Sunny Sweet Is So Not Scary (11 page)

“You have to go in there,” I whispered to myself.

But I didn't. I didn't have to go. Just like Junchao, I wanted to go home. I turned around and started back into the forsythia.

I couldn't do this. I didn't want to do this. The branches scraped at my face. I got down on my hands
and knees and crawled in the dirt. The light of the flashlight bobbed about wildly next to me, making the world unsteady. I lost track of what was up and what was down. I rolled out of the bushes and into something small and soft. Sunny Sweet.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What are
you
doing?” I asked back.

“Coming with you,” she said.

“No,” I said. But I didn't mean it. I wanted her to come. I didn't want to be alone.

She smiled down at me. I got up off the ground. Even before I was done standing up and wiping the dirt off my pajamas and pushing my stupid hanger hat back on my head for the millionth time tonight, I knew that I needed to take Sunny back to the house.

“Sunny,” I said.

She cut me off. “I know, Masha. You're sending me back to Alice and Junchao.” She sighed as she leaned down and picked up my flashlight and handed it to me. And then she handed me something else. It was small and soft.

“What's this?” I asked.

“It's a rabbit's foot,” she said.

“A good-luck charm? Whose is it?” I asked.

“It's mine,” she said.

“What?”

“I know.” She hung her little head. “It's crazy superstitious to have one. But”—she looked up at me—“it's actually Daddy's. I took it from him when we moved. Don't you remember that he used it as a key chain for his car keys?”

Now I remembered. I nodded my head. Every time my father went to start the car, Sunny would lecture him about the stupid foot and how unscientific superstitions were. It made my heart hurt to think of Sunny taking it with her to New Jersey. The whole divorce had seemed so crazy, and so my little sister had done a crazy thing to make herself feel better.

“Take it. It will keep you safe,” she said.

I squeezed the foot in my hand. And then I tied it to my pajamas using the strings from my pants.

“If you go back into the woods a little farther in,” Sunny said, “the leaves won't be as deep and it will be easier to walk. That way, you will also meet up with that
little path that Mrs. Song made into the woods. It goes straight to her illegal goldfish pond.”

Mrs. Song hated rules. Especially when it got in the way of her garden. She had learned that because of some laws, she wasn't allowed to build a pond for her goldfish. But she'd built it anyway; she just built it farther into the woods so it wouldn't get noticed.

“Most of Mrs. Song's
Pennisetum ruppelii
is growing around the pond.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll take that way.” I smiled at her and turned to go.

“Masha,” Sunny said, reaching for my arm.

“Yeah, Sunny?”

“I love you,” she said.

“Are you telling me this because you don't think I'm going to make it?” I asked, afraid that she might say yes.

“You are totally going to make it,” she said. “Remember, Masha, I know everything.”

I gave my little sister a hug and then watched her run back past the shed and over to the two dark figures of Alice and Junchao sitting on the porch. When
she got there, she threw her hand up in a big wave. I waved back. And then I turned around and started under the forsythia bushes for the third time tonight.

Sunny was right. She was always right. I could do this thing. I yawned. That is, if I could stay awake long enough to get the grass and get back to the house.

I did what Sunny said and made my way deeper into the woods to get past all the leaves and sticks at the edge of our yards. I wished I'd brought a jacket because all the branches scraping at my arms made me think of daddy longlegs, which kept freaking me out. The world in front of my cold, wet feet was lit up by the flashlight, but all around me was darkness.

When I got in far enough, I turned to my right and started toward where the little path should be. After a minute or two of walking, I shined the flashlight up ahead of me to see if I could spot the path. Before I could see anything up ahead of me, my toe hit something hard and I fell into a bunch of leaves and old branches. It was like the tenth time I'd been in the wet dirt tonight. But this time, I wasn't alone. Something long and skinny wiggled underneath me.

