Learning Not to Drown (10 page)

“Hey, baby doll,” she says, her metal bracelets clinking as she rubs sunscreen on. “Your shift is up.”

Two o'clock. I have to be home in an hour. Mom made me write my work schedule for the week on her calendar. I padded it on each end. That way I can still swim in the morning and have almost an hour to relax with my friends before going home. I have to stick to the lake, though. If she or Dad ever shows up and I'm not here, it'll be another month grounded for me.

I spread out my towel on the grass and pull my sack lunch out of my bag. Chris walks by with a slice of pizza from the Swimmer's Snack Shack. The bread and cheese and oregano smell so good, but eating here costs me an hour of work each time. Lunch from home is free.

“Hey, Clare,” Skye says as she and Chase walk toward me with rackets in hand. “Have time for a quick tennis match? Chase and I want to play doubles, him and me against Omar and you. You game?”

I look at my watch and sigh. “Sorry. I need to finish lunch and get back home. I have only about a half hour.” Besides, I'm awful at tennis. Maybe as bad as Omar. Chase and Skye should just play each other.

“Then, lunch it is,” Skye says, pulling a sandwich from her bag.

We sit in a circle on the grass. Laughing and talking. I've missed out on a party, a movie night, and will be still grounded when they go camping over the weekend and down to the beach next week. But at least I have them now.

The next thirty minutes fly past. I grudgingly pick up my stuff and pedal toward home.

Summer is the season of yard sales. I bike past each one, slowing down enough to get a good idea of what they might have. Broken chairs, homemade candles, lemonade, dishes, toys, lots of stuffed animals, a treadmill, and . . . yarn? I pull the brakes and hop off my bike, lean it against the nearest tree. There's a whole box of yarn, all different colors, mostly medium weight, and a few skeins of yellow thick chenille. I'm pretty sure if I get the whole box, I can make one kid-size blanket out of the chenille and maybe three baby blankets out of the rest.

“Twenty-five cents a skein or two dollars if you'll take the whole box.”

“Deal.” We shove it all into a couple of plastic bags so I can hang them off the handlebars. Man, I miss my car. On the way home, I have to stop every few minutes to adjust the bags.

I wheel Bike-a-saurus into our front yard and lean it against a pine tree. Through the kitchen window I can see Mom on the phone. Talking with her hands as much as with her mouth. I open the door and quietly walk in.

“I know you need the help. I'll fly out,” she says, her left hand in the air. “But it'll have to be in the fall.” A pause. “Well, a plane ticket is just not something that we've budgeted for, so I'll need to save for that. Besides, Luke is coming home soon, and I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with him. How about September or October?” Another pause. “I'll try. Okay, Mom. I love you too.”

She hangs up the phone and looks at me.

“Granny?” I ask. She nods. “How is she?”

“Restless. She wants to get the house fixed up so she can sell it and move into a retirement home condo.”

“Granny wants to move to a
condo
?” I feel dizzy, like someone just told me gravity no longer exists. Granny's house and Granny feel like one inseparable thing to me. Even though I rarely get to go see her, I know that she is in that house, stuffed with curtains she's hand-sewn and blankets she's knitted, the back porch built by Dad and Papa before I was born, Papa's workshop in the barn, the small chicken coup, and rows of vegetables in the garden.

“The house is just too much work since your grandfather died. I'm actually surprised she's stayed there this long.” Mom gives my shoulder a squeeze. “It's a good thing. She'll be around people her age. There'll be help when she needs to get to a doctor's appointment
or wants to go grocery shopping. Anyway, I'll be going out there this fall to get the house ready to sell.”

I can't imagine never going to the farm again, so I find myself saying, “Can I go? I'll help.”

“We can barely afford my plane ticket, Clare, but thanks. Besides, you'll be back in school by then.” She waits a beat, then asks, “What's on the agenda for today?”

“Homework. AP history summer assignment.”

For a second I think she's going to add something to my to-do list. Clean the bathroom or scrub the kitchen floor. But instead she says “Study hard” as she leaves the room.

