R My Name Is Rachel (7 page)

It’s lonely without Pop. I wander into his bedroom, halfway down the hall. He’s pulled the sheets up neatly over the mattress. Against one wall is a cabinet that he and Joey found in the cellar. On top is a picture of Miss Mitzi wearing her white straw hat. She’s looking up, probably at Pop, who must have taken the photo last summer.

I straighten the doily beneath the picture and realize there’s something under it. It’s a letter and I know I shouldn’t read it, but there are only a few sentences before it breaks off, and I see it all in one second.

I touch the paper. Then, feeling guilty, I go to my room, closing Pop’s door behind me. Later it takes me a long time to get to sleep. And then I feel myself dreaming. It’s something about a new school. It’s about a train and a box of ferns.

But then I’m awake. I tiptoe to the window. It’s inky black outside, not a light anywhere.

I lean against the glass. I want Pop. I want him to be here. I want Miss Mitzi. Even though it’s the middle of the night, I picture myself going to her flower shop. I’d sit in her back room, drinking sweet hot tea. It wouldn’t be so dark. The city has lights at night, even small ones in the backs of the stores.

There’s life outside here, Pop reminded us, even if there aren’t neighbors. One night before he left, he talked about being on a farm when he was growing up. “We had a stream, too,” he said. “I’d open my window at night and listen to the frogs croaking and the insects buzzing. Soon you’ll hear that.” He sat back, remembering. “There’s so much going on under the water, fish gliding along, their mouths open, turtles taking slow steps.”

I open the window, just a little, but I don’t hear anything; it’s quiet out there. I run my hand over the cold glass, comforting myself with thoughts of daddy longlegs climbing over the rocks, and birds fluffed up, asleep. I even picture chipmunks tucked under the rocks.

“Clarence, are you out there?” I whisper.

And where is Pop now? Before he left, we walked outside together and I know he was trying to cram everything into my head before he was gone. “I’ve paid the rent for
May,” he said. “Be careful of money. You’ll need it for June.” He shook his head. “That’s a long way off.”

“Don’t worry,” I told him, my voice as strong as I could make it.

“It’s a terrible thing to leave you on your own.” I could hear the fear in his voice. “If we were in the city, there’d be people you could go to if you needed help quickly. But here, the closest neighbors are almost two miles away.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “There aren’t any people near the farm, but Mr. Brancato at the grocery store would help.” He hesitates. “The real estate man is there, too.”

But I remembered what Pop had said to me once.
Chin out
. I said it back to him now. “We’ll do this on our own. We don’t need to ask for help.” Then I added, “The three of us, you’ll see.”

When it was time for him to leave, we watched and waved from the mailbox as long as we could. In the early-morning light, he went down the road toward town with a small bag under his arm, hurrying to catch the bus. I thought about running after him but held on to the mailbox instead.

Now I look out the window at the dark. A gust of wind rattles the pane; it sounds like teeth chattering. I’ve left the bedroom door open, but I’m not sure that was such a good idea. The stairs creak as if someone is coming up them, and something scurries inside the walls.

Scurries?

A mouse?

I tiptoe to close the door. “Only Mickey Mouse,” I whisper, shivering. “Only Minnie Mouse.”

It takes a long time for me to open the door again and poke my head out. Suppose something is in the hall.

What?

I can’t imagine.

I look up at the stained-glass window, so different without the sunlight behind it. But then a pale shaft of light flickers beyond the glass. See, the moon is shining up there after all.

I hear a sound. Crying? Someone crying? I take a step back.

It’s Cassie.

Only Cassie.

“What are you doing out in the hall?” I ask.

For a moment, I wish we were sharing a bedroom again.

“I’m hungry.” She blinks hard. She doesn’t want me to see her tears. “Starving. That was a terrible dinner.”

I’d volunteered to cook pancakes, but when I tried to take them out of the pan, they crumpled up like miniature accordions. I’m certainly not hungry now. The accordions seem to have unfolded in my stomach. But I don’t want to go back into my dark bedroom—not by myself.

I look at Cassie. She’s afraid. She has always been afraid of the dark. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” she says, and we go down the stairs together.

There’s still a glow from the fire and Cassie moves like a cheetah, climbing up on the counter, opening drawers. She finds a couple of cookies I made and tosses
one to me, but I miss and it hits the table, sounding like a rock.

“Some cook you are,” she says, but she’s almost smiling.

“It was the first time I ever made anything. Miss Mitzi says it takes time to be perfect.”

I don’t have time to say another word. There’s a shadow in the doorway. I let out a chilling scream.

Cassie screams, too.
“Aaaaa!”

I reach for her, but Joey says, “What’s the matter with you two?”

For a moment we just stare at him. Then Cassie’s arm goes straight out, pointing at me. “Rachel’s afraid of the dark. She’s afraid of anything that moves.” And then she raises one shoulder. “Me too,” she says in a small voice.

Just those two words and I forget that we’re always arguing. I want to put my arms around her.

“I have an idea,” Joey says. “We could go back to sleeping in the living room.”

And that’s what we do. In the dark, we drag the mattresses out of the bedrooms and push them down the stairs. They bump along halfway and we have to give them another shove to get them to the bottom.

