she has. “I guess,” she concedes.
“Good. Let’s get this carb binge going.”
As I’m jogging from the room, Kalli mutters, “I know what I heard.”
9
Sandy and I have been jogging for two weeks. I know I’m improving because I don’t want to collapse on the sidewalk and die halfway through our route anymore. That’s called hitting the wall, Dad told me. Hitting a wall and then getting flattened by an eighteen-wheeler is more like it. Now I know to run right through the wall. There’s a secret burst of energy on the other side that keeps me going until we get home.
Our nighttime jog usually starts at eight. I want a lowered chance of people being outside to catch a glimpse of me flailing down the streets like a three-legged cow. I want low lighting for the same reason. But for safety reasons, I want some remaining daylight. Not that anything bad would actually happen to me here, where they have one murder every ten years or so.
Almost every night, as we’re nearing the beach playground, we cross paths with another runner. She’s got great form, which means she’s in way better shape than me, but other than features I can see from a distance, I don’t really know what she looks like. I’m new to jogging. Do joggers have a secret camaraderie that involves a passing nod or a wave or a smile or a wink? How should I know? So I basically ignore her, which gets more awkward with each passing night.
Seeing her at the same time and place is fun in a way, like a game between us, but I mostly dread it. My anxiety builds as I near the playground while my brain shouts, Say hi to her this time, don’t say hi, give her a smile at least, just ignore her. The girl comes bouncing down the street, ponytail bobbing behind her. When she gets close, I veer off to the grass to give her the sidewalk and tell Sandy to heel or ignore, as if the poor dog is capable of going ballistic and ripping Jogging Girl’s legs off. The girl trots past and that’s it. My anxiety steamrolls back down to zero.
Tonight, because Kalli and I are going to see a movie, my jog will have to begin at seven. If Jogging Girl and I meet up tonight, that’ll mean something fishy is going on, like she’s got spies watching me every evening to alert her at the precise moment I lace up my running shoes.
I roll over onto my stomach in my office and grab my dream journal. I scribble: No bad dreams lately. Really tired from jogging. Getting mild shin splints. Must learn to jog properly. Talked to Ryan today. He misses me. I’m dying to go home to see him, but don’t want to leave Dad’s. Wish I could take Sandy with me. I love her. Think I’ll cry when I have to leave. Going for a jog right now.
A low “aroooo-owwrrrr” from Sandy startles me. I peek over the top of my ladder. She’s standing in the doorway staring up at me. It cracks me up when she talks. Dad said she didn’t do it until I came. She’ll walk right up to me and say, “Aroorooo. Urrrrr-rooorrrrrr,” like she’s making words she thinks I can understand.
“Sandy, there’s no way you could know I’m going out tonight and the jog has been moved to seven. Go get your leash,” I say, and she skitters away from my bedroom door like a cartoon dog whose speedy legs don’t move in sync with its body.
When I’m ready to go, I do a few stretches on the lawn. I always start out slowly to warm up. It’s strange to be doing this early, with people around. I feel like I’m running down the street naked and everybody is watching, and booing, and laughing at my wiggling butt. I focus on a point in the distance, a house down the street, and try to forget about possible booers and laughers. I can do this. Breathe in through the nose; breathe out through the mouth. Keep my feet moving. I count my steps to the corner to see if it matches my guess of two hundred steps. It’s a hundred and ninety-three.
I’m nearing the playground area. There’s no way Jogging Girl will be there at this time, but I’m tensing up anyway. I keep my breathing steady and motor on. The entrance to the playground is about a hundred and twenty steps away. I count inside my head. My anxiety rises. At a hundred and twenty, I pass the playground and exhale deeply in relief. No sign of Jogging Girl. Phew.
“C’mon, Sandy,” I say, speeding up. “Let’s kick it up a little.”
And then I see her, jogging around the next corner, about a hundred steps away. She’s coming, ponytail cheerily bobbing to and fro behind her. My gait falters and I stumble a little, like I’ve forgotten how to jog even half-assed. When I reach the count of eighty, I hear Jogging Girl speak, hardly out of breath. She says, “You’re early tonight.”
I glance at her face, for the first time, and give her a quick smile. “You, too.”
Over her shoulder, she chuckles and says, “Too weird, huh?”
I look at her again. I get a good hard look. And it spooks the hell out of me.
Jogging Girl is long gone down the street now. And I’m still moving in the opposite direction, slowly. I wind down to a stop, and squat, pretending to tie my shoelaces when really I think I’m going to puke and my legs won’t hold me up. I know Jogging Girl’s face. I’ve seen it before. She’s Raven, my friend from my dreams.
* * *
That’s it. I’m absolutely, two hundred percent fed up with all the craziness that’s been happening to me since Margie’s psychic reading. All the psycho dreams, all the images in my head. I’ve had it.
