The Sister Solution (6 page)

I hear a sound. Far away. A soft beat. Familiar. My eyes flutter. The room is dark. My head is hanging off the side of the bed. My pillow is on the floor. Is that dried drool on my chin? Yuck. I move my neck and a cramp zaps my skull.

How long have I been asleep?

The scent of warm maple syrup and peaches awakens my hollow stomach. Someone is on the other side of the door. Jorgianna? Mom, probably. She has a thing about not skipping meals. I reach to turn on the light, but pull back. My mom will tell me not to worry; that everything will work out if I only go with the flow. That's her favorite saying: Go with the flow. It is my least favorite saying. Going with the flow usually means I get knocked off my feet by the current and sucked under by a riptide. I close my eyes so I can pretend to be asleep if she, too, ignores the sign, which she will.

Two knocks. Ah, that was the sound.

I try to send a telepathic message to whomever it is, Jorgianna or my mom.

Go away. Leave Sammi alone. Go away. Leave Sammi alone.

“Moonbeam?”

I sit up. “Dad?”
I am Moonbeam. Jorgianna is Sunbeam. I have no complaints. I'd rather be a peaceful, mysterious orb than a blinding ball of light that gives you skin cancer any day.

“Permission to enter?” he asks.

“Granted.” I turn on my white hyacinth-flower desk lamp.

He sets the plate of crepes on my nightstand. They smell yummy. “You must be starving.”

“Nope, not hungry,” I snap, a second before my stomach betrays me with a giant
rrrrrrow
.

My dad pretends he didn't hear that and sits on the edge of my bed. “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“I'm sorry we didn't tell you there was a chance Jorgianna would be moving up to the middle school ahead of schedule. I honestly didn't think it would happen—”

“You still should have told me.”

“I know. Big shock, huh?”

“The worst. It's not too late to say no, is it?”

“Say no?”

“Yeah, let's
say no and wait until next year like we planned. What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing, but . . .”

“Jorgianna comes first.” I wrap my arms around my knees and hug them to my chest.

“What I was going to say was,
but
it's important not to ignore the input from Jorgianna's teacher and the counselors.”

“And my opinion doesn't count.”

“Sammi, quit adding things onto my sentences.”

“Sorry, but they're all true,” I mumble into my knees.

My dad rakes his fingers, streaked with white paint, through his red hair. “Your opinion matters. We love you, too. We're concerned about how you'll adjust too. That's why we haven't rushed things. You know as well as I do that your sister could have skipped grades long before now, but we wanted to make sure you were
both
ready. Your well-being matters to us too, Moonbeam.”

I want to believe him, but that tiny word that keeps popping up at the end of
his
sentences stops me.
Too.
Every time he says it, it scratches my heart.

Your well-being matters to us
too.

We're concerned about how you'll adjust
too.

We love you
too.

I am second place. Jorgianna is the star. She could be a scientist and discover a cure for cancer. She could be an attorney and argue a case before the Supreme Court. She could even become president of the United States. Jorgianna will do something incredible with her future. I will probably end up as her personal assistant, getting her coffee and walking her dogs and begging her to wear clothes that match. For the rest of my life, I will be my sister's “too.”

Wait a second.

Wait.

One.

Second.

Did my father say . . . ?

Goose bumps ripple up my spine.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“You said ‘grades.' ”

His eyes widen in panic.

I have him now. “You said Jorgianna could have skipped
grades
long before now.”

“You caught that, huh?” He is fidgeting, like he's got an ant down his shirt.

I jump up from the bed. “Are you saying that Jorgianna and I . . . that we . . . ?”

“Yes.” I clamp my hands over my ears, but cannot shut out the words—the terrible, terrible words. “Jorgianna isn't skipping one grade, Moonbeam. She's skipping two. You're going to be classmates.”

FIVE

“BANANA, CAN I COME LIVE
with you and arthur?” I rub my elbow, still sore from where I banged it on the counter last night.

Hazel eyes glance up from the back of a crime novel. The pale skin around them wrinkling like tissue paper. “It can't be so bad, Sammi, that you're ready to move in to a retirement condo with an old lady and her asthmatic cat.”

“You're not old.” I tap the ends of the books until all of the spines in the outer row line up perfectly. I empty my lungs. “But it
is
bad.”

“You must
be referring to Jorgianna's jumping a grade,” says my grandmother.

“Newsflash: not one grade.
Two.
”

“Oh goodness! That
is
news.”

“Morning, ladies.” Mr. Trout, the head librarian, waves a muscular arm from across a sea of paperbacks. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“Just browsing, Norm,” says Banana.

“Let me know if I can help,” says Mr. Trout.

“Will do.” Banana ruffles her short flame-red hair. Streaks of gray shoot out from the temples every which way. Is she blushing?

