Read Tallahassee Higgins Online

Authors: Mary Downing Hahn

Tags: #Social Issues, #Fiction, #Juvenile Fiction, #Values & Virtues, #General, #Family, #Parents, #Emotions & Feelings, #Mothers and Daughters

Tallahassee Higgins (3 page)

BOOK: Tallahassee Higgins
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"Do you like horses?" Aunt Thelma turned to me, her eyes probing mine. What she really wanted to ask, I was sure, was "Are you just like your mother?"

I was tempted to tell her that I had skipped horses and gone straight to boys, but it wouldn't have been true. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders. "They're all right, I guess." Actually, I'd never thought much about horses, one way or the other.

Aunt Thelma contemplated the pictures silently for a moment. Then she cleared her throat and turned to me. "Tallahassee, I want to make a few things clear right from the start," she began, as if she were delivering a speech she had rehearsed, and I braced myself for bad news.

"While you are here with us, I expect you to obey Dan and me and to do what we tell you. I don't know what kind of life you led in Florida, but
here
we have rules."

While she droned on and on about bedtimes and television and keeping my room clean, I stared uncomfortably at the little hooked rug on the floor. Liz had never cared when I went to bed or how much TV I watched or what my room looked like. Usually I didn't even have a room—I slept on the couch or something. The more Aunt Thelma said, the worse Hyattsdale sounded, and I hoped I wouldn't have to stay long. Otherwise, I was sure I'd end up running away, just like Liz.

"I want your visit to be a pleasant experience for all of us." Aunt Thelma finally stopped talking and turned down the bedspread. Fluffing up the pillow, she said, "You get a good night's sleep now, Tallahassee."

She paused in the doorway as if she were going to say something else. Changing her mind, she gave me a tiny smile and went back downstairs.

Alone in Liz's cold little room, I opened my backpack and pulled out my nightgown. While I undressed, I studied Liz's horses. Their heads were too big, I decided, and their legs were too long. In real life, they wouldn't have been able to walk without falling down, but most of them were leaping over fences, manes and tails flowing in the wind. Despite their anatomical problems, they had a lot of life and spirit, I thought, kind of like Liz herself.

Before I got into bed, I glanced at Melanie's box. It was sitting on the bureau, its lid slightly askew. Opening it, I picked Melanie up.

"Still smiling, Melon Head?" I gave her a little shake. "If you had any brains at all, you'd be bawling your head off."

I started to toss her back into the box, but she was still smiling and holding her arms out as if she expected to be loved. "Oh, okay," I told her. "You can sleep with me. But just tonight, stupid. Don't start thinking I
like
you or anything."

Shivering in my cold bed, I wondered where Liz was now. Would she still be in Florida or would she be in Mississippi already? For the first time in my whole life, I wished I'd paid more attention in geography. Maybe Uncle Dan had a map, I thought, and he'd let me put little thumbtacks in it every time I got a postcard from Liz. That way, I could imagine being in all the places she was passing through on the mother stealer's motorcycle.

***

The first time you go to sleep in a strange place, every little noise wakes you up. First it was Fritzi's toenails out in the hall, then it was a train whistle, then it was Uncle Dan's and Aunt Thelma's voices coming right through the wall between our rooms.

"She has to know who's boss, right from the start," I heard Aunt Thelma say. "Otherwise we'll have another Liz on our hands. I'm forty years old, Dan, and I can't go through that again. It was bad enough the first time."

"Tallahassee seems like a real nice kid," Uncle Dan rumbled. "That smile of hers reminds me so much of Liz. And some of her mannerisms. Did you notice the way she flips her hair out of her face? It was like seeing Liz all over again at that age."

"That's just it, Dan. We don't want Liz all over again! You thought she was a nice kid, too, and look how she turned out. Almost thirty and still acting like a teenager. Riding off to California on a motorcycle to be a movie star. How immature can you get?"

"I don't see any harm in it, Thelma. Liz has so much talent. If anybody can make it out there, she can."

"She has responsibilities, Dan. And if she doesn't shoulder them, who will?" Aunt Thelma's voice was rising. "You and me, Dan, that's who! I knew when Tallahassee was born we'd end up raising her. I'm just surprised it took this long."

"Having her here for a little visit is hardly what I'd call raising her."

"Do you really think Liz will send for her?" Aunt Thelma asked loudly. "I'll be surprised if we ever hear from your sister again!"

