Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear (3 page)

“S
PRIG,”
Mom calls from her bedroom. “Come here, please.”

“I'm almost ready, Mom,” Sprig yells. She yanks at her blue shirt, clattering the hanger to the floor.

“Oh, please, make some more noise,” Dakota says. She's at her desk. “I'm only trying to study here.”

Sprig pulls on the shirt and sticks her feet into her clogs. Tonight is the monthly Mother-Daughter Reading Club meeting at the library, a special thing she and Mom do together. “These buttons are wicked tiny,” she says, fumbling with the last two.

“C'mere,” Dakota beckons without looking up. Sprig goes over to her, and Dakota finishes the buttoning. “There you are.” She pats Sprig on the cheek, a little too hard. “Now
go
, will you?”

Sprig picks up her book, a fantasy called
Water Shaper
about this princess named Margot. She has ten more pages to read, but she's been putting it off, not wanting the story to end. That's what she'll say in Reading Club tonight.
When I read a really good book like this one, it's as if I'm not even here anymore. I'm
in
the story. Everything disappears, like my house, my room, my sister
… she
totally disappears, and that's just
great! Well, maybe not that last part about Dakota, not with Mom right there.

She clops across the hall. Mom's lying on the bed, her hand over her eyes, the afghan Miss Ruthie made for her pulled up over her shoulders. “Mom,” Sprig says. “Are you sleeping? I'm ready.”

Mom half sits up. “I have a terrible headache. It's been coming on all day, but it just hit me.” She falls back against the pillow. “I'm sorry, honey,” she says, covering her eyes again. “I don't think I can make it tonight.”

For a moment, Sprig is so disappointed she can hardly speak. “Do you want me to bring you anything?” she asks finally. “Like tea or something?”

“No. I just need … sleep….” Mom murmurs. “Thanks, sweetie.”

Sprig tiptoes out and closes the door. “Mom has a headache,” she tells Dakota. “We're not going to the Reading Club.”

“Crap,” Dakota says. “I wanted some privacy. What are you going to do now?”

“Work on my essay, I guess. I have to hand it in tomorrow, and I'm only half done.”

“When did you think you were going to finish it?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Dakota shakes her head. “Great planning. You better go do it.”

“Can I have the desk?”

“No, you can't have the desk. Go work on the dining room table. Go on.
Go.
”

Sprig sits down on her bed and crosses her arms. “If I want to stay here, you can't kick me out.”

Dakota spins around on her chair. “I know, I know, I
know
! Do you think the parents will ever buy a house with another bedroom, so I can have my own room?”

“Mom says it's hard to find the time to look when they're both working, and Dad's away and everything.” Sprig falls silent, thinking of Afghanistan. After a while, she gets up. “Okay, I'm going to work in the dining room. You can have your privacy. I bet you're going to IM your beloved Krystee.”

“I might,” Dakota says. She already has the computer turned on.

Later, Sprig is nearly finished with her essay when Dakota appears and flings herself into a chair. “Sprig. What do you think about boys?”

Is this a trick question? “Boys? They're okay. They're, you know,
boys.
”

“I love them,” Dakota says. “Guess who Krystee and I think is the cutest boy in the whole school!” Dakota's cheeks are very pink. “He's probably the cutest boy in the whole United States. If we lived on the moon? He would be the cutest boy on the moon, no contest. So can you guess? It's someone you know.”

Sprig pushes her paper aside. Talking to Dakota like this is much more fun than writing an essay. “I know a ton of boys. Give me a clue.”

“It's someone you see every day.”

The name that pops into Sprig's head is Russell Ezra-Evans. Which is ridiculous. Cutest boy? Not even in the running.

“Give up?” Dakota asks. “Okay, it's Thomas. Buckthorn.” Thomas Buckthorn is in Dakota's class. He has dark curly hair and long eyelashes, and a group of noisy boys are always around him on the school bus.

“I know Thomas,” Sprig says.

“Of course you do. Duh.” Dakota springs up. “So is he the cutest or —” She stops, looking over Sprig's shoulder. “What are you writing there?” She snatches up the paper and reads aloud, “‘My sister, Dakota, is obsessed with her hair. She combs it for at least an hour every morning.' That is crap! And who gave you permission to write
anything
about me? Cross that out right now.”