Before pulling out my history book, I sit on my bed and sift through my newly purchased bags of yarn. If I work it right, I think I can make a violet baby blanket with flowers in three shades of pink, another with blue and green stripes, and a rainbow one with the rest. Granny has a great book of patterns for using up odds and ends of yarn. Maybe she can mail it to me.

As I cast on each purple stitch, I imagine the baby that this blanket might go to. Maybe a newborn, all squishy and tiny. Or a little one-year-old just learning to walk. I think of her mama and wonder if, like me, she's waiting for someone she loves to be out of prison. And I slide the stitches on a little faster, because of all the things she has to think about, at least with this blanket she won't have to worry about her baby being warm.

A knock, and my door starts to open. I fumble with my knitting, dropping it onto my bed and picking up my history book.

“Clare, do you think you can park your bike in the backyard from now on? It's such an eyesore,” Mom says.

“Sure,” I agree, looking back down to my history book.

“What are you working on?” She motions to my needles.

“Another beanie,” I lie. It's ridiculous, I know, but I've never told anyone I make blankets for the homeless shelter. Not even Drea.

“Okay. Well, when you take a break, please move that bike.”

After she leaves, I put my knitting away, thinking about how the first time I walked into Loving Hearts Homeless Shelter, Peggy at the front desk looked up at me and said, “How may I help you?” There was not one look in her eye of suspicion or judgment.

I don't tell anyone that I knit like crazy year-round and drive the forty-five minutes to Loving Hearts at least twice a winter. I don't tell anyone, so I never have to worry about Skeleton following me there.

Granny's hands moved fast.
Click, click, click, click, click.
I stared as the string of heart-red yarn became a scarf just for me.

“When I grow up, will you teach me how to do that?” I asked.

“No.” She looked up and smiled at me, but her fingers didn't stop. “But I can teach you now.”

“Now? I want to make a blanket,” I told her. “A blue one, with sunshine-yellow flowers.”

She put down her needles and dug into her knitting bag. “Let's start with something simple. How about a scarf for one of your dollies? We'll use this yarn, so it matches yours. I'll get it started for you.”

I watched her loop ten stitches onto a set of big needles. Then she guided my hands. I mumbled aloud with each stitch, “Needle into loop, yarn over, slip, and slide.”

The front door creaked open, but I didn't even look up. It was probably just Peter coming home from Evan's house. I hoped he went straight to his room.

But the footsteps stopped right in front of us.

“LUKE!” I shouted, jumping up. “Look! I'm knitting. This is going to be a scarf for my doll.”

“Wow, Squeakers! Let me see.” He picked up my little scarf already two lines long and said, “You did this? Nah . . . it must have been Granny.”

After giving me and Granny hugs, Luke announced he was going to be home for a while.

“Yay!” Granny never came for visits, and now Luke was there too! Maybe he'd stay a long time instead of just a few days.

It was the best week ever! Granny helped me finish my doll's scarf, and we started on a hat to match. She even gave me my own knitting needles. Luke and I went to the lake and made a sand castle, and every night we watched a movie. I was so happy it was summer, because I didn't have school to ruin my fun. But the week came to an end, and Granny had to go home.

At the airport she gave me three quarters.

Once home, I ran to my room to put them into my bank on the dresser.

Where was Piggy? She was there yesterday, right next to my ballerina music box, when I found two nickels and three pennies between the cushions of the couch. But now the bank was gone.

Maybe Luke could help me find her. I shouted for him and ran around the house, but he wasn't anywhere.

So I looked for Piggy by myself, everywhere. Imagined she got tired of staying in one place and somehow her pink body, fat with change, leapt from my dresser and ran out of my room. It was stupid, but the only other
thought was that someone had taken her. I'd rather believe in magic, even though a piggy bank coming to life was a pretty creepy idea. I kept looking.

No Piggy anywhere.

I went outside and searched the backyard. She wasn't in the flowerbed with the snapdragons or under my favorite apple tree. Maybe in the front? There on the road: bright pink pieces. I ran to the edge of the yard. What had happened? I squinted my eyes, looking to see if I could find any of my coins on the street. None. They were all gone. Someone had taken Piggy. And smashed her. And they'd taken my coins, too.

