Authors: Esther Ehrlich

Nest (26 page)

“Okay, okay,” Rachel says. “Don’t get yourself all worked up.”

“I’m not all worked up. Just don’t tell me that I don’t remember right.”

“Fine. Whatever you say,” Rachel says. She turns her back to me. “Oh, great,” she says, “now the margarine’s burned!” as if it’s my fault. She throws the pan into the sink, and it smacks into the other dirty dishes, hissing.

I drink my milk. I try not to say anything. I stare at my drawing of a purple-and-green-striped tiger that Mom magneted to the fridge when I was in kindergarten. Whenever I’d say, “Mom, it’s faded. Take it down,” she’d say, “Faded? It’s perfect, honey. It’s my beautiful tiger.”

“Take two,” Rachel says. She walks to the fridge and gets out the margarine. I try not to say anything, but the words bubble up out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I remember a ton of things,” I mumble.

“Right,” Rachel says, with an awful little laugh in her voice.

“I do!”

Rachel ignores me. She starts humming “I’ll Be There” by the Jackson 5 while she gets out another pan.

“I pretty much remember
everything
,” I say.

Rachel starts singing, like I haven’t said anything.

“You’re the one who doesn’t remember!” I say.

She keeps on singing, and suddenly I’m so mad that I’m yelling.

“I bet you don’t even remember that that’s exactly the way Mommy wore her hair. That’s
her
dancer bun, not yours!”

Rachel looks surprised. She touches her bun. Then she shakes her head and says, “Okay, that’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” and walks out of the room. I follow her. In the front hall, she stops and puts her hands on her hips.

“Naomi,” she says. She points at my stuff on the floor.

“What?”

“I asked you to pick your stuff up.”

I just stare at her.

“Naomi?”

I start to walk past her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to my room,” I say, nice and calm, even though my heart is pounding.

“But I asked you to pick your stuff up,” she says.

“And I’m not listening to you,” I say.

“Chirp!” Rachel grabs my arm, but I jerk it away.

“You’re trying to look like Mom! You’re trying to cook like Mom!” I yell.

Rachel’s mouth makes a little O. She just stands there.

“You aren’t Mom!” I scream.

Rachel grabs me again. Her fingers are digging into my arm. “You think I like this?” she screeches at me. “You think I like taking care of you all the time? Making you dinner and telling you to pick your stuff up over and over again? You think I like listening to Dad tell me how sad he is, so sad that I think he sometimes wishes he was the one who was dead?”

She screeches and screeches like a stellar jay, but I can’t hear her, since my hands are covering my ears and making the sound of the ocean and my feet are running out the door.

Joey’s standing in the road, like he’s been waiting for me. He’s not even throwing rocks. He’s just standing there.

“C’mon,” I say.

“Where?”

“Away.”

“Away?”

“Yes, we’re going away,” I say, and suddenly it sounds like a really good idea.

Joey doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me like he’s giving me the chance to punch him in the arm and say, “Just kidding!” and when I don’t, he nods.

“Okay,” he says. “We need to be smart here. We have to have money. And warm clothes. Bring extra socks. And a flashlight.”

“And don’t forget your toothbrush,” I say, because I don’t want him to be the only one who knows how to do this.

“If we’re taking off today, we have to hurry up. My dad will be home soon, and then I won’t be going anywhere,” Joey says. “I’m grounded for spilling my orange juice this morning.”

“Five minutes,” I say.

“Five minutes,” Joey says. “Behind your rhododendron bush.”

We both have our stuff spread out in front of us so we can see what we’ve brought, except for our underpants, which we agreed we don’t have to show each other, and Mom’s sea lavender sweater, which I keep in my knapsack, since it’s my private business.

Everything I have with me is mine, except for the twenty dollars Dad keeps under his handkerchiefs in his top drawer in case of an emergency.

“This is an emergency,” Joey says. “Or at least,
it will turn into one if we don’t have that money.” I guess he’s right, but I still feel really bad about taking it. Joey has nine dollars. I don’t know where he got so much money.

“Binoculars? You need binoculars?” Joey says.

“They could come in handy for scouting,” I say.

“You just want to watch birds.”

“So, what’s wrong with that? I like birds.”

“Fine,” Joey says.

“Soap
and
shampoo
and
conditioner?” I ask.

“Yes,” Joey says. “Non-negotiable.”

I guess he cares a lot more than me about hygiene.

Joey didn’t think to bring food. I have six carrots, a hunk of cheddar cheese, and a whole pack of pita bread. And my canteen with water.

Joey brought
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
, which was really smart, since it’s about a brother and sister who run away and maybe we can get some pointers.

“Time to amscray,” Joey says. He’s already got most of his stuff neatly packed back up in his brown duffel bag. I’m trying to shove my baby blanket into my knapsack. It doesn’t fit. I already have on my winter coat, but I put the blanket over my shoulders like I’ve just come off the boat at Ellis Island like my ancestors escaping persecution in the old country. Then I lead the way from the rhododendron bush, across our yard, to the sandy path that will take us to the fire road and out to Route 6.

I
T TAKES MUCH, MUCH
longer to walk to the glass house than it did to ride our bikes, and by the time we get there, my feet are aching and it’s starting to get dark.

“First, we need to clean up,” Joey says. “Then we can eat supper.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Find a pine branch that you can sweep with. I’ll try and open the door.”

“Okay.”

I’m glad Joey’s telling me what to do. All by myself, I’d just curl up in the woods in my winter jacket with my baby blanket around me and listen to the birds and maybe never get up again.

It takes a while to find a good sweeper branch and even longer to get it off the tree. I have to twist it around and around before it finally breaks. When I
get back to the house, Joey’s inside. He’s standing in the middle of the floor.

