Tangled Webb (5 page)

Well, anyway, I dumped my books and ran upstairs to get in on the fun, and I guess they were making too much racket to hear me, though I wasn't
trying
to sneak up on anybody. As I was coming along the hall Kelsey was blowing on his bare feet—I could tell by the way he was giggling, because he just loves that—and then trying to get his socks on, saying, “Hold still, Bitsy. Bitsy! Hold
still
!” It's always like trying to get socks
on an eel. When I stepped into the room she was reaching for a sock he'd managed to kick off, telling him to cut it out, and still calling him “Bitsy,” which I'd never heard before. I scooped up the sock on my way in, and grabbed his ankles for her.

Well, I startled her to death, though I didn't mean to, but it's so
easy
to startle Kelsey. She jumped and sort of shrieked and then laughed at herself of course, only pretty breathlessly and not as if she felt like laughing, and her freckles showed plain for a minute.

I said, “I'm sorry! Didn't you hear me come home?”

“No. Not a sound.”

“Well, I banged the door, and ran up the stairs—” I was beginning to feel like it was my fault, and it wasn't. I quit apologizing and patted the soles of Preston's bare feet together. “Old Bitsy here was making too much noise, that's the trouble. Is that his nickname?”

She took one foot and wrestled a sock on, saying, “There you go! Now the other one!” just as if she hadn't heard me, or didn't realize it was a question.

So I asked again, “Is Bitsy a new nickname?”

Kelsey just murmured, “Hmm? Oh. No. An old one. I was just . . .” She got real busy with the other sock.

I said, “I like it. Hiya, Bitsy! Hey, Bitsy, look at me. I'm gonna put your shoe on!”

He did look at me, and grinned and grabbed for the shoe. You could tell he knew that “Bitsy” meant him. But Kelsey said, “Don't call him that.” Her voice went real sharp all of a sudden.

It surprised me, and I said, “Why not? I think it just suits him. Doesn't it, Bitsy-boy?” I was trying to kind of joke my
way past it, still wrestling with the shoe. I couldn't believe she was actually objecting.

But she was. “It's just a name we used to—
I
used to call him. When he was a baby. He's getting too old for it.”

“Too
old
for it?” I said. I guess I stared at her.

“He'll hate it when he starts in school. I'm trying to quit saying it. It's hard to break habits. I'd rather you didn't form one.”

Her face had tightened up, same as her voice, and her freckles were plain again. She absolutely meant it, and I could see no sense in it at all. So when he starts in school, okay—we'll quit. Though lots of kids have baby nicknames that last through kindergarten. I used to know a boy we all called Peter Cottontail till we were in second grade. That
is
too old. But two and a half?

Oh, well, she meant it. So I shut up. But it kind of made the jaunt downtown to go through the Navy destroyer not all that much fun.

I mean, it kind of hurt my feelings. I think she just doesn't want
me
using
her
private pet name for Preston. Well, I'm going to call him Bitsy whenever I want to—when she can't hear me.

And then on Saturday—it was the day of the Grand Floral Parade and I was going into Portland for it, with Alison and her mom—that very Saturday Daddy went on one of his all-day trips, and took Kelsey and Preston with him. He didn't even
ask
me.

When I pointed this out to him, kind of loud, I guess—I mean, he just sprang it on me without warning at breakfast—he said, “But aren't you going to the parade? I thought you had your day all planned!”

Well, I had. And maybe if he
had
asked me I'd have said no, I'd rather watch the parade than go on any old business trip. Especially if it wasn't going to be just him and me, the way it used to be. But at least he could've
asked
.

So after that I thought the parade probably wouldn't be so great, either. But before long I got in a better mood. You can't help it when you're watching float after float go by with these squillions of fresh flowers piled up in wonderful designs like ships and chariots and flags and I don't know what all, and then the royal float with the Queen of Rosaria and the princesses from all the high schools, wearing beautiful, fabulous dresses and waving to everybody. Well, you just can't watch all that, especially with Alison squealing in your ear, and still keep sulking.

