I grabbed my slip and pulled it over my head. Still barefoot and trying not to lose my balance in the stream, I gathered up my sister.
“Stop wiggling!”
“I’m bleeding!” she screamed again.
The water around her feet had turned to an eerie shade of orange.
I cradled my little sister in my arms, made it up the low embankment, and ran. In my bare feet, I stepped on branches and roots, trying not to cry out when they jabbed the soles of my feet. Sully barked like a rabid dog as he followed at my heels. I could feel her warm blood dripping down my arm.
We ran into Rusty at the edge of the woods.
“Get my dad! Hurry!!”
He never let go of his camera as he ran across the yard to the field.
I made my way to the cabin with Rebecca Lynn sobbing in my arms. Dad met us on the back stoop.
“I’m bleeding, Daddy!” she cried.
Dad took her from my arms and tore into the cabin. Rusty panned the dark drops of my little sister’s blood as they made a dotted path along the wooden floor.
“What happened?” Dad asked, placing her on the table.
“Your razor,” I said.
“Oh, dear God,” he said, peering down at her leg. His hands were covered in blood.
Rebecca Lynn cried harder.
Dad turned to Rusty. “Go down the hill and get Doctor Hensel.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse before,” he said. I was amazed his camera never left his shoulder, and thought in one brief moment of insanity that maybe it was permanent, like a goiter, or a second head.
“I’ll go then,” Dad told him. “You stay here with…” He looked at Rebecca Lynn, then at me. “No. Brooke. You go get the doctor and bring him back with you.”
“One-way is a shorter distance than roundtrip,” I said.
Dad touched the soaked rag on her leg. My sister screamed. He shook his head, confused. “The ride will make it worse.”
“But Dad—”
“Go get the goddamn doctor!”
I didn’t have time to argue. In my slip and bare feet, I ran to the corral. Willow came to me before I called her, and without any challenge let me bridle her. I wasn’t about to take the wagon; that was way out of my league. I secured the saddle and made sure the bit and straps were in place. I opened the gate, climbed on top, tugged on the reins, and shouted, “Hi-ya!”
With me on her back, she trotted down the dirt road and over the first rise. Crazy things, like Willow breaking a leg, an Indian attack, or a wagon robber, popped into my head. My sister could bleed to death. And now I was riding a horse whose back had never known me, down a barely familiar dirt road, to a farmhouse I’d only seen in passing.
It ran through my head that this kind of thing wasn’t in the contract. This kind of thing didn’t happen on reality television, unless you counted Survivor, where all the OCD bug-eating crazies couldn’t wait to witness disaster. Someone fainted now and then on the Biggest Loser, or got drunk and overheated in a hot tub on The Bachelor, but not anything like this.
This went galaxies beyond the venture I’d been talked into.
Doctor Hensel met me at the end of his driveway in a black buggy pulled by a stocky horse. A man who could have been Jackie Chan’s twin sat next to him with a camera on his shoulder.
“I hear you got an emergency,” Doctor Hensel said.
“Yes. My sister—”
“Lead me there.”
He followed me up the road to the cabin, the buggy close behind Willow and me. Inside the house stood Prudence and Mrs. Miller, along with Nanny.
“We heard what happened,” Prudence said. For the first time since we’d met, she didn’t seem to be playing for the cameras. She stood next to the table where Rebecca Lynn lay unmoving, her face pale and her breathing shaky. Nanny removed the bloody rag, exposing the cut.
Doctor Hensel placed a hand on Rebecca Lynn’s forehead, “Hello there, Sweetie. Just going to clean this up a little.”
“I want Brooke.”
Prudence and Nanny moved out of the way so I could stand beside the table. I held her hand.
Dad said, “She cut herself with my straight razor.”
The doctor pulled a candy stick out of his pocket and gave it to Rebecca Lynn. He put a pair of spectacles on his nose and took a small jar out of his bag. He gently swabbed the sides of the gash with a clean piece of linen.
