I hope I have given you a good picture of my life and my family.
THE END
“SPRIG! Dakota!” Miss Ruthie is standing on her porch, waving to them, as they come up the driveway after school. “I have something to ask you,” she sings out. She’s wearing her long puffy green coat with a cap pulled down over her ears.
“What’s that, Miss Ruthie?” Sprig runs up the steps and hugs Cora, who’s grinning at her.
“I’m going to Boston next Saturday to visit my brother and my nieces. I’ll go on the bus early Saturday morning and be back Sunday night, and I need someone to look after Cora. Feed her, walk her, make sure she does her business, all that. Would one of you like the job?”
“Yes,” Sprig and Dakota say, at the same moment, but of course Dakota says it louder, and of course she has the sense to add, “I would be really happy to do it, Miss Ruthie.”
“Wonderful. Both of you are just wonderful. Tell me, what do you think would be fair pay? Remember, it’s two whole days.”
Why be paid at all? Sprig thinks. Taking care of Cora would be fun, not work. Besides, Miss Ruthie doesn’t have a lot of money. Sometimes she takes care of children, and sometimes she fills in for her friend Nadine, who works at The Fashion Shoppe, but she doesn’t have a regular job.
“Miss Ruthie?” Dakota says. “You can pay me whatever you think is fair.”
“Me too,” Sprig says hastily. “That’s what I was going to say.”
“That’s very sweet,” Miss Ruthie says to Sprig. “But you know what, dear, we’ll let Dakota do it this time. Come in the apartment with me, Dakota. I’ll show you where everything is, the food and Cora’s treats and her toys and her bed.”
Dakota brushes past Sprig and follows Miss Ruthie inside. Sprig buries her face in Cora’s warm, stinky fur. “I know where your food is,” she tells Cora. “And your bed, and your toys. I know how much to give you to eat, one third of a can two times a day, and one scoop of dry. I would take good care of you, Cora, better than Dakota! I’d throw the ball for you, and be patient, and not rush you doing your business.”
Will Dakota do all that? Maybe … and maybe not. But Dakota got the job. She always gets all the good stuff, stays up the latest, sees the most TV shows, and talks to Dad first and longest. It’s just not fair.
“You know what I wish, don’t you, Cora?” The dog licks Sprig’s face and gazes sympathetically at her. “Not that I would want anything bad to happen to Dakota,” Sprig adds. No, despite everything, she just wants her to go, the way smoke goes in winter. In all the cold weeks, you see the white smoke curling out of the chimneys, sometimes going straight up into the air, sometimes taken this way and that by the wind, but always, poooof, it disappears. It’s gone. If smoke can do it, why not a person? Why not Dakota?
Leaning her head against Cora’s warm back, Sprig narrows her eyes and looks up into the sky, and, yes, she sees her sister up there. Dakota in a gauzy, smoky white dress that floats around her like, well, smoke. And like smoke rising, Dakota too is rising. Rising, rising, rising. Becoming smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter … until … poooof … she’s gone.
“WHAT are you trying to do, Sprig, kill that hamburger?” Standing at the sink, Dakota shakes the lettuce in the colander. “Hurry up, I want to get everything done before Mom comes home.”
“I’m almost finished.” Sprig takes another chunk of hamburger and slaps the meat between her palms. She loves this job, the rhythmic slap slap slap. It reminds her of being little and playing with clay, and how she used to think about things when she did that.
She’s thinking about things now too, thinking about how Dakota got that job away from her slap slap slap and how today is the tenth day slap slap slap slap slap slap that Dad has been gone. Okay, she has to think about something else, like the Mighty Pest and how Bliss keeps saying he’s cute, and how maybe Mr. Julius will think her essay is just wonderful and give her an A and —
“Okay, stop!” Dakota has come over and is inspecting the plate of raw patties. “That’s plenty. Wash your hands and get me the tomatoes.”
“Get them yourself. I’m not your servant, Dakota,” Sprig says, but she ambles over to the refrigerator, takes a tomato from the vegetable bin, and puts it on the far end of the counter so Dakota has to reach for it.
“Just one?” Dakota says. “Mom likes a lot of tomatoes in the salad. Get me some more. They’re a very important fruit.”