I've never been much of a one for sulking, anyway. I'd rather just say,
it's over, forget it
, and start thinking about something else. And I can see—now—why Daddy figured I wouldn't want to go anywhere on Rose Parade day. He didn't mean any harm. But I can't quit having this little sore spot, like a toothache that's still there, because he didn't even
ask
me.

Well, so there was that. And then last Wednesday—it was a half-day, the last day of school—Alison came home with me and after lunch we fooled around up in my room awhile, just acting silly and feeling
free
. Then it quit looking like it was going to pour any minute, so we took a walk, and by the time we got home we'd decided
we
were going to cook dinner. Kelsey said okay, and Alison phoned her mom, but then we discovered there was no spaghetti, which is about all we know how to cook, so we put on our jackets again to walk to the 7-Eleven. Daddy came in the door just as we were starting out.

And of course he asked, “Where are you going?”

So of course
I
said, “Out of your life, forever!” and he said, “I'd kill to stop you!” and I yelled, “You mean—?” and he said, “I mean your lover, Richard!”

Well, Alison was just grinning and waiting—she must've heard those lines a hundred times—but I suddenly realized Kelsey was standing in the kitchen doorway staring at us as if we'd turned bright green. I guess it was the first time the routine's been triggered since she's been around.

She said, “What are you
talking
about?” in this halfway scared voice, and of course Daddy laughed and went over and hugged her and began to tell her all about it. Of course. Naturally. So now
that's
not just ours any longer, either.

I didn't wait around to hear it all explained away and ruined. I just said, “Let's go,” and pulled Alison on outside and down the walk.

She asked, “What's the matter?”

I said, “Nothing.” But I couldn't help adding, “I just wish Daddy wouldn't tell Kelsey all our
private
things.”

“That's private? That act? I've heard you do that all my life, practically.”

“Well, I know you have! You're different. You were around when it started. You knew Margo!”

I could feel Alison studying me, sideways, and I could tell she was going to start analyzing my character in a minute. Or maybe sticking up for Kelsey. So that's when I told her about Kelsey and Grand Coulee.

She didn't believe the story any more than I do. But she liked it. In fact she loved it. I might have known. She wants to put it all into our mystery book plot—all the odd things Kelsey does, and her jumpiness, and Grand Coulee, and everything.

But I wouldn't do it. I mean, lots of times I get annoyed
with Kelsey, but other times I think she's really scared of something. If she is, we oughtn't to put her into our dumb mystery plot and kind of make fun of her.

THURSDAY, JUNE 20

This morning I made six dozen cookies and it only took two hours. There just doesn't seem to be enough to
do
in summer. I wish you didn't have to be fifteen to get a job. I bet I could do whatever a fifteen-year-old can do. If you're twelve, the only job they'll let you take is picking berries and beans and things. And I don't have a way to get to the fields.

Maybe I'll call Alison and see if she wants to walk over to the mall. We could take Preston and get him an ice-cream cone.
If
Kelsey will let us.

Evening

Kelsey wouldn't let Preston go with us. Well, the truth is he didn't want to. She was sort of hesitating, and I held out my arms to him, and asked, “Wanna go buggy-ride?”—which is what we call going in his stroller—and he just kind of looked at me and then turned away and hung on to Kelsey's jeans and rubbed his face against her.

She said, “I don't think he feels very good today. He's been awful fussy.”

Well, he had—and he did pick up a little cold somewhere, maybe at the swimming pool last weekend. But I said, “It's warm out. This'll cheer him up. Come on, Preston—wanna ice-cream cone?”

He just burrowed further into Kelsey and then tried to climb
up her. She picked him up and he put his head down on her shoulder and gave me a look that said
get lost, Juniper
as plain as day.

Kelsey said, “I think he'd better stay home.” And I nodded and smiled real hard. It
felt
too hard, anyway. Maybe it looked all right.