"Hush, Thelma. You'll wake up Tallahassee." Uncle Dan's voice dropped, and I heard the bed creak.

Then Aunt Thelma said in a softer voice, "I just don't want Liz to take advantage of you, Dan. I don't want her breaking your heart all over again."

I lay still, wanting to hear more, but—at the same time—wishing I hadn't heard any of it. On the wall opposite me, Liz's horses glimmered in the faint light, and I shivered, feeling cold all the way to my bones. Suppose Aunt Thelma was right and Liz was gone for good? California was a big state, and she hadn't given me an address. Just a promise that she'd write to me every day.

Holding Melanie tight, I remembered our old cat, Bilbo. Liz had always claimed to love him, but when she started dating a guy who hated cats, Bilbo conveniently disappeared. She claimed she didn't know where he'd gone, but I suspected she'd taken him somewhere in the car and dumped him far away while I was in school.

It wouldn't have been so bad if she had at least missed Bilbo. But she didn't. Not a bit. "What's gone is gone," she used to say whenever I asked her about him. "Out of sight, out of mind."

It was the same with the boyfriends she'd had before she met Bob—even Roger, who used to take us snorkeling and waterskiing every weekend. Once she broke up with them, she never thought of them again.

Lying there hugging Melanie, I wondered if Liz would forget about me. I could just see her walking along a beach somewhere in California, laughing and talking, never even wondering how I was doing. Then she would receive a telegram from Aunt Thelma telling her I had died of pneumonia. She would stare at the message. "Tallahassee?" she would ask herself. "I don't know anybody named Tallahassee. I thought that was a city, not a
person.
" Then she would shrug, crumple the telegram into a ball, and toss it into the Pacific.

Chapter 5

A
UNT THELMA WOKE
me up on Saturday morning. "It's almost nine-thirty," she said. "And we need to go shopping."

I huddled under the covers. "Me and Liz always sleep late on Saturdays," I said, not even bothering to smile at her or even sound nice. I knew how she felt about me now. And Liz, too.

"What did I tell you last night about rules?" Aunt Thelma sounded just as grumpy as I felt. "I expect you to be up and dressed by nine o'clock on weekends." She folded her arms across her chest and frowned like a prison matron in an old movie.

When I didn't move, she yanked the covers off, tumbling poor old Melanie to the floor and exposing me to the cold air. "Get dressed right this minute. Your breakfast is on the table, and your uncle and I are ready to go to the mall."

I jumped out of bed shivering and glared at her. "Why do we have to go to the mall?"

"You don't have any winter clothes, not even a jacket. I can't send you off to school with nothing to wear but those skimpy little things you brought with you from Florida."

"If my mother thought I'd need warm clothes, she'd have gotten them for me!" I felt tears springing to my eyes, so I yelled to keep her from noticing. "I heard every word you said about me and Liz last night, and no matter what you think, she's a very responsible person. I'll only be here a little while, so don't waste your money on clothes for me! I won't need them in California!"

Aunt Thelma's face turned a deep red. "Don't you dare sass me, Tallahassee Higgins! I won't put up with it!"

"What's going on?" Uncle Dan paused in the doorway and looked from me to Aunt Thelma and back again.

"Just tell her to get dressed." Aunt Thelma turned away, her shoulders square, her back straight. "We have to go shopping. She can't run around here in summer clothes."

As she clumped heavily down the steps, Uncle Dan put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a little hug. "You must be freezing to death, honey. Get dressed before you catch pneumonia or something."

"She hates me," I sobbed. "She hates me and Liz."

"You heard us talking last night, didn't you?" Uncle Dan asked softly.

I nodded and hid my face in my hands. I hardly ever cry and I hate people to see me when I do. "But it's not true," I sobbed. "Liz would never go off and leave me."

"Of course she wouldn't, honey." Uncle Dan patted my head. "Your aunt gets all riled up sometimes and talks nonsense. She had no business scaring you like that." He offered me his handkerchief. "Stop crying now and forget all about it. Okay?"

After Uncle Dan left, I picked up Melanie. "Liz will send for me in just a few weeks, I bet," I whispered to her. "She'll miss me so much she'll get all sad, and Bob won't know how to cheer her up the way I do."

I pulled my Glinda the Good Witch Magic Wand out of my backpack. The stick was bent and the star was crooked, but I waved it through the air and tapped Melanie lightly on the head. "Be happy," I crooned, and then I swooped around the room on my toes.

