Unspeakable Things(3)

“It would have been bad luck to keep a baby whose own mother tried to strangle it twice,” Aunt Jin finished, chucking me under my chin. I decided on the spot that it was an okay joke because Mom was her sister, and they both loved me.

Here’s another nutty saying Aunt Jin liked to toss my way: “Earth. If you know what you’re doing, you’re in the wrong place.” She’d waggle her thick eyebrows and tip an imaginary cigar as she spoke. I didn’t know where that gesture was from, but she’d giggle so hard, her laugh like marbles thrown up into the sunshine, that I’d laugh along with her.

That’s how every Aunt Jin visit began. The joke about drowning me, some meaty life quotes, and then we’d dance and sing along to her Survivor and Johnny Cougar tapes. She’d spill all about her travels and let me sip the honey-colored liqueur she’d smuggled from Amsterdam or offer me a packet of the biscuits she loved so much and that I’d pretend didn’t taste like old saltines. Sephie would want to join in, I’d see her on the sidelines, but she never quite knew how to hop on the ride that was Aunt Jin.

I did.

Aunt Jin and me were thick as thieves.

That made it okay that Dad liked Sephie way more than me.

I wrinkled my nose. He was really going to town on that massage. Mom had left to refill her and Dad’s drinks even though he’d offered, since it was taking him so long to rub Sephie’s shoulders.

“Sephie,” I asked, because her eyes were closed and I wanted that to stop, “what’s your dream for the summer?”

She spoke quietly, almost a whisper. “I want to get a job at the Dairy Queen.”

Dad’s hands stopped kneading. A look I couldn’t name swept across his face, and I thought I’d memorized every twitch of his. He almost immediately swapped out that weird expression for a goofy smile that lifted his beard a half inch. “Great! You can save for college.”

Sephie nodded, but she looked so sad all of a sudden. She’d been nothing but moods and mysteries since December. The change in temperament coincided with her getting boobs (Santa Claus delivered! I’d teased her), and so I didn’t need to be Remington Steele’s Laura Holt to understand that one was connected to the other.

Mom returned to the dining room, a fresh drink in each hand, her attention hooked on my dad. “Another game of cribbage?”

I leaned back to peek at the kitchen clock. It was ten thirty. Every kid I told thought it was cool I didn’t have a bedtime. I supposed they were right. Tomorrow was the first day of the last week of seventh grade for me, though. “I’m going to sleep. You guys can play three handed.”

Mom nodded.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” Dad said.

I didn’t glance at Sephie as I walked away. I felt a quease about leaving her up with them when they’d been drinking, but I wrote it off as payback for her always falling asleep first the nights we were left alone, back when we’d sometimes sleep together. She’d let me climb in bed with her, which was nice, but then she’d crash out like a light, and there I’d lay agonizing over every sound, and in an old house like ours there was lots of unexplained thumping and creaking in the night. When I’d finally drift off, everything but my mouth and nose covered by the quilt, she’d have a sleep spaz and wake me right back up.

I couldn’t remember the last time we’d slept in the same bed, hard as I tried on the walk to the bathroom. I rinsed off my face, then reached for my toothbrush, planning out tomorrow’s clothes. If I woke up forty-five minutes early, I could use the hot rollers, but I hadn’t okayed it with Sephie, and I’d already excused myself from the table. I brushed my teeth and spit, rinsing with the same metallic well water that turned the ends of my hair orange.

I couldn’t reach my upstairs bedroom without walking through a corner of the dining room. I kept my eyes trained on the ground, my shoulders high around my ears, sinking deep in my thoughts. My homework was done, my folders organized inside my garage-sale Trapper Keeper that was as good as new except for the Scotch-taped rip near the seam.

First period tomorrow was supposed to be English, but instead we were to proceed directly to the gym for an all-school presentation. The posters slapped around declared it a Summer Safety Symposium, which some clever eighth graders had shorthanded to Snake Symposium. SSS. I’d heard the rumors this week that Lilydale kids were disappearing and then coming back changed. Everyone had. Aliens, the older kids on the bus claimed, were snatching kids and probing them.

I knew all about aliens. When I waited in the grocery checkout line, the big-eyed green creatures stared at me from the front cover of the National Enquirer right below the shot of Elizabeth Taylor’s vampire monkey baby.

Right. Aliens.

Probably the symposium was meant to put those rumors to rest, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to hold it tomorrow. The break in our routine—combined with it being the last week of school—would make everyone extra squirrelly.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a knock that shivered the baby hairs on my neck. It sounded like it came from right below me, from the basement. That was a new sound.

Mom, Dad, and Sephie must have heard it, too, because they’d stopped talking.

“Old house,” Dad finally said, a hot edge to his voice.

I shot up the rest of the stairs and across the landing, closed my door tightly, and slipped into my pajamas, tossing my T-shirt and terry cloth shorts into my dirty-clothes hamper before setting my alarm clock. I decided I would try the hot rollers. Sephie hadn’t called dibs on them, and who knew? I might end up sitting next to Gabriel during the symposium. I should look my best.