Nekomah Creek (14 page)

Lucy sputtered with surprise, then grinned to find herself the center of attention.

“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.” Dad shook his head like he didn’t know whether to laugh or be mad.

Her polka-dot dress hung limp over her stiff petticoats and her stove-black nose was smeared. Wet strings of hair were plastered to her cheeks. Dad fished her Mouseketeer ears from the washtub, shook them out, and set them on her head.

Everybody laughed. Even Mrs. Perkins.

“Forevermore,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sure glad you pulled her out so fast.”

“My reflexes are getting better all the time,” Dad said.

Mom came hurrying up. “Oh, dear. I should have been watching her closer. I got talking to Inge …” She sighed. “Well, I’ll just have to take her home. I guess with Lucy I should always figure on spare clothes.”

Then Mom noticed Mrs. Perkins.

“Lucy gets into trouble like this all the time,” she said lightly, wrapping her jacket around her. “Don’t you?” She made a pretend fierce face at Lucy and kissed her forehead. Then she smiled at Mrs. Perkins. “I’m just amazed we’ve never had to go to the emergency room yet.”

This was where Mrs. Perkins was supposed to
laugh and say she understood and aren’t kids the darnedest and all that.

Instead her eyebrows went up.

Mom and Dad glanced at each other, some little message going between them.

Maybe they were scared too. Maybe they were starting to catch on to how dangerous it could be to get on the bad side of someone like Mrs. Perkins. Someone who had more power over us than I ever realized.

Suddenly I wanted to crawl under the punch table. I had the strangest urge to just sit there and read some Encyclopedia Brown. Why couldn’t I be like him? He’s smart and all he does is solve crimes. He never wastes time worrying about personal muddles.

No wonder I like books better than real life.

  10  

All the next morning I sat there in class, staring at Amber Hixon’s empty desk. Funny. Until she came out of Mrs. Van Gent’s office all red-faced that first time, I’d never thought much about her at all.

Of course there’d been times over the past couple of years when you couldn’t help noticing her, like in first grade when she was the only one who came to school on Halloween without a costume. Our teacher took out some scarves and bracelets and helped her dress up like a Gypsy. But Amber just stood there, not even cracking the teensiest smile, never thanking Mrs. Murphy. “My mother made me a beautiful bride dress,” was all she said, “but it turned out too nice to wear to school.”

In third grade she sat right in front of me. I spent a lot of time looking at the back of her head, wondering
if she knew her hair was all snarled up. Why didn’t her mom make her comb it? Don’t get me wrong—personally, I hate to be nagged about that kind of stuff. It’d be weird, though, if my parents didn’t.

Now Amber was gone, and I was thinking about her a lot more than I ever had before. What was happening at her house that made the counselor think she ought to live somewhere else?

When I got home that afternoon, Dad said the kids’d had a rough day. At first he thought maybe they’d just gotten into too much Halloween candy, but now they had fevers and it looked like the flu. He’d already called Mom and told her she’d better come on home if she could.

So we were all there when Freddie first got that stricken, cross-eyed look. Then he reared back and heaved all over Buddy Wabbit.

Shocked silence.

Mom was the first to spring into action. “Grape juice,” she said, picking up the bunny with two fingers. “You gave him grape juice.” She yanked a long strip of paper toweling out of the holder and started swabbing at everything, including Dad. “This’ll stain like crazy.”

Holding Freddie, Dad wiped his dripping hand on a towel. “The clinic said liquids.”

I came to Dad’s defense. “Freddie wanted it, Mom. Really. That’s all he’d take.”

Mom looked at Freddie and her face softened. “You poor little guy. Don’t you worry. We’re going to get you all fixed up.”

“Buddy!” Freddie noticed his bunny was splotched purple. He stretched his arms out and screamed. “Buddy Wabbit!”

“Let me get him cleaned off, Honey,” Mom said, “and then you can have him back.”

“Nooooo! Buddeeeeeee!”

“Oh, let him have it,” Dad said. “If it’ll stop him crying.”

But when Mom tried to hand it to him he got even more upset. “Buddy Wabbit!
No
Buddy Wabbit!” He wanted him but he was grossed out at the same time. Finally Dad carried Freddie off to the bathroom to clean him up.

Lucy toddled in with the end of a roll of toilet paper and started mopping at everything, just like Mom.

“Oh, no!” I said. “Look, Mom. The other end’s still attached in the bathroom! She’s undoing the whole roll!”

“Fine. Whatever. I don’t care right now.” Mom was frantically working on Buddy. After a moment, she stopped and gave Lucy a quick smile. “You’re a good little helper, aren’t you, Honey?”

“Helper,” Lucy said. Then
she
threw up.

“Oh, no!” I shrieked, making for the bathroom. “Dad!”

“For Pete’s sake, Robby. Yelling loud enough for
the neighbors to hear doesn’t help. How about giving us a hand?”

“I’m trying!” I protested. “But how’m I supposed to know what you want me to do?”

Mom came in with Lucy and started peeling off her clothes.

“Buddy!” Freddie screamed. “Buddy Wabbit!”

