Tails of Spring Break (3 page)

“It’s Mom!” I ran to stand beside him.

Tyler got to talk to her first but, as usual, he hardly said a word. He mostly listened and nodded. “She can’t see you nod,” I said, and Dad said, “Hush, leave him alone.” Then, he handed the phone to me, and it was my turn.

Mom’s voice on the phone was like listening to her sing. “We’re setting up to do a show,” she told me. “Pretty soon they’ll ask me to sing into my mike, to make sure the sound is balanced.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Tulsa, Oklahoma,” she said. “Near Texas.”

Over the phone, I could hear the guitar and fiddle sounds of her band. Mom’s life was so exciting. “Do you have on your red sparkly vest?” I asked.

She laughed. “Actually, tonight it’s going to be green sparkles. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

I told her it was spring break, and everyone else had gone somewhere. But it was okay because I had a business. I’d grown again. I needed some new jeans.

About then, I heard someone call to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to go now. I’ll call you again, Honey.”

“Bye, Mom,” I said. As I hung up, I wished I’d told her about how I might buy an artist box. As I turned around, I saw Claire.

She was still sitting at the table, but she held her arms across her stomach as if she had a pain. Pink blotches covered her cheeks. She stared at me with a strange look on her face.

“Are you sick?” I asked.

She stood up. “I hate you, Katie Jordan,” she said in a tight little voice. “It’s not fair. Your mom can
call
you.” She ran down the hall into my bedroom and slammed the door. I started to follow.

“Wait,” Dad said. “I think she needs to be alone.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead. “Too bad. Too bad.”

“What’s too bad, Daddy?” Tyler asked.

“Claire can’t get phone calls from her mother,” he said. “Her mother’s dead.”

“We’re lucky, huh, Daddy,” Tyler said. He climbed up onto Dad’s lap.

“Pretty lucky,” Dad answered. He hugged Tyler close, but he was blinking as if he had something in his eye. Was he blinking back a tear? I couldn’t tell.

“Now, what do we do?” I asked. “She’s in my bedroom.”

Dad stopped blinking and looked hard at me. “You’re being kind to lonely pets. Seems like you could be kind to Claire.”

As I stared out at the wet bushes in the backyard, I saw Claire’s sad face. I should be nicer to her. But then, I remembered all the mean things she said. “I can’t, Dad.” I lowered my voice. “She’s awful.” As I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets, my fingers touched the Andersons’ house key. “Here,” I said, pulling it out. “We need a safe place for this.”

Dad’s face brightened. “The two of you could . . . ,” he began.

“No way!” I yelled. “It’s
my
business.” I threw the key onto the table.

“You’re sharing with me,” Tyler said. “It’s my bed China’s under.” He slid off Dad’s lap and went down the hall.

“First of all,” I said, “everybody but us went somewhere good for spring break.” I lowered my voice. “And the worst person in fourth grade is living in my bedroom.” I flung myself into a chair. “And China Cat doesn’t cuddle and purr, the way I thought she would.”

Dad tipped his head to one side. “Listen to that,” he said. “Tyler’s singing.” I listened as the words to “Three Blind Mice” drifted down the hall.

Dad began to smile. “Tyler knows how to make a lonely cat feel better,” he said, “and he’s only four years old.”

I stopped grinning as I figured out what he meant. Since I was older, he thought I could share everything with Claire. Well, he was wrong. I’d have to be an old lady before that would happen.

“Being nice to a cat is easy,” I told him. “Being nice to Claire is impossible.” I went down the hall to Tyler’s room.

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON, CLAIRE
finally came out of my bedroom. She sat at the table and wrote letters to her pen pals. Still later, she helped Dad and me fix supper. None of us mentioned Mom’s phone call. Claire reminded us to use place mats and napkins. And forks, as if we would have eaten macaroni and cheese with our fingers. “We should have a centerpiece,” she said.

“We do centerpieces on holidays,” I told her.

“Where’s Tyler?” Dad asked. “Still in there with China?”

“Whatever he’s doing is working,” I said. “She’s not growling.”

Dad handed the paper napkins to Claire, who set them around the table. “We want you to feel at home with us, Claire,” he said. “What would help you feel comfortable?”

She sat down at the table, thinking. “I should have brought some games. We could play games.”