I leaped up so fast and so high that I hit my hanger hat on a tree branch. Which was good for two reasons. One, because being stunned by pain from a hanger digging into my skull kept me from screaming loud enough to wake up everyone in the entire neighborhood. And two, it gave me something to hang on to so my feet weren't anywhere near the ground and the slithery thing down there in the leaves.

I hung in the tree, breathing . . . and waiting for whatever that thing was to get to its home. I was hoping that it had one and that it was far away from this tree. But then I remembered the flashlight. Where was it? It must have been knocked off when I fell.

I let go of the branch and dropped onto the ground. I didn't move my feet for a minute or two, giving the squirmy thing time to realize that I was back. Then I began searching the dark ground for the flashlight. It couldn't have gone too far. But it was hard to see anything. The moon was up there, but so were the tree branches, blocking it.

I felt around with my hands. I didn't want to, but I didn't see that I had any choice. The damp cold of the
leaves made them feel slick and icky. Where was that dumb flashlight? I got down onto my knees so I could swipe my hands in a bigger circle.

It was just gone.

I'd have to go on without it.

I stood up and looked around. Which way was Mrs. Song's? Which way was my house? My heart stopped. Oh no. How had I done this? How could I have gotten myself lost?

I took a bunch of steps forward. But then I stopped. It was so dark up ahead. Maybe this was just going deeper into the woods.

I turned and started the other way.

This way was also dark.

“I'm lost. I'm lost,” I repeated, hopping in a circle. It felt like the darkness was getting closer to me and the night air was hot and sticky and wouldn't let me breathe. I blinked and blinked, trying to stop the world from squishing into me. I looked up. And then I jumped up . . . and started to climb.

At first my hands and feet didn't even feel the tree, but as I climbed higher and higher, I started to feel better.

I would be able to see up there. I would be able to find my way.

I couldn't tell exactly how high I was, but the branches were getting thinner and the leaves thicker. I stopped and looked around me.

There it was! My house. And Mrs. Song's.

I couldn't see Alice, Junchao, and Sunny on the porch, but I could see Mrs. Song's goldfish pond. It was in a clearing in the trees about a hundred feet away. I could even see the little path that led out of the woods to it. I held onto my hanger hat and looked up at the sky. It was filled with stars. I bet if Sunny were here, she would be able to tell the right way to go just by looking up at these guys. I wanted to feel angry at her for being able to do this, or maybe at myself for not being able to do it. But all I felt was awe for all of the things that my little sister knew how to do.

I couldn't use the stars, so I used my chin instead. I pointed it in the right direction, and then I started
down the tree, keeping my chin pointed in the direction of Mrs. Song's pond.

When I dropped out of the tree, I didn't even care if I stepped right on that slimy thing from before. All I cared about was following my chin.

I took off through the dark woods, heading straight in the direction of my chin. I didn't even want to move to pass by a tree, but I obviously had to. My heart pounded so loudly that it just about drowned out the sound of my clanging chains. I kept walking and clanging, walking and clanging. And then I stepped right out onto the path!

It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen in my whole life. I laughed out loud and then got down on my hands and knees and kissed the black mulch, which was pretty stupid because it could totally have given my lip a splinter. And then I hopped up and ran for the pond.

The path was dark, but it was still so much easier than walking through the woods. It had lots of little twists and turns in it. Mrs. Song loved things that twisted and turned. Even the walk up to her front door
was twisty. She said that all the curves that a twisty path made were just more places she could plant flowers. I knew that there were a bunch of big clumps of tall grass growing right on the side of the pond. I began skipping when I knew I was close. I turned the corner and there she was. Trudy Day!

 

Trudy with a Fishing Net?

I crouched down on the path.

Her back was to me.

I could tell that she didn't know I was here.

She was small and glowed a bit in the moonlight. And she was bent over the pond and seemed to be studying something in the water.

Maybe she was going to drown me!

I shook inside my pajamas.

Should I run back?

Should I call out to Junchao and Alice?