“Go clean up Buddy Wabbit, why don’t you,” Dad said.

“Me? But … Dad, he’s all … vomity.”

“I
know
, ding-dong it! The whole house is.”

“I’m not,” I offered, like maybe this fact would excuse me.

“Go!”

“All right, all right!” He didn’t have to be so mean about it.

I picked Buddy Wabbit up by his cottontail and carried him to the kitchen, scrunching my nose sideways to keep out the stink. I set him on the counter and studied him.

You’d hardly recognize him as the soft, fluffy fellow I’d picked out in the hospital gift shop the day Freddie and Lucy were born. Amazing, the difference between him and Lucy’s bunny, who still sat clean and unloved on the shelf. Mom worried that Lucy wasn’t very motherly, but maybe her bunny’d lucked out. Because Freddie being so super-fatherly had been pretty rough on old Buddy Wabbit. When a kid never lets go of a bunny, every possible thing gets spilled and smeared on him.

“You’re gross,” I said. “You know that?”

Now I knew better than to dunk that bunny in the sink. Dad tried that on a bear of mine once and he never did get dry inside. Poor old Bunky Bear. Rot City. No, this was definitely an outside job. I found this can of upholstery cleaner Mom uses, shook it up and let ’er rip. I laid a long blob of foam down his back and then, like the directions said, went at him with a damp rag.

That stuff worked pretty well. When he was clean I took him into the bathroom and got out my mom’s blow dryer.

“Good thinking, Honey,” Mom said.

“Now we’re cooking with gas,” Dad said. “Sorry I yelled, Robby.”

“It’s okay.” I understood. When babies yell, it makes everybody want to yell.

Freddie hadn’t let up on wanting his Buddy, but now it was more like a steady whimper.

“Buddy … Wabbit … Buddy … Wabbit … Buddy … Wabbit …”

“Hang in there, Freddie,” I said as I blasted Buddy with hot air. “He’ll be ready in just a minute.”

Mom and Dad gave each other this look that means they’re feeling pleased with me. All right. The babies were cleaned up and the general hubbub had calmed down quite a bit. With me pitching in, things were under control.

“Now Mom,” I said. “We’ve got to vacuum this
guy. I read the directions. You’ve got to suck all the dried soap off. It’s strong stuff. Makes you cough. We don’t want the babies breathing it or eating it or anything.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

We all went out in the main room and she attached the hose to the vacuum.

“Do you want me to do this part?” she said.

“No! No, really.” Just look at Freddie there, watching me with those puppy dog eyes, counting on
me
, his big brother, to save the day. Was I going to let my mother have the final glory? No way!

Freddie seemed doubtful when he got the idea something serious was going to happen between his Buddy and the vacuum cleaner. But I guess he had a lot of faith in me because all he did was pull his finger out of his mouth and say, “Buddy?”

“Don’t worry,” I said in my most reassuring voice. “He’s going to be fine.”

I sat with Buddy clamped between my knees. Mom pushed the power button.

“Now be careful,” she said over the roar. “That has a lot of suction.”

“Yeah!” I shouted. “Look what a great job it’s doing.” The suction was just fluffing that old matted fur out like nobody’s business.

“Watch out for the ears,” Mom said.

“What?”

“I think one of the ears is loo—”

Shloop
.

“Buddy!” Freddie screamed, horrified.

“Oh, great,” Dad muttered.

“I couldn’t help it!” I cried, staring at the one-eared bunny. “It happened so fast. I was just going along—”

“Take it easy,” Dad said.

“I never do anything right!”

Mom shut off the vacuum.

Freddie screamed and screamed. It was the same story all over again. He wanted his Buddy but not if he didn’t look right.

I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I’d come so close to being Freddie’s hero.

Mom gave me a squeeze. “It’s okay, Honey.”

“No, it’s not! Look at him.” Freddie was having an all-out fit.

“He’s not feeling good, that’s all. We’ll fix his bunny somehow. He’ll cheer up.”

But Freddie didn’t feel like cheering up. He felt like
throwing
up.

All over Lucy.

Well, I don’t even want to talk about the rest of that night. I just tried to keep out of the way. Long after I was in bed I could hear my parents snapping at each other. You know how it is. The words themselves weren’t so mean, but the way they said them was.

“No, I haven’t taken his temperature again. Have you?”

“I was just
asking
, okay?”

And once when I looked down out of my loft, I saw them picking through the ripped-open vacuum cleaner bag, hunting for one dirty bunny ear.

In the morning the babies were playing quietly for once, dropping blocks in their shape sorters as if the flu had taken all the spark out of them. Freddie had Buddy in tow, I noticed. Somehow, Mom had found that ear and stayed awake long enough to sew it back on.

“Good job, Mom,” I offered as I sat down with her at the breakfast table. Anybody could see she needed some encouragement.

She was still in her flannel nightgown with her elbows propped on the table. Her eyes were red and her hair … well, I’ll bet she never would have gotten it frizzed in the first place if she’d realized how it was going to look on mornings like this. She smiled at me in a tired way and took another sip of coffee.

I sat there looking at my cold cereal, not really hungry, but grateful for the feeling of peace in the house.