“We have tons of games,” I told her. From the kitchen, Dad sent me a thumbs-up.

I frowned at him. Playing games with Claire was not my idea of fun. I sighed. Then I remembered her sad face. I would try to cheer her up.

After dinner, Tyler built things with Legos in his room and talked to China who was growling again. Dad turned on the TV to a basketball game.

When Claire and I opened the game cupboard, things began to slide out. “I might have known,” she said. “Everything in your game cupboard is mixed up.”

First, she made us find the Sorry pieces and put them in their box. Then, the checkers. Then, the Chutes and Ladders. Then, the worst thing—the cards. “I might have known,” she said again as she separated the decks.

I slapped a deck of cards onto the floor. “That’s it,” I said. “Play by yourself.”

She looked surprised. “I’m going to read to China. I
do
have a business.” I stepped over all the cards and went to find my book.

“Big deal,” Claire said. I heard her ask Dad to play Concentration, and I couldn’t believe it when he said yes. As I lay on Tyler’s bed and read my book out loud, I could hear them in the family room, laughing and having a great time. Claire even beat Dad. They came down the hall to tell me.

I turned my back on them. China growled just then, and I was glad.

Later when Claire and I got ready for bed, she kept getting in the way. “Excuse me,” I said, as I searched for my pajamas that were lost because of cleaning up my room.

“Excuse
me
,” she said as she pushed past me with her toothbrush in her hand.

“Excuse ME,” I said when we both ended up at the sink.

“Excuse ME,” she said and turned off the bathroom light before I was done.

I flopped on my bed while Claire rubbed something smelly into her hair and started brushing it. “You’re dropping yellow hair all over my room,” I said.

“Your hair would look nicer if you brushed it now and then.” She held up a blue-and-white plastic mirror and smiled into it.

I stared at the empty space on the wall where my poster used to hang. Most nights, I pretended Mom and I were having a talk before I went to sleep. Now, because of Claire, I couldn’t even do that. I wondered if Mom was singing right that minute. In Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Claire fluffed her hair and set the brush in her lap. “What does she say when she calls?” she asked.

How could she know I’d been thinking about Mom? I twisted my sheet into a flower in my hand and pushed my face into it. “Not much,” I said into the flower. “Stuff about where she’s performing.”

“I can hardly hear you.” Claire picked up her hairbrush. “My mother had a bad accident. She’s dead.”

“I know that,” I said into the sheet flower. I patted the sheet flat and looked over at Claire. “I’m sorry,” I told her. My mom wasn’t at all dead. But still. She wasn’t here. She was never here when I needed to talk about things.

Claire’s blond curls bounced as she began to brush again. “I wish I’d been sick that day. If I’d been sick, she would have stayed home.” She laid the brush on the bedside table and pulled her covers up to her shoulders. “She’d still be alive.”

“It wasn’t your fault it happened,” I said. “You didn’t know she was going to have an accident.”

“I talk to her after I say my prayers,” Claire said. “Since she’s in heaven, I figure she can hear me. Do you say prayers?”

“No,” I answered, and then I thought about my pretend conversations with Mom. “Actually, I talk to my mom, too,” I said. “Are you done littering my room?”

She rolled her eyes and nodded.

I snapped off the light. Then, I got down beside my bed and reached under it to touch Mom’s poster. I closed my eyes and thought about what to say. “Hi, Mom.” My voice was a breath, not a voice. I whispered to her about my awful spring vacation and how China’s growls were kind of scary.

Muffin will like you
, Mom’s pretty voice said inside my head.

“But she piddles,” I whispered. I’d been trying all day not to think about that. Tomorrow, when I went to take care of her, I was going to have to wipe up piddle. What if I got piddle on my hand? How disgusting!

I could almost hear Mom’s voice answer. It’s only a week, honey, she said. And then, she surprised me.
Claire would like to be your friend
, she said.

I stiffened. Grownups never understood anything.

In the other bed, Claire was making annoying noises, whispering and breathing funny. “You better quit doing that,” I said. “You better not keep me awake.”

I touched Mom’s poster one more time and crawled into bed. I could still hear Claire breathing. Then, I heard China growl in Tyler’s room. I pulled the pillow over my head to shut everything out.