“Dakota, I can't mess it up with cross-outs.” Sprig smooths out her paper. “I told you, I have to hand it in tomorrow.”

“No way you're going to hand in that I comb my hair for an hour every morning. That is an utter, total
lie
.”

“You comb it for a long time.”

“Not an hour.”

“How long? I mean, exactly how long?”

“Ten minutes, tops.”

“I'm sure it's more. I'll time you tomorrow morning.”

“Not unless I give you permission. And I do not. And I do not give you permission to write about me.” Dakota's hands come down on Sprig's shoulders.
“No permission.”

“Stop breathing on my neck. And get your creepy hands off me.”

“Will do,” Dakota says, and reaches for Sprig's paper.

“No!” Sprig yells. For a moment, they're both tugging on the paper. The inevitable happens — it rips.

“Sorry, Sprig,” Dakota says, letting go.

“Now I have to start all over,” Sprig wails.

“Well …” Dakota pats her shoulder. “Think of it this way. When you rewrite, you'll do an even better essay. Especially leaving my hair out of it,” she adds.

Sprig stares at the torn, wrinkled mess in front of her. If only Dakota were a piece of paper! She'd crumple her up. Litter the floor with her. And sweep her into the wastebasket, before Mom even noticed that her darling daughter was gone.

 

THE END

“S
PRIG!
Dakota!” Miss Ruthie is standing on her porch, waving to them, as they come up the driveway after school. “I have something to ask you,” she sings out. She's wearing her long puffy green coat with a cap pulled down over her ears.

“What's that, Miss Ruthie?” Sprig runs up the steps and hugs Cora, who's grinning at her.

“I'm going to Boston next Saturday to visit my brother and my nieces. I'll go on the bus early Saturday morning and be back Sunday night, and I need someone to look after Cora. Feed her, walk her, make sure she does her business, all that. Would one of you like the job?”

“Yes,” Sprig and Dakota say, at the same moment, but of course Dakota says it louder, and of course she has the sense to add, “I would be really happy to do it, Miss Ruthie.”

“Wonderful. Both of you are just wonderful. Tell me, what do you think would be fair pay? Remember, it's two whole days.”

Why be paid at all?
Sprig thinks. Taking care of Cora would be fun, not work. Besides, Miss Ruthie doesn't have a lot of money. Sometimes she takes care of children, and sometimes she fills in for her friend Nadine, who works at The Fashion Shoppe, but she doesn't have a regular job.

“Miss Ruthie?” Dakota says. “You can pay me whatever you think is fair.”

“Me too,” Sprig says hastily. “That's what I was going to say.”

“That's very sweet,” Miss Ruthie says to Sprig. “But you know what, dear, we'll let Dakota do it this time. Come in the apartment with me, Dakota. I'll show you where everything is, the food and Cora's treats and her toys and her bed.”

Dakota brushes past Sprig and follows Miss Ruthie inside. Sprig buries her face in Cora's warm, stinky fur. “
I
know where your food is,” she tells Cora. “And your bed, and your toys. I know how much to give you to eat, one third of a can two times a day, and one scoop of dry. I would take good care of you, Cora, better than Dakota! I'd throw the ball for you, and be patient, and not rush you doing your business.”

Will Dakota do all that? Maybe … and maybe not. But Dakota got the job. She always gets all the good stuff, stays up the latest, sees the most TV shows, and talks to Dad first and longest. It's just not fair.

“You know what I wish, don't you, Cora?” The dog licks Sprig's face and gazes sympathetically at her. “Not that I would want anything
bad
to happen to Dakota,” Sprig adds. No, despite everything, she just wants her to go, the way smoke goes in winter. In all the cold weeks, you see the white smoke curling out of the chimneys, sometimes going straight up into the air, sometimes taken this way and that by the wind, but always,
poooof,
it disappears. It's gone. If smoke can do it, why not a person? Why not Dakota?

