Sara Lost and Found (5 page)

But every time he tried to make things right, something went wrong. Something always goes wrong.

“Maybe some words break, Anna, but not mine.” I watch all the worry lines in her forehead soften. “This is one promise that won't ever get broken.”

Saying it makes me feel better. Anna is as worried about us getting split up as I am. Every day we wonder who's going to pull us apart. The police? Mrs. Craig? The judge? Foster parents? Who? Who should we be scared of most?

I plop down on the bed and hug Anna. “We go together like the big hand and little hand on a clock,” I say.

I get up and fish around in the pocket of my jacket for some buttons Mama left behind. Sometimes in the middle of the night we'd play a game called Tiddlywinks with the buttons. We'd press a big button onto the edge of a smaller one and make it “hop, hop, hop,” as Anna would say, until it landed in the cap of Daddy's beer bottle.

But there's another game we play with buttons. I string two of them together onto an old shoelace we found, just like Mama showed me. I tie the lace into a loop and, gripping each end, twirl it round and round until it squeezes my fingers purple. Then I pull the string loose and tight, loose and tight.
Whir, whir, whir.
The two buttons spin so close together that they look like one. Anna might be twelve, but she still likes the button game. I spin the buttons and she calms down, as if pulling the strings draws the fret out of her.

A car door close by slams shut, and Anna and I look to the window.

“Court lady?”

I run to look and see the neighbor lady pulling her car out of her driveway.

“No.” I relax a little. “It's just Ms. Thistleberry backing out of her driveway.”

When I sit back down on the bed, Cowwy falls to the floor. I bend down and pick him up.

The first thing I notice is that he's damp. I frown, wondering what he might have fallen into. But the smell says it all.

“No!” Anna jumps out of bed and rips the sheets off, wadding them up.

I drop Cowwy and grab the sheets from her.

“Shhhh. It's all right, Anna. I'll say I did it.”

“No! No! No! No!” She pulls away and claws at the bed.

I look around for a good hiding place. Maybe I could drop the sheets out the window and bury them somewhere later.

“Don't look,” I blurt.

“Where?” She looks around.

“Where I hide the sheets. That's where. That way if Rachel asks where they are, you can say you don't know, and you won't be lying. Hurry, Anna! Hide your eyes.”

She presses her shaky hands over her eyes, but I can still see her flushed face behind them.

I quickly rip a pillow from the pillowcase and stuff the soiled sheet inside. Then I drop the pillow onto the floor and kick it under the bed. I can hear Rachel coming up the stairs to check on us.

“Crawl under the blanket!” I jump into bed beside Anna right as Rachel knocks on the door. When she opens it, a lone ball of fuzz that must have fallen out of Cowwy rolls across the hardwood floor.

“Rise and shine,” she sings out. “Today's your lucky day, and I don't want that anything should spoil it.” She swooshes to the closet.

What does she mean, today is our lucky day? I start to feel uneasy but lie stiff, afraid to move for fear she'll notice the missing sheets.

“Look here at what I saved for you. Anna, how about you wear this green cotton dress with on it all the flowers? It goes with your red hair. And the pretty sandals. And Sara, I—”

She stops midsentence, looks at us, and sniffs the air. Her nose wrinkles up and twitches like a rabbit's. She sniffs two more times. “What is this I am smelling?” She says it “smellink.” “Anna, did you wet again the bed?”

“No.” I can feel Anna's legs shaking under the cover. I reach over and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.

“You wouldn't be telling to me a little story now, would you?” Rachel says, patting the blanket. “You know we can get those special pants for Anna for nighttime.”

Anna makes a face. “Baby pants.”

“They're not baby pants, Anna,” Mrs. Silverman says, bending down to look under the bed.

My heart thumps so hard it feels like it's going to beat right out of me.
Think fast! Hurry! She'll figure it out!
And if she tells Mrs. Craig, we might not get into a good foster home. No one wants a bed-wetter. I grip my end of the blanket and hold tight.

“She's here!” I shout.

“WHAT ON EARTH? WHO'S HERE?”
Rachel shuffles toward the door.

“Mrs. Craig! She's here!” I slide out from under the blanket and jump up and down on the bed—something I know Mrs. Silverman never allows.

“Stop that jumping right this instant or a mark I'll give you on the chart!” she scolds, wagging a finger. With heavy steps, she crosses the room and bends, peering out the window. I sneak Anna a grin and wink, just like Daddy used to wink at me when he was playing a trick on Mama.

“She was not to be here until tomorrow. Her car I do not see.” Rachel stops talking and slowly turns around. “If this is a clever trick you're playing because your sister wet again the bed, then you, missy, are in big trouble. You'll make two marks on the chart. Maybe even lose a star. You know better than to tell stories or hide things. I don't harm your sister. She has accident, we wash. Now put on yourself some clothes and come down when for breakfast you are ready. And bring the dirty sheets with you.”

When she leaves, Anna's eyes widen. “Soup lady?”

She crawls out of bed, and I laugh.

“Worker here tomorrow?”

I pull the dress Rachel has picked out for me over my head and help Anna with hers, then nod.

For both of us, tomorrow will come too soon.

“Look good?” Anna twirls and models her dress. I study my sister from the top of her head to the clear plastic sandals on her feet. The shiny gold half-heart necklace that hangs around her neck matches the half heart I wear around mine.

It was a present from Mama.
Never take it off,
she said.
Look after each other. You're sisters. Sisters stick together.
We didn't know she'd be gone the next day. I'm wondering if she did.