“She needs stitches,” Doctor Hensel said. “There are two ways we can work this, Mr. Decker. One way is to stitch it with what I have in my bag. In the real world, I worked in the ER for twenty years. I have local anesthetic, real stitches, and real antibiotics. The other way is to take her to a hospital. Offsite. We’d send for a car.”
“A real car?” I asked. It felt like a century since I’d seen an actual automobile.
“What do you want to do?” the doctor asked.
“What’s your advice?” Dad asked.
Rebecca Lynn sucked on her candy as her eyes went from the doctor to Dad.
Doctor Hensel said, “If you decide to take care of this here, you’ll be charged 1800’s prices for the stitching, but modern-day prices for the medicine. If you choose to go to a modern hospital, that will take you out of Sweet Sugar Gap. For good.”
Oh my God, I thought. This is our chance! Why didn’t I think of this before? It would have been worth slicing my own leg in two to get us back to Modern Land.
I chanted in my mind, Hospital, hospital, hospital, like a Duke fan at a basketball game.
“I don’t want to go to a hospital, Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn said. “I don’t want to go home.”
Doctor Hensel said, “Mr. Decker?”
No Dad, don’t agree with her. I don’t want to wash in the creek. I don’t want to flip mattresses or sleep on a musty pillow. I don’t want to bake bread or pies, or hang out with Prudence drinking tea. I don’t even need Wendell, do I? Maybe I only convinced myself I liked him because he’s the only guy my age within a hundred miles…
Dad told the doctor, “Take care of it here.”
“Very well.” Doctor Hensel turned to me. “If you’d get some water boiling, that would be helpful.”
Adding insult to injury that we weren’t going to run with joy over the hills back to our old life, I was reduced to being the water fetcher. First it was “Boil the water” then “Bring me clean strips of rags” then “Bring some water for your sister to sip.”
Prudence followed me out to the springhouse, sans cameramen who thought it required three cameras to film the down-home stitching of a little girl’s leg.
“I hope your sister’s okay,” Prudence said.
“Thanks.”
Back in the cabin, Rusty and Carl and the Jackie Chan look-a-like kept their cameras zooming, even after the Millers and Nanny had left. Afterward, they dug into the blackberry pie I’d made for church the next day. They were no better than a flock of turkey vultures, waiting to swoop down the second a raccoon gets hit by a car. When Carl had the nerve to ask me for a cup of coffee to go with his slice of pie, I sugar-sweetly reminded him we weren’t allowed to talk to one another.
Rebecca Lynn was already asleep on a makeshift bed near the fireplace by the time the doctor was ready to leave. Carl had left with the Millers, so Rusty and Jackie Chan kept the cameras rolling as Doctor Hensel handed Dad a piece of paper. Dad silently grabbed his leather pouch from the mantel, counted out a bunch of coins, and placed them in the doctor’s hand.
After Doctor Hensel left with his cameraman, Rusty stayed a little while longer.
I asked Dad, “How much was it?”
“Ten dollars.”
“That’s not so bad.”
He put his leather pouch back on the mantel. “Just how long do you think three dollars is going to last us?”
Not knowing what else to offer, I said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”
He didn’t respond as the back door slammed behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
> The next morning, Rebecca Lynn sat at the kitchen table with her leg propped up on a chair beside her. Leaning against the chair was a walking stick Dad had made from a thick branch. My sister looked like a female Tiny Tim, and posed for Rusty’s camera. I was counting the seconds for her to milk it for all it was worth. I didn’t have to wait long.
“It hurts, Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn whined. “I don’t want to sit in a bumpy wagon.”
Dad dropped his empty coffee cup into the dish bucket. “Then you and Brooke can skip church today.”
I was wearing the dress Prudence had given me. My hair was shiny and smelled like lemons. I felt awful about my sister’s injury, so, while Rebecca Lynn slept, I had rolled her hair up in rag curls, and then I did my own. Now, my sister and I could have passed for backup dancers in a Katy Perry video.
“Church is the only time I get to see other people,” I reminded Dad.
“You should have thought about that before you let your sister play with my razor.”