“Ha, ha, you mean vegetable.”
“Ha, ha, I mean fruit. Tomatoes are fruit, for your information, and they’re way good for you. Tons of vitamin C, vitamins A and K, plus potassium, plus —”
“Okay, okay. Don’t give me a food lecture.” Sprig flings open the refrigerator door.
“While you’re there,” Dakota says, “get me a couple of cucumbers too.”
“Say please.”
“Come on, Sprig, just get me the stuff.”
Sprig’s hand hovers over the vegetable bin. “Okay, now you have to say, ‘Please get me tomatoes and cucumbers, my beloved Sprig.’”
“In your dreams, girl. Just get me the stuff.” When Sprig doesn’t move, Dakota sighs and says, “Please.”
Later, as they’re finishing supper, Dad calls. Mom talks to him first. Before she takes the phone into the dining room for privacy, she says, “Girls, you did a great job on supper. I’ll tell your father.”
“Let’s surprise Mom and clean up too,” Dakota says, and starts clearing the table. “I’ll do the dishwasher, you sweep. I talk to Dad next,” she adds.
“No,” Sprig says. “I want to talk to him next.”
“Sorry, tonight it’s in order of age. Mom, then me, then you.”
Dakota’s logic is perfect — and maddening. Sprig grabs the broom and sweeps furiously around her sister.
Dakota jumps out of the way, her white shirt billowing out over her green pants. Green and white, same colors as the cucumbers she cut into their salad. Is it possible that Dakota is a cucumber in disguise? Sprig rolls this idea around in her mind. With just a touch of imagination, she can see it. Yes, she can definitely see Dakota as a cucumber, one of those juicy, crunchy cucumbers. A cucumber fit for the salad bowl. Crunch, crunch. Yum, yum. Down the hatch. Bye, bye, cucumber. Bye, bye, Dakota.
Crunching up Dakota puts Sprig in a good mood again, and when it’s her turn to talk to Dad, she greets him exuberantly. “Dads! Here I am. Last, but not least!”
He laughs, and says, “You are so right, my baby.” Which makes her feel even better, and they have a really good conversation. Just before they hang up, he asks her if she knows anything about Afghanistan.
“A little,” Sprig says. “Didn’t they have those people called the Taliban, who were so bad they wouldn’t even let girls go to school? And, uh, they had a lot of war there, but it’s over now. I think it is,” she adds.
“Good beginning,” Dad says approvingly. “That’s my girl. Look up Afghanistan in the atlas,” he goes on. “The one I keep on my desk in Mom’s and my study. Read about the country, or you can go on the Net. Check out their food, architecture, things like that.”
“Why do you want me to do that, Dad?”
“It’s one of my interests,” he says. “A fascinating place — the art, the people — great people. We’ll talk about it again.”
GOING home on the school bus, Sprig is trying to remember everything she ever read or heard or saw on the news about Afghanistan, so she can tell Dad when he calls. Last year, Miss Ruthie made that afghan for Mom’s birthday, squares of purple and violet and green. Mom keeps it on the foot of her bed. Do they make afghans in Afghanistan? It sounds like a riddle. She’ll have to look that up too, and tell Dad.
The bus lumbers slowly through the snow-clogged streets. In the seat behind her, Dakota and Krystee are whispering about boys. Doesn’t Dakota care about anything else? She probably never even talks to Krystee about Dad and Afghanistan. “He’s a ten,” she hears Dakota saying.
�
�I’d only give him an eight,” Krystee says. “Or maybe a seven and a half.”
“You’re crazy, Buckthorn is at least a nine.”
Sprig twists around. “Will you two please shut up? I’m trying to think here.”
“The child is trying to think,” Krystee says. “I am so impressed.”
Next Krystee will cross her eyes. Why doesn’t she try that lovely trick on Thomas Buckthorn? The cutest boy on the moon is sitting on the back bench in the middle of a tangle of his friends, who are taking turns giving each other shots in the arm.
“We are having a private conversation,” Dakota says. “Turn around, please.”
“Turn, doggy,” Krystee says.