“Look good?” Anna repeats a little impatiently. She stops twirling and puts her hands on her hips.

“All I can say is, with all those flowers on that dress, you better hope there aren't any bees out there.” That got a smile. But Anna's smiles never last long, and this one is gone almost as fast as it came.

“You look like Mama,” I add. She does look like Mama, I think. Same burnt-red hair. Same sad, faraway look in her sea-green eyes. But that is about all I can remember of Mama. Not a day goes by that we don't study the face of every stranger, looking for some sign of her. Will we know her if she walks by?

It's been so long now since I've seen her that the memory of her face is starting to fade. I know Anna misses her so bad that it probably hurts to look in a mirror and be reminded over and over of who we lost.

“You look like Daddy.” Anna gives each word equal weight. Another small smile comes and goes.

I raise my eyebrows. “You think so?” I brush back my long bangs with fanned fingers and look hard at the face in the mirror. I count ten new freckles that I haven't seen before. They must have been hiding under the dirt that washed off in last night's bath. The hot water felt so good. Even the toothbrush on my teeth felt good.

Rachel saved our toothbrushes from the last time we stayed, like she knew we'd be back.

“I do have his nose.” I lean close for a better look. “And his blue eyes, maybe. But other than that, I don't think I look like him.”
When I look at you, I see him.
Mama's words still ring in my ears.

“Or smell,” Anna adds, pinching her nose. I know she's talking about how Daddy smells after he's been drinking. And the smoke that settles in his hair and on his clothes and breath. Much as I got scared when he thundered home smelling mean, I miss the smell now. At least he came with it.

“Don't want to go.”

I don't answer. Instead, when we finish dressing, I drop the soiled sheets into the washer downstairs and lead the way into the kitchen for breakfast. Rachel is humming as she cooks. It's as if she forgot all about the sheets. I love that about old people. They can forget things that need to be forgotten.

Down the hall, Ben is hammering at something. I can't see him, but I know that if there's a hammer or a wrench nearby, he's close, if not attached to it.

And just as if my thoughts led him, he steps into the kitchen. “My two favorite girls!” His eyes sparkle. Funny about smiles, how one always seems connected to another. It's that way with Ben, anyway. His smiles always make me smile.

He sets his hammer on the table and stretches out his arms. First Anna gets a big bear hug, then me. His hearing aid makes a high beeping noise with each squeeze.

“Mm-mm, mmm,
mm!
” he says, like we are a bowl of Ms. Thistleberry's soup. “Did I tell you yet how good it is to see you both again?”

“You just told us last night!” I remind him.

“Was that you under all that dirt? And here I thought it was some other little girl I hadn't met yet.”

I laugh. He's so funny. And he talks with a thick accent, like Rachel, only his voice is grumblier and he doesn't mix up his words as much.

“You will join me for breakfast?” The light in his eyes dances as he settles into a chair and scoots up to the table. The legs of the chair make little burp noises when they scrape against the floor.

To answer, I sit beside him, where Rachel has already set a place for me. Anna sits across from him, smiling shyly.

“What are you fixing?” I ask him.

“The tub. The drain, it doesn't drain so good. So I fix. There isn't much in life that can't be fixed. You just have to have the right tools.” He picks up a hammer beside his plate and sets it down gingerly, as if it's the one tool needed most in life.

“After breakfast, you will maybe help me fix the plug in the tub?”

I smile and nod at the same time. Ben always has fun things to do, and he always let me take out a screw with his screwdriver, or hammer in a nail.

He can't stand up straight anymore. He says old age is weighing him down. His hair is old and gray. His teeth are old, too. But his raisin-brown eyes, flecked with gold, sparkle under a fluff of bushy gray eyebrows.

Every now and then a stormy look blows over Ben—usually after he's listened to the news on the radio—but for the most part, he's a gentle, quiet old man who can fix just about anything. Except our family.

Rachel plops a plate of steaming French toast sprinkled with cinnamon and smothered in maple syrup at my place.

“Put on your lap your napkin,” she reminds us.

I take tiny bites of French toast and chew each one slowly, letting the maple syrup get all over my tongue. I want the flavor to last as long as possible. When I finish the last of the toast, I pick up my plate and lick off some syrup.

“Ah,
kia!
” Rachel cries, throwing her hand to her chest. “Sara! What are you doing?”

She says the word “doing” like it ends with a
k,
and swooshes over to reach for my plate. “You are not a cat drinking milk, yes? We don't lick plates.”

“But it gets all the syrup off,” I grumble, not wanting to give up the dish just yet.

“Yes, but it is not doink the polite think,” she answers, putting the plate in the sink and running hot water over it.

Following my plate to the sink, I lean over and watch the hot water lick the last of the syrup away. “Polite to who? The plate?” I ask.

Ben laughs and answers, “To the plate. To the people around you at the table. To—”

“And you!” Rachel scolds, reaching for his hammer. “This does not on the breakfast table go.”

Ben raises his bushy eyebrows and pouts. “First she takes my hammer,” he says. “What next? My hands to hammer with? My arms to hold my hands with? My—”

“Enough is enough!” Rachel throws her hands over her head, shooing all of us from the table after we've finished our meal. “Hands to hammer with! I'll show you hands to hammer with!”

I grin at Anna. Too bad all people can't argue like this. No hitting. No throwing things. Just playful words bouncing back and forth.