S
UNDAY MORNING, AS I
woke up, I looked toward the wall where Mom’s poster usually hung. The wall was empty. I gasped. Then, I remembered.

I turned my head and, sure enough, Claire Plummer was sleeping in the other bed. Claire Plummer, sharing my room. I peered over at her and saw something hard sticking out from under her pillow. In the dim light, it looked like a pencil case. Weird. Just then, she opened her eyes.

I jumped out of bed, pretending I hadn’t been looking at her.

At breakfast, Tyler reported on China. “I slept in my own bed last night,” he said. “I think China likes me now.”

“She’s probably all adjusted now,” I told him. “She still hasn’t pooped.” Cheerios blew out of his mouth as he said “pooped.”

“How do you know that?” Claire pushed her dish to one side, out of range.

Tyler jammed more Cheerios into his mouth and talked around them. “Her litter box doesn’t have any poop in it.”

Claire turned pale. “You looked in her litter box?”

Just then, a terrible noise came down the hall. A scream! High and low. And then, high again.

“That’s the yowl,” I said, clattering my spoon into my bowl. “That’s what got her thrown out of the Motel La Paws.”

“The
cat
made that racket?” Dad jumped out of his chair and ran down the hall.

We followed him.

China yowled again. She was a cat siren. We held our hands over our ears till it stopped. In the new silence, my ears rang with a noise of their own.

Finally, Dad blew out a big sigh. “I hope they can’t hear that all the way to Hawaii.”

“Sierra’s going to be so mad about this,” I said.

“China doesn’t screech,” Tyler said, snuffling, “if I’m in here. But maybe I don’t want to be in here.” He moved closer to the door. His freckles showed up dark on his pale face.

“You HAVE to stay with her,” I told him. “That’s the only way we’ll get through this week. We’ll bring you toys. We’ll bring everything you need.”

He crossed his arms and snuffled again.

“I’ll share my candy,” I said.

“Candy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“And will you bring my trucks?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Everything you need.”

“This could be good,” Dad said. “We’ll be able to walk around without stepping on a truck.”

Just then the phone rang, and Dad went to answer it. “It’s your dad, Claire,” he called.

She ran for the phone.

When she finished talking to her dad, Claire helped me gather up trucks. “Grandpa’s better,” she said as she piled little pickups into the back of a big dump truck, “but he’s still in the hospital. I told my father about China. He said make sure she has water to drink.”

China had curled into a tight ball under Tyler’s bed. She growled at us as we brought in the trucks. Her eyes flashed mean lights.

Tyler moved closer to me. He shivered. “I don’t like her anymore,” he said.

“Want some water, China?” I asked.

She yowled again. Her awful song went up and up and flowed back down into a low rumble, sort of like thunder. She slunk out from under the bed and leapt onto Tyler’s dresser. Then she scrabbled up the wall to the window sill. “Huff, huff, huff,” she said. She crouched there, her ears flat to her head, her evil eyes staring. Her tail wound and unwound like a snake getting ready to strike.

A scared feeling filled my stomach. “Get Dad,” I said.

China dashed toward us. We ducked as she darted between us and out the door.

We chased after her. We split up to look in every room.

“She’s here,” Tyler hollered from the living room. “Nope, there she goes.”

Dad joined us as we raced all over trying to find her. She knocked over bottles in the kitchen.

She scrabbled across Dad’s newspaper on the table, sending it flying. She zipped past us one more time, headed down the hall. Then, silence.

We looked under beds, expecting that any minute she’d explode out at us. We pulled back the shower curtain and checked the bathtub. We slid closet doors open and peeked in.

No cat.

“Could she get outside?” I asked Dad.

He shook his head. “Everything’s closed tight.”

“She’s not under my bed anymore,” Tyler said. “I’m glad.”

“It’s worse now,” I said. “Now, she could be anywhere.”

As Tyler’s eyes filled with tears, I realized what I’d said. “Don’t worry, Tyler,” I told him. “We’ll find her.”

But my own heart was beating too fast. My voice came out shaky.

We stood there a long time, listening. We heard nothing but our own breathing. China had vanished.

“C
HINA’S BEEN A PET
all her life,” Dad said as he filled the tea kettle at the sink. “She wouldn’t suddenly turn wild.”