I sprint the rest of my jogging route at top speed, my arms pumping hard enough to nearly reach my chin, with Sandy speeding along beside me. She glances up a couple of times to smile at me, as if this is the greatest thing since canned dog food. At the edge of Dad’s lawn, my stomach muscles spasm and pain sears through my lungs. I let Sandy off her leash, and she races to her outdoor water bowl while I keel over on the grass. My heart hasn’t seen that much action in years. Maybe if I drag myself over to the deck, Sandy will share her water with me before my broiling-hot body spontaneously combusts.
I jog down to the beach on stiffening legs. The lake isn’t warm by my impossibly high standards, but I run straight in and plunge into a wave, something I’ve never done in my life. I sadly drift across the surface on my back and stare at the pink-and-orange sky.
* * *
“Let’s go. The movie starts in twenty minutes,” Kalli says from our bedroom door.
“I’m not going.”
“What!” she shrieks.
It takes all my energy to lift my head from my damp pillow. “I’m not going.”
“Why? Are you sick?”
>
“Sort of.”
Big sigh. “Fine. I’ll go see if Megan can go with me.” She thumps away.
I think I’ll lie here on the top bunk and stare at the ceiling for the rest of my life. I’m sure Dad won’t mind. The hygiene level up here might get a little grotesque after a year or two, but who cares. I’m here for the long haul.
“Rooooooooo.”
“I’m not coming down, Sandy.”
“Aroooooo-rooo-roo,” she says from the doorway.
“No. Now go lie down.”
Sandy whines and pads away from the room. I wonder if she wants to hop on the bed with me but can’t because I’m too high up. I’ve heard that pets can sense your moods. Can she tell I’ve crumbled down to a fine layer of dust inside?
Dad is walking toward my room now. His footsteps sound different from Kalli’s.
“Kalli says you’re not going to the movie.”
“That’s right.”
He doesn’t say anything. I silently count to ten, hoping he’ll go away so I can go back to wallowing in my craziness in peace.
“Penny, I know it’s kind of boring here,” Dad says quietly. “If you miss your mom and your friends, and want to go home early, that’s okay. Just let me know.”
I stare at the ceiling, counting and ignoring … sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three. I continue to count until I hear Dad and Kalli talking in the kitchen.
Over and over in my head, I ask myself, do I want to go home? And the more I say it, the closer my answer moves to yes.
* * *
It’s eleven-thirty in the morning. I still haven’t left my perch on the top bunk. That makes fifteen hours straight, and if I don’t figure out a way to rig up a waste management system in the next ten minutes, I’ll be scraping pieces of my bladder off the walls.
“Kalli!” I holler.
“What?” she yells back from the living room.
“Get me a bucket, a funnel, and seven feet of rubber hose!”
“Yeah, right. Get off your fat butt and get your own bucket and hose.”
Damn. I can’t believe I might have to end my reign as Bunk-Bed Queen after only fifteen hours. Fifteen hours isn’t even close to forever. I hustle down the ladder and race to the bathroom. When I finally emerge, feeling about ten pounds lighter, Kalli is leaning against the wall in the hallway.
“Dad thinks you don’t like it here,” she says, scowling. “I knew you’d screw this up.”
“I’m not screwing anything up.” I walk into our room, hoping she’ll leave, but knowing she’ll follow me like a tall, boob-less shadow.
As I’m climbing the bunk-bed ladder, Kalli says, “Don’t you dare make us leave early, Penny. All the kids here like me. I’m cool, not like at home, where all the idiot guys call me Stork. If you make us leave early, I’ll never forgive you. Ever.”
At the top rung, I stop climbing and turn around. Kalli’s cheeks go bright pink. She stares at her bare feet.
I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “We’re not leaving early. I’m just thinking about some stuff, that’s all.”
Kalli hesitates. “Okay. It’s supposed to thunderstorm today. Wanna rent a movie?”
Rent a movie or rot in bed? Tough choice. “Ask me again later.”
Dear Dream Journal:
Last night I dreamed that Ryan and I were at a toga party. Finally, a fun dream! We were both completely hammered because there was this fountain in the middle of the party that spewed out wine. Who could resist that? When I woke up, I missed him really bad. I had to climb down from bed to call him. Should have checked out the time first, though. His mom didn’t exactly appreciate my six-thirty wake-up call. Whoops.
I’m lying in the top bunk. No surprise there. I’ve spent roughly sixty percent of my time here in the last five days. There’s not much to do up here, other than write in my dream journal and listen to Ryan’s CD over and over. I’ve got every song memorized.
I’ve also been thinking way more than usual, and I can’t figure out why Dad decided to become the husband Mom needs but can no longer have. I love the caring, sensitive person he is now. We came this close to being the perfect family, but Dad screwed it all up by deciding to change his ways a few years too late.