I know it was dumb to let it get to me. After all, it's natural for him to like his own mother better than anybody, especially me, especially when he's feeling lousy. But coming on top of everything else, for a minute I just could hardly stand it.
Everybody
likes Kelsey better than me.

I guess that's not really so. It just feels like it.

Alison and I went to the mall anyway, and she found some white shorts she thinks her mom will buy her. I need a new swimsuit, but I didn't look for one. I wasn't in the mood.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21

Kelsey dyes her hair. I found the bottle in her bathroom waste-basket this morning when we were sorting the trash for recycling. I only stopped and peered at the label because I didn't know what it was, but she went all pink around the cheekbones and grabbed it to put in the glass-collecting carton, and began explaining right away, as if she was ashamed of it, that she touched up her hair because she was going gray.

I said, “You
are
? Already?”

“I know it's early. I—that is, prematurely gray hair runs in my family. My father was nearly white before he was thirty.”

“Really?” I was kind of fascinated. “My fifth grade teacher had almost white hair, and she was pretty young, too, but
older than you. I always thought it looked great. So
different.”

Kelsey smiled a sort of tight smile and shook her head, and said it made her look old, and she didn't want to look old until she
was
old. Then she picked up the carton and went on downstairs. I still think silvery white hair would look just beautiful on her, with those brown eyes, and because she looks so extra young in the face.

I wish I had brown eyes, like hers and Preston's—like Margo's—or really black ones like Alison's. They
show up
so much better than other colors. Except bright blue ones like this year's Rosaria queen has. In books the heroine mostly has either melting dark eyes or cornflower-blue ones. Or sapphire blue. Or turquoise blue. Sometimes the villainess has green ones like a black cat's. You never see any glamorous descriptions of hazel eyes, like mine.

I got wondering if I could think of any, so just now I took my hand mirror over to the window and really
examined
mine. I wonder why they're called “hazel.” That's a kind of
nut
. Reddish brown. My eyes are sort of olive-green around the edges and lighter green toward the middle, with brown sprinkles. I don't see anything “hazel” about them. Or anything glamorous, either. They just look like eyes. Glass eyes, really, when they're staring into the mirror like that.

Oh, well.

SUNDAY, JUNE 23

Daddy took Kelsey to an old Douglas Fairbanks movie this afternoon down at the Arts Cinema, and I got to baby-sit Preston. It was fun to have him all to myself. I got him up after his nap, and got him dressed—after a lot of sock-throwing
and giggling and all that. I'm glad we weren't in a hurry.

He's nearly over his cold now, just a little sniffly, and back in a good humor. When I was helping him blow his nose—or trying to get him to—he teased me by just staring up at me over the Kleenex and pretending he didn't know why I was holding it there. I kept saying, “Blow, Preston!” (and sometimes I said, “Blow, Bitsy!”), and finally I made my lips all rubbery and blew through them to make a nose-blowing sound, and that gave him the giggles. So then
he
blew through his lips and made the same bu-bu-bu-bub noise—and could I get him to blow his nose after that? Nothing doing. I finally just wiped it and took him out to the backyard. Daddy's fixed a little canvas bucket-swing for him out there, hung from one of the branches of the oak tree.

I pushed Preston in his swing till he got tired of it, then he mooched around the yard checking out the bug population, then he got bored again. So I asked, “Wanna dance?” and took both his hands and began to show him the foot-dance Margo used to do with me when I was little. It's just a sort of a heel-and-toe, then pick him up and twirl once, but he liked it fine. Whenever I stopped he'd say, “Wanna dan!” and we'd have to do it again. I finally ran out of steam, so I asked, “Wanna sing?” and started in on “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” which was another of Margo's and my best numbers.

We sang together quite awhile—well, sort of together—me doing the singing with him coming in strong on the “lit-
tul
lamb” and sort of wavering all around the rest of it. He called it “Wanna sin!”—which always cracked me up, so
he
always cracked up, too, without having a clue why. His little shoulders just
shake
when he laughs hard. Sometimes he's so
cute I just have to grab him up and swing him around and around and around.