“I wasn’t playing with it, Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn said.
“You were responsible, Brooke,” Dad said. “I trusted you.”
“Yeah? Well, I trusted you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You had no right dragging us out here.”
“We signed a contract.”
“You signed it!”
“Stop fighting,” Rebecca Lynn said.
I could see Rusty’s eyes growing wide with excitement, like he was suddenly filming a high stakes boxing match and not some stupid family in an argument out in the middle of Bumflip Nowhere, in an era that had ended before my great-grandparents were born.
“Why did you take my razor to begin with?” Dad asked me.
“To shave my legs.”
“Nobody out here cares if you shave or not, Brooke.”
“Is that why you don’t shave anymore?” I scrunched up my nose to show my disgust for his scraggly beard.
“What I do with my face is my business.”
“Well, what I do with my legs, and other parts of my body, is my business.” I gave him a hefty modern-day chicken neck. “I am going to church,” I informed him, dropping my plate into the soapy bucket.
“She likes that boy, Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn said.
“Shut up.”
“What boy?” Dad asked.
“Wendell,” my sister answered.
My cheeks were hot.
“Well,” Dad said, “you can visit with Wendell next week. Today you’ll stay here and keep an eye on your sister.”
He pulled up his suspenders, grabbed his hat from the chair, put it on, and went out the front door. Rusty started to follow but then stopped. He stood in the middle of the room, confused.
“Oh, go with him,” I told Rusty. “Church is more exciting than anything here. Besides, without us there, you’ll have extra to eat at the picnic.”
While the breakfast dishes sat in the bucket soaking, I went upstairs and took off my bonnet, my pretty Sunday dress, and my tight corset, and hung them up on nails next to my work dress. I took off my shoes and socks and put them on the floor under the window. I didn’t think about it beforehand, I just did it. I grabbed the Maybelline bottle from my secret hiding place and smeared the beige liquid all over my face, hiding my freckles. I circled my eyes with the eyeliner like I was hot for werewolves, then I used the tiny mirror to help guide the silver hoop through my eyebrow. I ran my fingers through my thick curly hair and shook it out. Finally, I grabbed my iPod and headed down the ladder.
“Why are you in your slip?” Rebecca Lynn asked.
“I’m tired of those clothes.”
“But you have to wear them. And you’re not supposed to wear jewelry.”
“Whatever.”
“Daddy’s going to get mad.”
“I don’t care cuz it ain’t fair, and I don’t wear no underwear.”
I went outside, suddenly craving flowers. I walked all over the property in my slip and bare feet as the wind played with my curls. Without that awful dress choking me, I felt weightless. I picked wildflowers growing along the fence. Tiny bees seemed unhappy that I was disrupting their breakfast, but I picked them anyway. Back in the cabin, I put the wildflowers and red roses in every empty container I could find, filled them with water, and put them all over the downstairs. Mom had had a knack for making our home look like it belonged in a garden magazine with the flowers she used to grow. Now, it looked like she’d stopped by for a visit.
“They’re pretty,” Rebecca Lynn said.
I slid her bonnet from her hair, ran my fingers through her curls, stuck a tiny daisy behind her ear, and did the same to my own. “We don’t have to live like moles, you know.” I invited my sister to sit with me on the front porch.
“What should we make for Sunday supper?” she asked as she rocked, patting Sully on the head.
“Maybe Dad can pick up some Happy Meals on the way home from church.”
Rebecca Lynn giggled a moment but stopped herself. “You’re going to get us in trouble,” she said. But I caught the flicker of mischief in her eye.
I sat on the other rocker with my iPod buds in my ears, listening to Folk Uke, an awesome band I introduced to Libby a thousand years ago. “Aren’t you sick of your clothes?”
My sister shrugged.
“And your shoes?”
“They hurt my feet.”
“Exactly. Who says you have to live with sore feet? You already have a sore leg. It hardly seems fair to suffer so much.”
She looked at her shoes, thinking. “Laura Ingalls took her shoes off sometimes.”