Unlike Liz, Melanie didn't laugh at my Glinda routine, but she looked happy. Picking her up, I gave her a little shake and made her say, "Liz loves you more than anything in the whole world, Tallahassee Higgins. You're the only person who can make her truly happy."

Sitting Melanie on the bureau, I rummaged through the stuff in my backpack, trying to find some underpants that didn't have holes in them. I only had four pairs, and all of them were the Sunday kind—holy. Hoping Aunt Thelma wouldn't follow me into the dressing room at the mall, I put on the least raggedy ones, yanked on my jeans and a T-shirt, and ran downstairs.

Fritzi was waiting for me in the hall, growling like a killer dog. I tried to walk around him, but he blocked my path and snarled.

"Nice dog, nice dog." I stretched my hand toward him the way Liz had taught me. "Let them smell you," she always said, "so they'll know you aren't threatening them."

I guess the message didn't get through because Fritzi continued to growl and then to bark—sharp, loud yapping sounds.

"Tallahassee, leave that dog alone." Aunt Thelma stepped into the hall and picked Fritzi up. Kissing his nose, she said, "Come on, sweetie, I'll give you a puppy bone."

"I wasn't doing anything to him," I told her. "For your information, he was trying to bite me. Are you sure he doesn't have rabies or something?"

When she didn't answer, I stuck my tongue out at Fritzi, who was growling at me over Aunt Thelma's shoulder.

"Sit down and eat, Tallahassee." Aunt Thelma put a bowl on the table next to a glass of orange juice. "We haven't got all day."

"What's this?" I poked at the warm gray stuff in the bowl, thinking she must have given me Fritzi's food by mistake.

"Haven't you ever eaten oatmeal?" she asked coldly. Neither of us had forgotten the scene we'd had upstairs, and the air in the kitchen was heavy with unspoken words.

I looked at the cup she was holding. "I'll just have coffee." I tried to sound as cold as she had.

"Coffee?" Aunt Thelma couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd asked for a beer. "Coffee is for adults, not children. You eat that oatmeal, Tallahassee. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Sitting down across from me, she put her cup on the table. I could see the steam curling up from it and smell the good coffee aroma. Then she opened the newspaper to the crossword puzzle, picked up a pencil, and started filling in the blanks.

I don't know how long we would have sat there if Uncle Dan hadn't come through the back door, huffing from the cold. "Are you two ready?" he asked.

"When Tallahassee finishes her breakfast," Aunt Thelma said.

"I told her all I wanted was coffee, but she won't even let me have one cup." I glared at Aunt Thelma, but she had her head bent over the crossword puzzle as if it were the most important thing in the world.

Uncle Dan looked at my oatmeal. "It's cold, Thelma. Maybe you should give her cornflakes instead."

Aunt Thelma shot him a dirty look, but she poured some cornflakes into a bowl and put it down in front of me. Then, sighing loudly, she dumped the oatmeal in the garbage disposal.

After I'd eaten enough to satisfy her, I pulled on my sweatshirt and followed them outside to Aunt Thelma's car, an old Ford. I got into the back seat, which smelled like Fritzi, and Uncle Dan struggled to start the engine.

"Roger's truck used to sound just like this," I told Uncle Dan. "He said it was because it needed a new choke."

Uncle Dan nodded and Aunt Thelma muttered something about not knowing I was an automobile mechanic. Finally, the car started and we set off for the mall.

***

By the time Aunt Thelma had finished dragging me from one store to another looking for sales, I had a green and blue ski jacket, a new pair of jeans, and three sweaters, plus socks, underwear, and mittens. I hated to think of how much money Aunt Thelma had wasted, but I promised her that Liz would pay her back. "Every cent," I said. "Even though I don't need any of these clothes."

On the way back to Oglethorpe Street, we passed a McDonald's. "Can we eat dinner there?" I leaned over the seat, addressing my request to Uncle Dan.

"Certainly not." Aunt Thelma reared her head back like an angry horse. "You had a hot dog at the mall. That's enough junk food for one day."

In my opinion you can never have enough junk food, but I knew better than to try telling Aunt Thelma that. Instead I slumped in the backseat and wondered what Liz was doing. Ten to one, she and the mother stealer were eating Big Macs somewhere.

***

After dinner Aunt Thelma and I had one more fight. This time it was about television. I wanted to stay up and watch
The Bride of Dracula
on
Creature Feature,
but Aunt Thelma reminded me that my bedtime was nine-thirty on weekends.

BOOK: Tallahassee Higgins
4.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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