Betti on the High Wire (17 page)

“She’s sound asleep, poor thing,” whispered Mrs. Buckworth.

The Buckworths walked into Lucy’s pink room and laid Lucy in her bed. I followed, and so did the dogs.

“What did the doctor say?” asked Mr. Buckworth.

“It’s a sprain,” answered Mrs. Buckworth.

I had no idea what a sprain was, but it sounded horrible.

Everyone I knew was broken, and now Lucy was broken too.

Soon I walked to my yellow room and slid my Empty Book out from under my pillow. I had to draw before I forgot anything: a kickball with a jaggedy frown face. A doll with no head. Flying girls. My bloody wounded arm. Auntie Moo would definitely be worried. She’d understand everything. I touched her letter in the back of my book. I wished she could see the world as I was seeing it.

After I finished picture number five—Lucy looking like a freaky monster with an elephant foot—the Buckworths tapped softly on my door and poked their heads in.

“Betti??”

I slipped my book back under my pillow.

“Are you okay, little tiger?”

I probably looked like a ghost. Dangerous America.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?”

I gulped. “Is Lucy going to ... die?”

“Die?” Mr. Buckworth chuckled and then he stopped when he realized that I was very, very serious. “Oh no, Betti. Her foot’s going to be just fine. She’ll be up walking around in a couple of days.” He plopped his hand on my head, and looked at me up close. “Please don’t worry, little tiger.”

The Buckworths had no idea that I was
always
worried.

I took a deep breath. “When circus kids go down to my village, I not sure, I don’t know if they will come home. They may step on snake, or catch a sick that make their bones go green, or disappear in river or in poof of smoke. I am afraid for Auntie Moo. And I worry that she disappear too and we will be leftover. Again.”

Worry probably got under my skin the day the circus camp burned. It was inside of me, just like water.

“Now ...”—my voice was barely a squeak—“I worry about Lucy.”

“Oh sweetie, of course you’re worried.” Mrs. Buck-worth put her arms around me.

I played with my fingers. I picked up my one-eyed doll and set her in my lap.

“I hope your friends at the camp will be okay, Betti. I really do,” said Mr. Buckworth. He looked off into space as if he was looking at something very important. “And Auntie Moo too.”

Mrs. Buckworth looked sad and smoothed out my hair with her hand.

“Now ... as for Lucy?” Mr. Buckworth continued, “I can promise you she’ll be okay. I promise.”

I wanted to believe that promises from the Buckworths were good, just like Auntie Moo’s promises.

Mr. Buckworth leaned over and kissed me on my cheek and Mrs. Buckworth kissed me on my forehead.

“Have sweet dreams, sweetie,” said Mrs. Buck-worth.

“Even if you may not love us quite yet, little tiger,” said Mr. Buckworth, turning out the light, “we still love you.”

I touched my cheek and fell asleep.

 

IN THE MIDDLE of the night I shot straight up in my bed. Not-so-sweet dreams. I grabbed for my potato sack on top of my pillow and clenched it tight in my hand. Then I threw my blanket off my bed and it landed on Rooney.

I put my bare feet down on the floor and felt for the fake grass with my toes. I walked softly out of my yellow room and into the hall. Rooney and Puddles followed me. Straight to the pink room.

I pushed open Lucy’s door and tiptoed in. I sat on the floor with my elbows on her pink bed and stared into her face. She looked just like a doll. Like Roller Derby Tina. I poked her to make sure she was still alive and, sure enough, her chest was moving up and down.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen at all. I was supposed to be the broken one in America. Not the leader. Because I had a terrible time leaving sprained kids.

I took a deep breath and began:
“There is a beautiful girl who roll like crazy on rolling skates. She is sooooo fast that clowns with red hair cannot touch her. The elephant has very big rolling skates, and the lion skates around the lion cage. The beautiful girl laughs, and the clowns and the animals laugh, and no one ever falls down.... ”

It was harder telling a Big Mouth story in English. I had to stop and think of words and start again. I had to move my hands all over the place to explain what I meant, even though Lucy’s eyes were still closed.

After I finished the story, I whispered: “Do not die, Lucy. Do not die, please?”

Even if Lenore, the adoption expert lady, said that I’d adapt once I got used to things in America—and I was definitely not going to adapt—I was used to watching over the leftover kids at the circus camp. And now I had to watch over Lucy. To make sure she was okay. Even if I had to stay another day.

I had planned to give all of my scary pictures to Auntie Moo, but instead I ripped one out of my special book. I laid it on the pillow next to Lucy’s nose.

 

“I LOVE MY picture, Betti! See?”

Lucy pointed over her head. It was the next morning and my scary monster picture of her was taped above her bed in the pink room. It looked even scarier hanging on the wall. “We don’t get to go to Day Camp today.” She was sitting up, smiling her no-teeth smile. “Because I’m hurt.” The TV had been moved into her room and the happy/sad people’s voices were blasting. “But GUESS WHAT? Mom said we could have sugar cereal this morning. As a special treat. ’Cause usually we only get it on Saturdays. What kind of cereal do you like, Betti?”

“I ... I don’t know. I never try ... sea-real.”

“I like Captain Peanuts best. It’s my favorite.” Lucy fluffed her pillow and organized the pile of stuffed fake animals next to her head. “Will you get me a bowl? With milk? Mom said it was okay.”

“Where?”

“In the kitchen. Go into the pantry next to the sink. And it’s the RED BOX!”