“Arf. Arf,” Dakota chimes in, elbowing Krystee.
How mean. It’s Krystee’s fault! She’s a total bad influence on Dakota. To Sprig’s dismay, her eyes fill. She doesn’t really care that they’re being mean, and she’s sure she wouldn’t care at all, if Dad was home.
“Doggy,” Dakota says, sounding just like the Bad Influence. “Are you going to cry?”
Is she going to cry? In front of them? No! Sprig blinks hard, blinks furiously to hold back the tears. She blinks and blinks and blinks, until Dakota blurs in front of her wet eyes and disappears in a puddle of shimmery dots.
That night, waiting for Dad to call, and already in her pj’s, Sprig is looking out the bedroom window at the snowy field behind their house. The waxing moon is almost full, and the field is so bright that she gets caught up in a dream of dancing across that icy slickness, her feet never touching the snow, never feeling the cold. Oh, how graceful she is! All up and down Baylor Street people pour out of their houses to watch her and take her picture. She dances away from the window, dances around the room, between the beds, raising her arms, bending and dipping and —
“What are you doing?” Dakota says.
Sprig stops abruptly. Great. Now Dakota will channel Krystee and say something mean like the whole house is shaking, or first time I ever saw a dog dance. Instead, Dakota grabs Sprig’s hands and dances around the room with her. “Faster, faster,” Dakota orders, and they whirl and stamp and gallop together until they collapse on Dakota’s bed, laughing and out of breath.
The next morning, Sprig and Dakota are making their lunches at the table when Mom puts down her coffee cup and says, “Girls, last night you were sleeping when your father called. It was almost one o’clock. I was sound asleep myself!”
“Why’d he call so late?” Sprig says.
“I was going to stay up,” Dakota says, “but I got too tired.”
“He was in a meeting that ran really, really late,” Mom says. “Some important decisions were being made, and that’s what I need to talk to you both about.”
Sprig freezes, holding the mustard knife in mid-air. She doesn’t like the sound of that word need. Or the one that came before — decisions.
“Your father’s going to be in a lot of meetings in the next few days.” Mom glances at her watch.
“What kind of meetings?” Dakota asks.
“We’ll talk about all this in more detail later, but the long and the short of it is that, fairly soon, your father will be going —”
“Mom,” Sprig interrupts. A blob of mustard falls to the table. “Mom, we need bread and —”
“Sprig, let me finish what I’m saying, please.”
Maybe Sprig doesn’t want Mom to finish. Maybe her somersaulting stomach doesn’t want to hear what Mom is about to say. “Lettuce too. I can go to the store after school if you —”
“Sprig.” Mom takes her arm. “Listen to me, honey. You need to hear this. Your dad will be going to Afghanistan soon.”
“Afghanistan,” Sprig repeats. So it is bad news.
“We’re not sure of the date yet,” Mom says, “but he’ll probably be leaving within the next week or so. He’ll want to talk to both of you about it, of course, and —”
“Why is he going there?” Sprig says. “Afghanistan is so far away!”
“Well, yes,” Mom says. “But he’ll be doing what he always does, consulting about buildings, in this case, schools. That’s a really good thing, and he’s excited to be part of this project.”
“Mom, what if something happens to him?” Sprig’s voice comes out small.
“Nothing’s going to happen to Dad,” Dakota snaps. “Don’t be stupid.”
Sprig crushes her sandwich into a baggie. Mustard is smeared all over. “People are getting hurt over there. Even killed. Like Iraq! I saw it on the news.”
“Your father’s going to Kabul, that’s the capital. The U.N. is there to protect people. He won’t be going into the danger area.” Mom glances at her watch again. “Look, we’ll talk about this a lot more, but right now I have to get going, and you girls hustle too, or you’ll miss your bus.” She kisses Sprig on the head. “Try not to worry, honey.”
Sprig nods. She listens as Mom leaves the house. She listens to the sound of the car crunching down the driveway. “Come on,” Dakota says. “Why are you just standing there?” She stuffs Sprig’s lunch into her backpack and hands it to her. “Hey,” she says, “get that zombie look off your face.”