The maple tree–lined park next to the public library is beginning to fill up, but it's not yet so packed that people are elbowing each other to reach the books they want. That'll change soon. The Tonasket Public Library's spring book sale is a big deal in our town. People show up with book bags, baskets, backpacks, boxes, pillow cases, even luggage carts. Everyone leaves in his/her own good time, juggling, dragging, scooting, or wheeling their literary loot behind them. My grandmother and I have been coming to the sale together since before I knew my ABCs. Normally my
yellow floral book bag would be weighted down with all kinds of treasures by now. But today it's empty. It's hard to think about fiction when reality is disintegrating around you.

Banana waits until Mr. Trout is out of earshot to ask, “When?”

“She starts at TMS next week.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I know whatever I tell my grandmother is sacred, so I spill the ugly details, then plead for help. “What do I do, Banana?”

“Well—”

“I might as well forget about trying to hold orbit in the fourth ring of Saturn. I'll probably be banished from the solar system entirely.”

“If it were me—”

“And what if Eden decides to dump me too? I won't have a best friend at Tonasket anymore. I'll get stuck eating with Lauren and Hanna, unless they reject me too. Wouldn't that be awful? Nobody will talk to me and I'll get so depressed I'll have to transfer schools.”

“I think you should—”

“What if I get so depressed I can't even get out of
bed to go to my new school? I could get a tutor. No, that's too expensive. Mom and Dad will never go for that. Will they let you do the eighth grade online?”

“Samantha!”

“What?”

“Don't you think you might be overreacting? Just a little? Do you honestly think Jorgianna is out to embarrass you, or herself, at her new school?”

Geez! Isn't anybody on my side? Even Eden said she didn't see what the big deal was about Jorgianna coming up to
our
grade level. Eden has three older brothers and a younger sister, so I guess she's used to everyone overlapping onto everyone else. Of course, she doesn't have a sister like mine. Nobody does. Banana was my last hope. If she won't help me, I'm in trouble. I can't leave home. I'm not runaway material. I'd never survive without a hot shower every day and my detangling conditioner.

Banana leans in. “Maybe you could give it a week or two before hiding under your covers?”

I deflate. “I'll try.” What else can I say?

“Good girl.” She puts an arm around my shoulders.
She smells like white lilacs. All my life she has smelled like white lilacs. I let her lead me across the dewy, sun-dappled grass, even though I know where we are heading.

I turn to her. “What if—?”

“Don't do it, Sammi. Don't ‘what if' yourself into a frenzy or you'll never have peace. If I had let all the ‘what ifs' my mind created overwhelm me, I wouldn't have done half of the things I've done in my life.”

She may have a point. I don't know very many grandmothers that learn to hang glide at age sixty eight. I have the pictures to prove it. Folding my arms across my body, I hug my gray blazer closer. “I have a feeling it's going to be a long spring.”

“I have no doubt you will rise to the challenge with your usual grace and charm.”

“It's not a beauty pageant, Banana. It's the eighth grade. It's like prison, only with teachers. And band.”

She laughs. I wish I was kidding.

As we stroll across the grass, there is one detail about last night I do not confess to Banana. I don't tell her that although I tried to hold out, I ate the crepes my dad had
brought to my room—devoured them was more like it. I was so hungry, I couldn't help it. The gooey sweetness of warm peaches wrapped in a fluffy pancake and drizzled with syrup was pure melt-in-my-mouth bliss. The sprinkling of my finely chopped walnuts gave it exactly the right amount of crunch. Wouldn't you know it? Crepes Jorgianna was pure perfection. Dang.

We arrive at our destination. I tip my head sideways to read titles like
Destiny's Hope
and
The Lonely Heart
written in 3-D Victorian script. Ew. I hate romance books. Banana loves them. I don't get these kinds of novels. For one thing, what's up with the weird cover art? Most have heroes with bulging biceps and heroines with smooth shoulders, but hardly anyone ever has a head. A lucky few get a chin or, if they are really fortunate, a nose, but that's it. Romance books aren't my thing. I am into fantasy and apocalyptic thrillers with an occasional mystery thrown in. I have nothing against love, but I would rather have it happen in real life at least once before I have to compare myself to the decapitated women on the romance covers. Banana picks up a book with a sparkly sapphire-blue cover by someone named
Stormy St. Cloud. Yeah, like that's her real name. I will give her some credit, though. This novel, at least, has two complete people, heads and all. Banana puts the book into her straw book bag, then leans over to me to whisper, “I think we are under surveillance.”

“Huh?”

“To your left and slightly behind you. In the sports section. A boy is pretending to read a book, but he hasn't taken his eyes off you since we walked over here.”