Leaning her head against Cora's warm back, Sprig narrows her eyes and looks up into the sky, and,
yes,
she sees her sister up there. Dakota in a gauzy, smoky white dress that floats around her like, well, smoke. And like smoke rising, Dakota too is rising. Rising, rising, rising. Becoming smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter … until …
poooof
… she's gone.

“W
HAT
are you trying to do, Sprig, kill that hamburger?” Standing at the sink, Dakota shakes the lettuce in the colander. “Hurry up, I want to get everything done before Mom comes home.”

“I'm almost finished.” Sprig takes another chunk of hamburger and slaps the meat between her palms. She loves this job, the rhythmic
slap slap slap
. It reminds her of being little and playing with clay, and how she used to think about things when she did that.

She's thinking about things now too, thinking about how Dakota got that job away from her
slap slap slap
and how today is the tenth day
slap slap slap slap slap slap
that Dad has been gone. Okay, she has to think about something else, like the Mighty Pest and how Bliss keeps saying he's cute, and how maybe Mr. Julius will think her essay is just wonderful and give her an A and —

“Okay, stop!” Dakota has come over and is inspecting the plate of raw patties. “That's plenty. Wash your hands and get me the tomatoes.”

“Get them yourself. I'm not your servant, Dakota,” Sprig says, but she ambles over to the refrigerator, takes a tomato from the vegetable bin, and puts it on the far end of the counter so Dakota has to reach for it.

“Just one?” Dakota says. “Mom likes a lot of tomatoes in the salad. Get me some more. They're a very important fruit.”

“Ha, ha, you mean vegetable.”

“Ha, ha, I mean
fruit
. Tomatoes are fruit, for your information, and they're way good for you. Tons of vitamin C, vitamins A and K, plus potassium, plus —”

“Okay, okay. Don't give me a food lecture.” Sprig flings open the refrigerator door.

“While you're there,” Dakota says, “get me a couple of cucumbers too.”

“Say please.”

“Come on, Sprig, just get me the stuff.”

Sprig's hand hovers over the vegetable bin. “Okay, now you have to say, ‘Please get me tomatoes and cucumbers, my beloved Sprig.'”

“In your dreams, girl. Just get me the stuff.” When Sprig doesn't move, Dakota sighs and says,
“Please.”

Later, as they're finishing supper, Dad calls. Mom talks to him first. Before she takes the phone into the dining room for privacy, she says, “Girls, you did a great job on supper. I'll tell your father.”

“Let's surprise Mom and clean up too,” Dakota says, and starts clearing the table. “I'll do the dishwasher, you sweep. I talk to Dad next,” she adds.

“No,” Sprig says. “I want to talk to him next.”

“Sorry, tonight it's in order of age. Mom, then me, then you.”

Dakota's logic is perfect — and maddening. Sprig grabs the broom and sweeps furiously around her sister.

Dakota jumps out of the way, her white shirt billowing out over her green pants. Green and white, same colors as the cucumbers she cut into their salad. Is it possible that Dakota is a cucumber in disguise? Sprig rolls this idea around in her mind. With just a touch of imagination, she can see it. Yes, she can definitely see Dakota as a cucumber, one of those juicy, crunchy cucumbers. A cucumber fit for the salad bowl.
Crunch, crunch.
Yum, yum. Down the hatch. Bye, bye, cucumber. Bye, bye, Dakota.

Crunching up Dakota puts Sprig in a good mood again, and when it's her turn to talk to Dad, she greets him exuberantly. “Dads! Here I am. Last, but not least!”

He laughs, and says, “You are so right, my baby.” Which makes her feel even better, and they have a really good conversation. Just before they hang up, he asks her if she knows anything about Afghanistan.

“A little,” Sprig says. “Didn't they have those people called the Taliban, who were so bad they wouldn't even let girls go to school? And, uh, they had a lot of war there, but it's over now. I think it is,” she adds.

“Good beginning,” Dad says approvingly. “That's my girl. Look up Afghanistan in the atlas,” he goes on. “The one I keep on my desk in Mom's and my study. Read about the country, or you can go on the Net. Check out their food, architecture, things like that.”

“Why do you want me to do that, Dad?”

“It's one of my interests,” he says. “A fascinating place — the art, the people — great people. We'll talk about it again.”