Sprig puts on her coat and boots and follows Dakota out of the house. Miss Ruthie is at her window, waving to them. “Hi, Miss Ruthie,” Sprig says in a little voice.
“Why are you talking like that?” Dakota looks up. “Hi, Miss Ruthie!” she yells.
“Dakota —” Still, the little voice. “I don’t want Dad to go there.”
“Well, do you think I do?”
“No.”
“You’ve got that right, anyway. Besides, he isn’t going this minute. Maybe something will happen, and the plans will change.”
“Really? Do you really think that could happen, Dakota?”
Dakota leans out over the curb, looking for the bus. “I said it, didn’t I?”
“I STILL think taking care of Cora should have been my job,” Sprig says. She and Bliss are sprawled on Sprig’s bed, with a plate of chocolate chip cookies between them. It’s Friday afternoon. Tomorrow morning Miss Ruthie is going to Boston.
“Totally right,” Bliss says loyally. She’s sleeping over. So is Krystee. Ugh. “Like, guess who’s the animal lover.” Bliss points to the pictures of boy singers on Dakota’s side of the room, and then to Sprig’s wall with its pictures of chimpanzees and dogs. She takes another cookie, munches, and makes appreciative sounds. “These are so good! You could be a professional baker.”
“No thanks. I want to do animal research, like Jane Goodall. Right in the jungle with the chimpanzees. I mean, if there are any left. They’re an endangered species, and they’re our closest relatives. Bliss, we’re letting members of our own family die!”
“Cousins I never knew I had.” Bliss scratches under her arms, hunching her shoulders and making huffing chimp noises.
“Bliss, do you know how intelligent they are? They use tools, they’re problem-solvers, they don’t talk like we do, but they communicate, and they have fabulous memories. We share ninety-eight percent of our genes with chimps.”
“That’s awesome,” Bliss says. “I have to tell that to my dad. He loves numbers — it’s the math-teacher thing. Did I tell you that he wants me to be a math teacher? He thinks it’s the greatest job.”
“You’re good in math too. Do you want to do that?”
Bliss shakes her head. “I’m more the social-worker type, like my mom.”
“I’m definitely going to do something different from my parents.” Sprig rolls over and stares up at the stars painted on the ceiling. Mom put them up there, ages ago. “My mom is always working late and thinking about problems. My dad, you know what my dad does, I told you about him and Afghanistan.” As soon as she says that, she has to clear her throat.
Just then, Dakota walks in with Krystee. “Time’s up,” Dakota says. “Good-bye. This is our room. We need our privacy.”
“Why don’t you two sleep in the parents’ st
udy?” Sprig says.
Dakota smooths her beautiful red hair behind her ears. “You guys are sleeping there. We agreed, that’s the plan.”
“That’s what I heard,” Krystee drawls. “Don’t be a brat.” As if it’s her house.
Sprig picks up the plate of cookies. “Come on, Bliss. Let’s go!”
Bliss follows her to the door, but then she stops and says sweetly, “Krystee. Do you know that you’re a first cousin to a chimpanzee?”
“What?” Krystee says.
Sprig and Bliss are still laughing when they close the door to the study. “That was so perfect,” Sprig says. “It was brilliant.”
“Well, you told me,” Bliss says modestly.
They set to work, first blowing up the camp mattresses, then unrolling the sleeping bags. “This is so fun,” Bliss says. “Like camping, without the bugs. That girl Krystee — why is your sister friends with her?”
“I don’t know. Fatal attraction or something.” Sprig lies down to test the mattress. “You know what, Bliss, sometimes I love my sister, and sometimes I just hate her. Do you think that’s sick and terrible?”
“Sometimes I hate my little brother.”
Sprig sits up. “No way! I thought everything was perfect in your family.”
“I wish. My parents dote on Spence, he can’t do anything wrong, and whatever happens, it’s, like, always my fault.” She smooths out the sleeping bag. “Let’s talk about something else. Something silly. What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue … of course — my middle name. And ten is my favorite number. I like to make lists of ten things — like my ten favorite foods or my ten best ideas. Or ten ways to make my sister disappear. I thought of a good one yesterday when I was baking the cookies. If I could mix Dakota into the dough and bake her —”
Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear Page 3
