“Not being allowed to play with dolls or stuffed animals. Having to eat things like oatmeal and broccoli instead of ice cream and cake and not singing and dancing whenever we feel like it.”
“I hope not,” I said. She made being a grown up sound pretty bleak. “But you should probably cut back on the sweets. Cipher says you’re a cavity waiting to happen.”
“I know,” she said miserably, “but it tastes so good. And I want it.”
I had terrible cravings too. When I wasn’t thinking about Cipher, I was usually fantasizing about food.
“I eat too much sometimes,” I said. “For a long time I was so hungry, and we had to be careful about every little thing we ate so that we wouldn’t run out. When I see food now, I feel like I have to eat it all at once or I’ll never have it again, even when it makes me sick.”
“Me too,” she said. “And it gets the taste out of my mouth.”
“What taste?”
“Of them.” Her face went slack and the light in her eyes dimmed. She did that sometimes, checked out for a while. I placed a stuffed animal in her lap and she squeezed it tightly, rocking in the bed, before her eyes finally came back into focus.
“They were pretty awful, huh?” I said carefully.
“Yes. I don’t like to talk about it, but Artemis knows. Artemis saved me.” Teresa grabbed my face with both hands and whispered in my ear, “She killed them. Every single one.”
A chill raced down my spine and I said to her, “They must have deserved it.”
“They did. And that’s why she’s my big sister. Because she takes care of me.”
“And you take care of her too,” I said.
“We’re a team. The Dream Team.”
“That’s why she doesn’t want you to eat too many sweets,” I said. “Because she doesn’t want to have to yank out all your teeth.”
“I know,” Teresa said fondly. “She’s the best.” She surveyed her collection again. “Artemis said I could only bring one, but she didn’t say that you couldn’t bring one too.”
I smiled at her cleverness.
“So you take Sugar Bear and I’ll take Gooseberry, and then we won’t have to separate them. Deal?”
“Deal.”
* * *
“Doyou think I need to grow up?” I asked Cipher later that night while we were in bed. Everything was packed and ready to go. All we had to do now was catch a ride in the morning with a delivery truck heading west, then walk another 50 miles north to Promised Land. Cipher had traded for a pair of lightly used hiking boots for me, and I had already been working on breaking them in.
“No, why? Do you think you need to grow up?” Cipher said.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“You were pretty isolated out there in the burbs, but that wasn’t your fault. It might take a couple of years to catch up to the rest of us, but that’s fine. No need to rush it.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said because it seemed important to say it.
“You were taking care of yourself and your mother long before I met you. That doesn’t mean you can’t rely on other people for some things.”
I thought about that while he rubbed my back. “I wish I could be more like you,” I said, my jealousy getting the better of me again.
“Oh yeah and how’s that?”
“Strong and brave.”
“You are strong and brave, Kitten. How many Rabid attacks have you survived so far?”