I shrugged and walked off to the kitchen. Mrs. Buck-worth was playing with her flowers in the backyard, and Mr. Buckworth was in the bathroom singing.

Very lucky. I didn’t want to go back to stupid Day Camp. I wanted to stay at the Buckworths’ house with Lucy and eat cereal. Rooney and Puddles followed behind me, wagging their tails. I had no idea what a “pan tree” was, but I saw a skinny door next to the sink. I opened the door and stuck my head in. Rooney and Puddles stuck their heads in too.

The room was dark and filled with shelves of cans and boxes. I didn’t see any pans or trees. I couldn’t even find a light so I could stare at everything. Perfect. If a war suddenly came to America, the pantry was exactly where I would hide. Dark and secret. I’d hide behind red boxes and the soldiers would never find me.

There was so much food that I really couldn’t believe it was all for the Buckworths. They were camels. Storing up. Maybe they were saving food for Mayda and Nanny too, and the whole neighborhood. Either way, the Buckworths must’ve been very afraid that a war was going to come to America. Because nobody, not even George and me, was that hungry.

I could see, sort of, a row of boxes way up high; at least twenty of them in a line on the top shelf. There was a RED BOX in the center. But I think there were a few red boxes—my bad eye was playing tricks—so I wasn’t sure which box was which.

I climbed up on the lower shelf and reached my hand up as high as it would go. Not high enough. So I climbed onto the next shelf. My longest finger just barely touched a RED BOX. So I climbed even higher, onto the next shelf, and grabbed on to a heavy can of beans. Wobbly and shaky, I inched the RED BOX out ...

Rooney and Puddles looked up and drooled.

I almost had the RED BOX in my whole hand, when suddenly the boxes all started to tilt. I tried to stand them straight again, but one of my feet slid, the can of beans crashed to the floor, and suddenly ... I was falling.

“Hellllllp!”

I landed like a lump. Boxes hit my head and flakes of colored puffs fell like snow. All over my hair and my pajamas.

Rooney slobbered and started to eat. Crunch crunch. Puddles had a box in her mouth and was shaking it back and forth. I picked cereal out of my hair and ate a whole bunch of handfuls off the floor. Ick ick yummy.

I liked cereal, but the pantry was a big, crunchy mess.

“EAT, dogs!” I cried. “Faster!” I tried to sweep all the cereal under the bottom shelf with my feet, so the Buckworths wouldn’t know that I’d found their hiding place. While the dogs were wildly eating, I grabbed a red box off the floor and went into the kitchen and poured some cereal into a bowl for Lucy. Then I opened the refrigerator and took out some milk. I poured milk to the tippy top of the bowl.

I walked straight to Lucy’s room and put her bowl right on her lap.

Lucy’s whole face scrunched up in one second. “Ew. Vomit. Why did you give me a bowl of dog food?” I was confused when she hollered, “BETTI! I am NOT a DOG!”

 

SOON LUCY WAS going crazy in her pink room. “Will you watch TV with me, Betti? Pleassse?”

I was very scared of the TV, but I sat on Lucy’s bed with her because she was broken and it was my fault.

First we watched a “car tooon” where a chicken blew up a rat. There was nothing left of him but a puff of smoke and a tail. While Lucy laughed and laughed, I covered both of my eyes with my hands.

“Betti?” Lucy took her little finger and opened my good eye. “What? What’s the matter?”

“It is not funny,” I said. “It is very, very sad.” I stood up immediately because I was going to draw all of this in my Empty Book. Rat tails and chicken cackles and things blowing up.

“Wait!” cried Lucy. “Let’s watch a movie then. A funny movie!”

I looked at her big fat foot. I sighed. And sat back down on her bed.

So we watched a movie, even though I was scared at first, because the Melons in the movies had the biggest faces in the world. Sometimes they did some funny things that made Lucy and me laugh like crazy. But most of the time those movie Melons had some serious problems. I sniffled and my eyes got cloudy because I couldn’t help it.

“It’s not real, Betti. The people aren’t real. The rat and the chicken aren’t real. Those things aren’t really happening. They’re just stories. It’s just TV”

Big Mouth stories? I wasn’t sure about that. Not sure at all. And my stories were definitely better anyway.

Soon Lucy let out a snort like a sleeping cow, and she wasn’t even faking. She was sleeping.

Suddenly I had a brilliant idea.

Lucy was trapped in bed. And Mr. Buckworth was walking the dogs. And Mrs. Buckworth was busy doing business and chewing on her pencil, so I couldn’t bug her and give her warts, or drive her crazy and make her go woooooo.

That’s when I decided to make my very own circus camp home. Under the tree and next to the swing set. Much better than that ugly pink Melon dollhouse.

I pulled grass out of the ground and cleared a little space. In the center, I made a fire circle out of sticks. I made long paths in the dirt going in two directions. One path led all the way through the woods, past the murky swamp, and down to the village. The other path led down to the river. I had an area for the pig yard, and the pig trough with sloppy slop, and a whole clump of pigs, which were actually little rocks.

I took a shoebox from my closet and took out the fancy shoes. I cut lots of bars all over the box, so the leftover kids and I could see up to the sky. That was my lion cage. I also made a snake tree with a Snake Lady and squiggly snakes out of toothpaste. I stuck big branches from the Buckworths’ tree all over the place for my woods. My dolls were little leftover kids made out of sticks, with nuts stuck on top for their heads. Auntie Moo, of course, was the tallest stick of all. Then I thought about things and added a sad little Mrs. Buck-worth stick so she would have a home too.