I held tightly to all the necklaces so my shaking didn't make any jingling sounds. The jewels jabbed into my palms.

She turned.

My heart skipped about ten beats.

She was holding something. A fork? A knife? A little fishing net?

She held a little fishing net.

And it looked familiar. Not the net, but the ghost. It had skinny little arms and legs and wore pajamas.

It was Sunny Sweet!

“Sunny,” I called.

The little glowing spirit looked up at me, and then it waved its net and smiled.

I trotted over. “What are you doing here?”

“You were gone so long,” she said. “I told Junchao and Alice that I was going inside to use the bathroom, but I really ran out the front door and over here to look for you.”

“How did you get past the ghost in the closet?” I asked.

“I ran. I was really worried about you.”

“Thanks, Sunny.” I smiled. “But you shouldn't have. I bet Junchao and Alice are going crazy right now.” That's when I noticed she was still holding the net. “What are you doing with that net?”

“It's not a net. It's actually part of my protozoan culture kit. I thought that if I had to wait for you for a while, I might get some samples. I've been trying to identify the different protozoans in Mrs. Song's pond for months now.”

“What?”

“There are more than fifty thousand different species of protozoa, and I am in the middle of . . .”

“Sunny,” I interrupted. “How can you be collecting stuff when there is a ghost running around?”

She blinked at me for a few seconds. Then she said, “Habits are pretty powerful.”

I rolled my eyes. But then I remembered not to be negative. “Okay, whatever. Put down the culture thingy and let's get what we came for, the long grass.” I walked around the other side of the pond and plucked out a bunch of the long grass. I made sure to pull them from
different clumps so I didn't mess up Mrs. Song's garden.

“Let's go,” I said. I started for the woods. Sunny may have made it past Trudy in her closet, but I wasn't going to try it.

“Where's the flashlight?” she asked.

“I lost it.”

“How are we going to get back?” she asked.

“Some smart person told me to walk back into the woods a bit and meet up with Mrs. Song's path to her pond.” I smiled. “I thought that we'd take the same way back, only this time I don't plan on getting lost.”

“How?” she asked.

“Because I have a little scientist with me who can probably find her way from here to Africa on foot!” I laughed.

“You can't get to Africa on foot,” she said. “But I can use science to get us back to our house.”

It was my turn to ask the question. “How?”

“F = G × m
₁
m
₂
/r²,” she said.

“Never mind, I don't want to know.”

“The law of gravity,” she said. “Come on.”

I followed Sunny down the path toward Mrs. Song's yard. “I don't want to go in the front door, Sunny,” I whispered at her back.

“Don't worry,” she said over her shoulder.

Whenever Sunny told me not to worry, it made me worry more. But I didn't have any other ideas, so I kept following her.

We came out of the woods and into Mrs. Song's yard by the tree that had giant heart-shaped leaves and that got little white flowers on it at the end of every school year. Sunny headed straight for the wooden fence between our yard and Mrs. Song's. Then she walked along it until she came to a group of bushes.

“Now what?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

“Inside the bushes is Mrs. Song's condenser fan for her air conditioner.”

I blinked at Sunny in the dark, refusing to say “What?”

“I thought we could use the force of gravity to get back into our yard,” she continued.

I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot.

“We climb up onto the condenser and jump over the fence,” she said.

I stopped toe tapping and thought about it. Where we were standing in Mrs. Song's part of the yard was almost even with our porch in our yard. In other words, we wouldn't even have to walk past the scary monster in the shed!

“Not a bad idea,” I told Sunny.

She smiled so big, the moonlight made her teeth glow.

I pushed my way through the thick, wet, pine-needly bushes with Sunny behind me. In the middle of the bushes was a big machine sitting on a thick square of cement. I climbed up on the cement and then put my toes inside the grates on the side of the machine and climbed up on top of it. I could easily see over the fence and into our yard. What I couldn't see was Alice and Junchao sitting on our porch. But maybe it was just too dark.