This job was supposed to be mine. Frank said I could start on Monday. I wasn’t afraid like the Cowardly Lion. Why was Mom?
“I thought it would help,” I said. “I thought you’d be happy.”
“Of course I’m happy, darling. What a brave, thoughtful girl you are. But it’s not possible for you to work. You need to be at home with me. Where you’re safe.”
“But what will I tell Frank?”
“You’ll tell him your mother said no. You’re sorry, but you can’t do it.”
I returned to my cake, but I couldn’t make a single bite go down.
Mom had something to hide. I could see it in how she looked around.
There was something hidden behind her curtain.
I needed to find out the truth.
So, I did a terrible thing that night. It was wicked, likewhen the nuns took the parts out of the car inThe Sound of Music. But I did it anyway.
I made Mom go to sleep.
When I had trouble at night with my whirring thoughts, Mom would give me a pill from the cabinet. It always worked on me within minutes.
I couldn’t make her take the pill without her knowing, so I had to find a way to make her take it secretly.
I asked to watch two movies that night for my birthday. WhileIt’s a Wonderful Lifeplayed, I went to the kitchen to make some tea.
I found the pills and dropped one in the hot liquid to see if it would dissolve like the cubes of sugar. It floated to the top and changed color. I stirred and stirred, but it didn’t dissolve.
I took it back out and tried to cut it up with a knife. This worked a little, shaving off small bits. I got out a spoon. I used the back of it to smash the pill. It crumbled into dust.
I was wicked. So wicked. Worse than the witch who made Dorothy sleep in the poppies.
I put the dust of the sleepy pill into her tea. I didn’t know if it would work. But it was worth a try.
I gave her the mug and waited until ZuZu said the ringing of the bell meant an angel had gotten wings. Mom was clearly sleepy.
I quietly switched the movie toMary Poppins, keeping the sound low. I avoidedThe Wizard of Oz, sure that the wickedness in that movie would make Mom see mine.
I needed her to be very asleep so I could go to her room. I knew that nothing important would be hidden anywhere else in the house. I never went into her roomalone. If there was something I shouldn’t see, she would put it there.
When her head fell back on the cushions, I covered her with a blanket so she would be cozy and less likely to startle awake. I turned the sound even lower.
I tiptoed inside her room and flipped on the light. My senses tingled with the certainty that an explanation for her reaction was here somewhere. She was hiding something from me, and because of it, I would not be able to go to Shelfmart on Monday and start working. Was I really sick? Or dying? I had to know.
I searched quickly through her drawers, lifting up all the clothes, especially ones I never saw her wear. I found nothing.
I opened her closet door. In the bottom corners were several boxes, but they only held a few odds and ends of things that were broken or we no longer used. In the corner by her bed was a small table covered in a blanket. On it she kept some books, a candle, and an alarm clock. I lifted the quilt.
Beneath the table was a large cardboard box. I dragged it out and opened the flaps.
Inside was some kind of machine in a beige box. Tucked along one side was a folder filled with papers. I pulled it out and glanced inside. My name was on the first one! There were notes and pages. All of them were about me!
I couldn’t look at them now. I quickly closed the box back up and moved it back under the table.
I took the folder to my room. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out where to put it so she wouldn’t see. But then I stuck it in the bottom of one of my drawers.
When I got back to the living room, I sat carefully onthe cushions, but Mom startled awake. She rubbed her eyes. “I sure crashed. It must’ve been the sugar from the cake.”