“I know, right?”
My sister untied her laces, took off her shoes, and slipped out of her socks. “The socks were rubbing my bandage.”
“Since we’re spending the morning enjoying nature instead of church, you don’t have to wear your apron either.”
Rebecca Lynn stood up and took off her apron.
“Good girl,” I said.
“What if Daddy…”
“Daddy Dear is at the picnic. Without us. Chowing on meat and potatoes, and scarfing on all kinds of yummy desserts.”
Without saying a word, Rebecca Lynn took off her dress. She folded it neatly and put it on top of the apron on the back of the rocking chair. In her slip she sat again, pulling her cut leg up onto the seat and placing her hand protectively on top of the bandage.
“I feel cooler now.”
“Damn straight.”
She put her arms in the air as she rocked. “I feel like an angel.”
I laughed. We did sort of look like angels, only my wild hair and dark eyeliner made me more of a fallen one.
My favorite Fallout Boy song drifted through the tiny ear buds, and I missed my old life more than ever.
Sully followed me as I jumped off the porch. The clover felt smooth beneath my feet. I said to Rebecca Lynn, “Come here, little sister.”
She limped down the porch steps with her walking stick over to where I stood.
I took one of the ear buds and put it in her ear.
“It’s loud,” she said.
I turned the iPod down and started moving, a little swaying at first, but as the music grew faster I started rocking out, like a spastic sinner at a tent revival. Rebecca Lynn couldn’t move as well with her stitched-up leg, but with the walking stick in her hand, she managed to jiggle next to me. Sully moved in and around us, barking, and we laughed as we danced in front of the cabin. I hadn’t felt so good, so free, in what felt like forever.
The two of us danced our way through two dozen songs, one just as good as the last. I knew Rebecca Lynn didn’t care for my kind of music, but she still had pretty good rhythm, even with a bum leg. With one bud in her ear and the other in mine, we moved like mad women, shaking our crazy curls and laughing hard as we danced. Our faces were red and our feet were filthy, but we didn’t care. For the moment we had music, we had each other, and we were having a total blast.
I was imagining we were the witches in The Crucible, dancing around a cauldron, when the ground shook violently beneath our feet. We froze.
“What is that?” my sister asked anxiously.
I clicked off the iPod. The rumble grew louder. The ground vibrated harder. “I don’t know…”
It wasn’t until we saw the dirt flying that I understood what we were experiencing: the thundering of hooves. Carriages and wagons soon made their way around the bend, approaching our house.
At the head of the small stampede were Dad and Rusty.
“Oh, snap,” I said, as families parked their wagons along the sides of the road. Dust was everywhere and I started coughing.
Rebecca Lynn hobbled to the porch and inched her way up the steps. She put her dress back on, and worked to put on her apron. I stood transfixed in the front yard, an abandoned mannequin in her underwear.
Dad jumped down from the wagon. He took off his hat and waved the flying dirt away from his face. One by one the townspeople stepped down from their wagons. Rusty and Carl, and two other camera people, filmed the forming crowd as everyone followed Dad through the front gate. The younger kids went up on the porch to see Rebecca Lynn’s stitches, which she proudly showed them. Like a small herd they disappeared into the house.
“What’s going on here, Brooke?” Dad demanded.
I held onto my iPod with one hand and put the other hand on my hip. Well, I had come this far, dancing like a maniac out here in my slip, listening to music from Modern Land, wearing my raccoon makeup. Maybe this was the perfect moment to get off this crazy ride. My last hoorah. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this crap. I dared myself to do it, in front of the cameras, in front of these people. I would show Dad what dragging me out here had done to my mental stability. With any luck, Producer Dumb-ass Novak and Director Dip-shit Ricardo would come hauling me off the premises like a party crasher at the White House. They would realize I was bad for ratings, and we’d all be sent home. Dad would hate me for a while, but when he realized I only had one year left before college, he’d become guilt-ridden and forget all about Sweet Sugar Gap.
“I’m done,” I announced proudly.
Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town Page 15