It’s not easy, but we don’t care. We’re all glad to be sleeping here together.

I miss you, Pop.

On Thursday a week later, I tiptoe into the kitchen before Joey and Cassie are awake. I want to check on the eggs. We’ve learned how to manage the fireplace so the fire never goes out. Inside the eggs, the growing chicks must feel toasty warm.

I bend over them and check the Xs we’ve marked on each one so we can tell which side is up. We’ve been careful to turn them five times every day. Maybe they get tired of lying on their backs or their stomachs.

“Come out,” I tell them. “See the world. I have names for you: Abigail, Betsy, Constance—”

Joey rustles around in the living room. I close my mouth. This talking aloud to myself has got to stop. “Gladys,” I whisper, my nose an inch above the eggs.

But right now I have other things in mind. I pull on my coat, wind my woolly scarf around my neck, and cut a slice of bread. I bite off chunks that are rock hard. They take a long time to soften in my mouth.

Out front, I flip open the mailbox even though I know it’s still too early for mail. A tan spider has moved in; he’s spinning a poor-looking web that waves out to nowhere. Maybe even spiders are feeling the Depression.

I start down the road, swiveling my head back and forth; on one side are the trees, still bare; on the other side is our field. Pop has money in a mayonnaise jar for seed so he can plant corn when he comes back.

I’m enjoying the view, but I look for Clarence, of course, and I keep my eyes open for mountain lions.

Nothing to fear.

There’s something I want to see up close. It’s a really long walk, but I want to see this place alone, in all its faded glory.

I love that.
Faded glory
.

And there it is, up ahead.

The Warren Harding School.

“Hello,” I whisper. It’s just like a picture of a school I saw once in a book. It has a bell on top and it hasn’t been painted in a thousand years.

I walk across the grass, which is mostly mud, and peer in the window, but all I see is a vestibule with a bunch of hooks.

Sad little hooks with no coats, no hats.

I wander around the back. Just over my head the window
is open the tiniest bit. I stand there, chewing on the edge of my nail. Should I?

And even as I ask myself, I know I’m going to do it. I look around for something to boost myself up. And like magic, I see the milk crate against the wall.

Standing on the wooden crate isn’t enough. I have to reach way up to grab the sill, and there’s no way to push open the window.

I retreat to figure out how to get in. I see that I’ve left a muddy smear on the wall.

A row of rocks marches along at the edge of the trees. I spend ten minutes bringing the larger ones back to the milk crate. It looks as if I’m building a mountain. It feels that way, too. I’m a little out of breath.

I stand back and look at my work. Excellent.

I step up on the rocks and now I can use one hand to shove up the window. I wiggle like a worm and throw myself over the sill and inside.

Hands on my hips, I take a few breaths and look around. I’m in a little hallway, and there’s a classroom on each side. Only two? I close my eyes. My school in the city has three floors of classrooms, all the way from kindergarten to eighth grade.

Look forward, Rachel.

One classroom must be for the little kids. Wiggly drawings of rabbits are tacked up on the wall: one has ears as long as the paper.

Across the way is the room I might be in. There’s a painting of a tree, and underneath are the words
a nest of robins in her hair
.

I say that aloud; the sound almost echoes.

I would have loved being in this room. I see something else, drawings of daffodils … not bad, better than I could do. I stand in front of the room, taking the pointer from the ledge. “Today we are going to learn about my city,” I tell a nonexistent class. “There’s a ferry that goes back and forth across the river, and a bridge. Dozens of stores are open along the streets.”

Wait a minute.

Bunnies down the hall, spring flowers here. I lean against the wall, tapping my lip. The desks have a film of dust over them. The windows are filthy.

The pictures aren’t from this spring, but maybe last spring. What happened to fall leaves and Thanksgiving? What happened to drawings of sleds and snowflakes?

Has the school been closed for a year? I gulp down my disappointment. If it’s been closed this long, who knows when it will open again?

Halfway down the hall, I peer into what must be the principal’s office. The window is shattered; shards of glass lay on the sill, and a vase is on the floor with faded flowers and leaves scattered around.

I remember Miss Mitzi spilling the irises the afternoon I told her we were leaving. And then another memory of those happy days: all of us shopping and Pop buying Miss Mitzi a flower, which she pinned on her collar. Imagine. Buying a flower for someone who has a flower shop. But Miss Mitzi loved it. I could tell by the color of her cheeks.

Now I step inside and around a chair that’s been
turned over to look at the desk; it has nothing on it, not even a blotter.

But behind the desk are books on a shelf:
The Wizard of Oz, A Girl of the Limberlost
. I bend down and run my fingers over a book called
Understood Betsy
. There must be a dozen books here, not being read, just alone on those shelves, waiting.…

Waiting?

Suppose I borrowed one.

Could I do that?

It wouldn’t be stealing if I brought it back. Wouldn’t it be just borrowing?

Outside, a cloud covers the sun; the light in the room is gray now. I shiver. I hear a noise.

Is someone walking down the hall? I stand there, frozen, but maybe it’s just the wind. I peer into the hallway. No one. But still, I heard something.