“Cool, huh?” he says, smiling.

The floor’s twinkling like the starriest night. It’s the broken mad glass, some mine, mostly Joey’s, catching light from the sun as it goes down. White and yellow and violet sparks.

“Cool,” I say.

“Wicked cool,” Joey says. “I guess it’s been doing this every night for years and years and I’ve never seen it before.”

“It’s too pretty to sweep up.”

“Don’t,” he whispers. “It’s almost over. The sun’s almost down.”

We stand and watch until the last flash of sunlight slides over the glass.

“Maybe it’s an omen,” Joey says.

“An omen?”

“Like a sign that everything will be okay,” he says.

Nothing will ever be okay again. I already know that.

“Maybe,” I say to Joey.

I get my sweeper branch and start sweeping the glass into the corner. Joey follows behind me, dusting the floor with a red T-shirt.

“We’d better sweep it again,” he says. “Maybe two more times.”

“I’m tired,” I say.

“Yeah, but mostly you’re sad,” he says. He doesn’t
stare at me with big bug eyes. He doesn’t ask me stupid questions.

I nod. All I want is to sit on the floor and listen to the mourning doves.

“Just sit down,” Joey says, like he’s read my mind. He takes the sweeper branch from me.

I sit down and look around. With all the broken windows, our glass house is like being inside and outside at the same time. I can see the sky and the pitch pines. I can smell the night air. The mourning doves make the saddest sound, and I can’t help it, I close my eyes and moan along with them,
oh, oh, oh
, while Joey keeps sweeping. He gives me my privacy and doesn’t say anything at all, just sweeps, even when my moans turn into a little bit of crying. I cry while Joey sweeps while the mourning doves moan.

When I finally open my eyes, Joey’s taken off his winter coat, because he’s working so hard.

“When I was a little kid, I thought they were
morning
doves, because they were up early in the morning,” I say.

“I used to say
chickmumps
,” Joey says. “I still think it sounds better.”

“You’re a good sweeper,” I say.

Joey smiles.

I wonder how long we’ll stay here. I wonder what my plan is.

“Joey?”

“Put your flashlight in your jacket pocket. It’ll be really dark soon,” he says.

He’s spinning in a circle, polishing the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“Our sleeping spot,” he says. “Bring me your blanket.” Joey spreads my blanket out, then runs his hands over it, smoothing out the wrinkles. He pulls all of his neatly folded clothes out of his duffel bag—his blue wool sweater and his blue jeans and his green flannel shirt and four pairs of socks. He takes everything and carefully arranges it in a circle.

“Your turn,” he says. “Add your stuff to my stuff.”

I put my blue jeans and gray sweatshirt and green turtleneck and three pairs of socks into the circle, everything but the sea lavender sweater.

“When Rachel and I sleep out in the woods or at the salt marsh, we use sleeping bags. I thought about bringing them but figured they’d be too heavy for us to carry.”

Joey shifts our stuff around, plumping and poking and pushing until we have a perfect nest of clothes.

“We’ll be just fine tonight,” he says. “You don’t need to worry. We’ll eat supper, and we’ll sleep in our sleeping spot. And we’ll figure out tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Suddenly I’m cold. Even in my winter jacket, I’ve got the shivers. My teeth are chattering, and I can’t stop shaking.

“Hey,” Joey says. “Don’t start freaking out on me.”

“I’m cold,” I say. “
Really
cold.”

“Listen, we’re going to be just fine. I told you everything’s okay, and it is.” He walks over to me and touches my hair, and then he starts rooting around in his duffel bag. He pulls out a little packet and rips it open.

“A moistened towelette, free at the Clam Shack with every order of fried clams or oysters!” Joey says, like he’s the radio guy on 104.7. I should laugh, but there isn’t a laugh inside me. Joey wipes his hands and then gives the towelette to me.

“Sorry, you can’t have your own,” he says. “I don’t have that many. I need to make them last.”

I wipe my hands and then get us each a piece of pita bread and some cheese.

“A toast,” Joey says, holding up his cheese.

All I can think of is
l’chaim
, and that doesn’t seem fair to Joey.

“Beads, flowers,”
he says.

“Freedom, happiness,”
I say, glad that Joey knows the songs from
Hair
, too.

We clink cheese.

“This is really good,” Joey says. I’m not sure if he means the bread and cheese, or running away and staying in a glass house with me.

“Very,” I say.

“Why’s it called Peter bread?” he asks.

“Pita,” I say. “Pita bread. It’s Mediterranean. They eat it in Israel and other places. You can’t get it at
Flanagan’s. My dad picks it up at the supermarket in Hyannis on his way home from work.”

“Well, it tastes amazing. This is the best bread and cheese I’ve ever had.”

He’s right. The food tastes really, really good.

“It’s good, right?” he says.

“Far-out,” I say.

Joey looks at me and smiles. “You’re not a bad little squirt,” he says. “Not bad at all.”

We both get quiet, and for the first time I notice you can hear the ocean, just a soft rumble, like a car driving too fast down a dirt road. A great horned owl calls
hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo
. I love the sound, but Joey hugs himself, like he’s scared. Dad always says we’re most frightened of what we don’t understand.

“It’s a male,” I explain to Joey. “They have lower voices than the females. You know what else?”

“What?”

“They don’t build their own nests. They use leftover ones from the year before. Usually from great blue herons or red-tailed hawks.”

“What else?” Joey asks.

“In parts of England people think owls bring good luck. I think so, too.”

“What else?”

“Some people call them winged tigers, since they’re such great hunters.”

“Flying would be cool,” Joey says. “I’ve always wanted to fly.”

Hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo
.

“We could fly to Boston,” I say. “We could see the swan boats.”

“Swan boats?”

“Haven’t you ever been to Boston?”