If my parents had stayed together, would I be a different person now? Would I like myself more or less? If Mom had met the man of her dreams, I wouldn’t exist. Di would have a different best friend and Ryan would have a different girlfriend.
It’s scary to realize that I influence the lives of other people, even people I don’t know. Say my shoe comes untied while I’m jogging. Scenario One: I stop to tie it. A cyclist cruises around the corner, swerves to avoid a collision with me, and is killed by a car. In two seconds, I’ve changed the course of my life and the lives of every person the cyclist knew. Scenario Two: I jog out of the way to tie my shoe, the cyclist lives and later gives birth to a future Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Or a serial killer.
If destiny is real, and life is like a script to follow, what happens if I’m meant to tie my shoe, but I decide against it? The whole movie would have to be rewritten from that point on. Everything would change.
The more I think about it, the less I want to leave the top bunk.
* * *
I dig a trench into the cool sand with the heel of my foot, listening to waves crash onto the shore. I feel like I need tooth-picks to prop my heavy eyelids open, that’s how tired I am. I spend a lot of time in bed, but I’m sure not getting much sleep while I’m there.
“Penny, you’ve never been to the sea!” Kalli says, in the exasperated voice she talks to me with when Megan’s around.
My stinging heel takes a break. “I never said I have. What are you talking about?”
Kalli and Megan look at each other, conversing with their eyes. Then they turn their eyes to me, to let me know they’ve silently reached their verdict. I’m nuts.
“Didn’t you hear yourself talking?” Kalli says. “You said, ‘The waves remind me of the sea.’ That’s what you said, totally, word for word. Right, Megan?”
Megan nods. “That’s what you said, Penelope. I’ve been to the sea and the waves don’t sound like this.”
I wish the pipsqueak wouldn’t call me by my full name. And I’m not in the mood for this lame prank they’re pulling.
“You got me,” I say, playing along to shut them up. “I’ve never been to the sea.”
“Hey, Kalli, let’s sit in the water and let the waves smash into us!” Megan shouts, the best idea she’s had all day.
They scramble up and brush off. The wind carries the sand directly to my mouth.
“No swimming. It’s a yellow-flag day,” I say, and sand grits between my teeth. Thunder rumbles in the distance. I gauge the swollen clouds that now hide the sun. “Fifteen more minutes and then we’ll have to go home.”
“I know, I know.”
Kalli and Megan bop down to the shore. Even with her puffy curls, Megan is head and shoulders shorter than my sister. Pointing out the approaching big waves, they sit at the water’s edge. Right away, a swell of whitecapped water whacks into them. Megan gets the brunt of it in the face, and they both fall over backwards. They struggle to sitting and prepare for the next onslaught, shrieking like they’re on an amusement park ride.
My wobbling head settles back on my shoulder blades. It’s not the most comfortable position, but I don’t want to move. I close my eyes and breathe slowly. Quiet thunder rolls across the sky, far off, like a giant is shaking and rippling a blanket of air. Waves build and crash.
The waves remind me of the sea.
I relax into the rising and falling sounds, comforted.
The sea is strong, Astrid. Help me.
“Penelope!”
I shake awake. For a split second, I don’t know where I am. The sky over the horizon has darkened to a scary green-gray. The cool breeze has picked up to a gust. It whips tiny bullets of sand at my bare skin. Lightning ignites a monstrous cloud ove
r the far side of the lake.
Megan runs over, soaking wet. “Kalli needs you!”
“Where is she?” I say, at the same time the thunder reaches us.
“Over there. She can’t get out!”
I leap to my feet and run, searching the waves. In the waist-deep water between the shore and the sandbar, Kalli fights to get back to the beach, not making any progress.
“Kalli, relax! You’re panicking!” I call out. “Don’t try to walk straight in.”
Her arms flail and she slips under the water. I want to run in and pull her out. My instincts are keeping me from doing that. She bounces back up and regains her footing, still waist-deep, but farther away than I was expecting.
“Penny, what do I do? It’s sucking on me!”
I run down the beach until I’m in line with her, and point toward the cottage. “Swim that way, to the side! Then swim diagonally, not straight in!”
For the first time ever, Kalli listens to me. Her body crests a wave like a surfboard. She paddles hard, even though she must be tired. I keep pace with her on land, until I reach Megan, who shivers next to me, cocooned inside her beach towel.
Kalli’s doing exactly as I told her; swimming crossways. I run into the lake and hold out my hand, anxious to catch her. Below the surface, the current grips my legs. I loosen the sand with my feet and anchor myself into the muck. A cresting wave carries Kalli to me, and I grab a handful of her bathing suit. We drag each other onto the beach.
“Are you okay?” I say, relieved but wanting to clobber her for scaring me like that.
Her lower lip shakes. I never noticed how much she still looks like a kid.