Dad helped me pick up the pieces, but he couldn't put them together, making jokes about Humpty Dumpty each time he tried. He promised to get me a new bank and gave me all the change in his pocket: two quarters, a dime, and six pennies. I'd had a lot more in there than that.

I waited for Luke to come home, imagining we'd become detectives to find out what had happened.

But Luke didn't come home that night. Or the next night. Or the next week. And Mom and Dad and Peter didn't want to help me solve the case. Maybe one of them had broken Piggy. It wasn't Granny, and it couldn't have been Luke. Luke would never have done that to me.

A few months later, my ear tight to the bedroom door, I heard Mom and Dad whisper about Luke going to jail, twenty-three months, eighteen with good behavior.

“Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time, again?”
I asked my fish, contemplating whether the question was worth getting in trouble for eavesdropping for.

But I knew it would be best not to ask, even though I really wanted to know more, because I doubted that Luke could be so unlucky as to be in the wrong place at the wrong time
again.

I wake up hardly believing it's the Fourth of July weekend already. Summer is moving fast.

BOOM! CRACK! BOOM!

Who in the hell is setting off fireworks at six in the morning? I moan and pull my pillow over my head. I have a half hour more to sleep.

Then I realize: My room is still dark. Too dark for six a.m.

There is another
BOOM
. I roll over to my window and pull back the curtains.

Thick clouds fill the sky, touching the treetops. Rain pushes the leaves of the apple tree down, making it look as tired as I feel. The sky brightens with a lightning strike. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one—
BOOM!

Wow, that's close, I think, slamming my window shut. No work for me today. The lake is closed if there're thunderstorms. No picnics, no fireworks, no Fourth of July. No phone, no Internet, no TV, no friends, no nothing. I am stranded. I slide into my bed and go back to sleep until 8 a.m.

“You guys have it easy,” I say to my fish, dropping in their flakes. They race to the surface, gulp the food down. The tank is looking dirty—algae is growing on the glass, pebbles, and
NO FISHING
sign.

Raymond is the last to finish eating; his black spotted nose pecks around the rocks for flakes that may have sunk. As he roots around, I take out their castle and the
NO FISHING
sign and place them into my fish bucket.

I barely register the phone ringing. It's just after eight in the morning, so I know it's not one of my friends calling. Besides, they all know I'm grounded.

Scrubbing the sides of the tank with a sponge on a wooden rod, I watch the glass clear as the water becomes murky. I empty a quarter of the tank with a siphon, change the filter, replace the castle and sign. All that I have left to do is add more water and treatment solutions to make sure the pH is right.

“Clare.” Mom opens my door as she knocks. “That was Lucille calling. The lake is closed today. So since you aren't working, I have a job here that I want you to do.” She looks at my fish tank, my wet arms, and adds, “You can finish that later.”

Wiping my arms with an old towel, I follow her to the living room. Couldn't I at least have breakfast first? She points at the faded spots on the carpet that lead to the front door. “I'd like for you to work on getting these stains out.”

Skeleton slides into the room, sipping his brandy, using a closed umbrella as a cane.

“Mom.” Is she senile? “I've already tried everything to get those stains out.”

“Well, I bought this new pet-stain remover, so try that.” She hands me a bottle and an old scrub brush. Skeleton taps the spots on the carpet with his umbrella, flapping his jaws open and shut, open and shut.

“I think this stuff was made for fresh stains. These are at least six years old.” My hands are shaking. My stomach knots up, rotten inside.

“Try it again and see.” She starts to walk away. Turns around to look back. “Are you still in your pajamas? Really, Clare. It's almost nine. Wasting the day away in bed.” She pauses. “Speaking of which, I don't think I saw your bed made.”

If I stay in this house much longer, I'll go crazy for sure. One more year. One more year and I'm free. College. Dorms. I just need to make sure I've got enough money saved to move out as soon as I graduate. The lake being closed today is
not
helping my college fund.