Chapter 1: Thanksgiving Afternoon

I shivered as a chill ran through me. Somehow I knew that something really bad was going to happen. I hugged Dan tightly, refusing to let him go.

“Don’t go!” I whispered into his chest.

Dan patted my head and chuckled. Then he gently but firmly loosened my arms and pushed me away. He held my hands in both of his and leaned down so that he could kiss my nose.

“Don’t be silly, Bec. I’m not going far. I’ll be back tonight. I’ll be late, though, so it might be after your bed time. I’ll definitely see you in the morning.”

The panic surged through me. I bit my lip to stop myself from screaming. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen – something bad. The list of bad things that can happen is really long – it goes from a car crash or a random shooting all the way up to a meteor hitting the earth or a nuclear war. I didn’t know why but something was telling me that if Dan got in his car and drove away, I would never see him again.

“Don’t go,” I whispered. “Please!”

“I’ll say hello to Pearl for you, okay?”

Dan leaned down again and kissed my cheek. Then he got into his car and closed the door.

I couldn’t think of anything I could say which would convince Dan not to leave. I was frozen in place by my frustration and my fear. Dan started the engine and tears started tumbling down my face.

“Don’t go,” I whispered.

Dan backed his car down the driveway and out onto the road. He turned, stopped and then beeped his horn before heading off along the road. I ran down to the road and stood watching. Someone had tied a rope around my insides. The other end of the rope was tied to the back of Dan’s car. I staggered at the sudden tug as all of my organs were dragged out of me. I stood and watched as all those bits of me bounced down the road behind the car. My heart came loose and bounced off sideways until it lodged in someone’s mailbox. I kept watching until first the car, then my lungs, then my kidneys and finally my intestines vanished around the bend.

“Don’t go,” I whispered to the empty road.

I waited for a bit – hoping against hope that Dan would suddenly come to his senses and turn back.

He didn’t.

Eventually I decided there wasn’t any point in watching the empty road any longer. I turned and walked back towards the house. Sam was sitting on the bench, watching me as I walked towards him.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

I gestured at the empty road. “Dan left.”

Sam’s forehead crinkled as he thought about that.

“Do you cry every day when Dan goes off to school?” he asked.

“Um ... no!”

“So why are you crying now? What’s different about today?” asked Sam.

I shrugged and looked around. “Is the earth shaking?”

“What?”

“Is the earth shaking? Are we having a monster earthquake?”

Sam looked down at the ground then back at me.

“Um ... no?” He said it as a question. That didn’t inspire much confidence in me.

“Do you see this huge hole in my chest?”

He looked at my chest and then back up at my face.

“What sort of hole?”

“A huge gaping hole – so big you can see all the way through to my spine.”

“Um ... no?”

“Oh!” I looked at him doubtfully.

“If there really were something wrong, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“Um ... sure,” he said.

“If there were a nuclear war, do you think we would see the mushroom clouds from here?”

“I guess.”

I looked around in every direction.

“I can’t see anything like that. Can you?”

“No!”

He said that but I don’t think he looked very hard.

“What’s going on? Why all the weird questions?” he asked.

“I think my brain might be playing tricks on me.”

“Oh!”

“Do you feel as if something really bad is about to happen?” I asked.

“Not really, no.”

“Oh!”

The panic was gradually fading away and leaving me feeling a little foolish but still worried. I sat down next to Sam and grasped his hand. We sat like that for a minute or so without either of us saying anything.

“Can I hold your hand for a little while?” I asked.

I guess I should have asked before I started holding his hand but it was too late for that.

“Okay,” said Sam. He sounded a bit unsure of himself.

There was a distant bang and I jumped.

“What was that? Was that a bomb?”

“I think the people two houses down just put something into the trash.”

“Oh!”

“Bec?” said Sam and then he paused.

“What?”

“I don’t mind holding hands with you, but can you not squeeze quite so hard?”

“Oh! Sorry!”

I carefully loosened up my grip on his hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think my brain is playing tricks on me.”

“Yeah! You said.”

We sat in silence for a little while. Outward silence that is. My brain was buzzing away very loudly. All the different parts of my brain were thinking different thoughts. Taken all together, it sounded like a confusing noise but it was really lots of different thoughts all going at once.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Sam, after a little while of sitting quietly.

“Lots of different things.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve thought of twenty-eight different things that could happen to Dan.”

“Oh!”

“And I was thinking about pecan pie.”

“Yum!”

“And I was wondering if you could lift me up.”

“Huh?”

“Do you think you can lift me off the ground?”

“Um...” He looked at me from my head to my toes. “I think so. Stand up.”

I stood up and he looked me up and down again. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other while I waited. Then Sam stood right in front of me. Sam’s a bit shorter than me. The top of his head comes up to about my nose.

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said.

I did that. Then he stooped down and wrapped his arms around me at about hip height so that one arm was under my bum and the other arm was just above it. Then he straightened up and I lifted straight up into the air. I squealed a bit because I felt a bit unsteady. Sam’s face was planted right into my stomach. I hoped my stomach wouldn’t gurgle right then because he would hear it – very loudly. Then I realized he couldn’t see very well with his face like that.

“I don’t think you could carry me very far like that.”

He squatted and put me back down on my feet. Then he stood up again with a pleased expression on his face. I guess he was pleased about being strong enough to pick me up. I’ve noticed that boys get excited about things like that. Then he crinkled his face up as he thought about what I’d said.

“I didn’t realize I had to carry you. You said to pick you up so I did. If I was going to carry you, I’d probably do that piggy-back style. Come on.”

He turned around and bent over slightly with his arms out wide, ready for me to climb on his back.

I looked at him doubtfully. Honestly, I hadn’t expected him to actually pick me up. I was asking if he thought he could. But it was kind of fun doing this. I shrugged and did a little hop-jump up onto his back. He staggered a step and then held himself steady. We rearranged ourselves a bit. I had to grip hard with my arms and legs. I couldn’t wrap my legs around him properly because of my skirt but it stretched enough for me to get my knees each side of his hips so I could kind of squeeze with my knees. Getting a piggy-back ride from Sam felt a bit weird because I’m used to sitting on Dan’s back. Sam is so much smaller. I didn’t feel nearly as safe.

“How far do I have to carry you?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. How about down to the sidewalk? Can you do that?”

“Sure.”

He set off and I squealed a bit because each step he took bumped me around. I could feel that he was having to use a lot of effort to carry me. But he did it. He carried me all the way. When he made the last few steps, I cheered. He stopped on the sidewalk and I slithered down off his back. I took a moment to straighten up my skirt and then I hugged him.

Sam’s face was a bit red from the effort but he was grinning.

“That was fun,” he said. “I bet you couldn’t carry me back to the bench.”

I looked at him and then at the bench.

“I bet I could. But that’s up hill. You got to carry me down the hill. It’s not the same.”

“It isn’t that much of a slope. It’s practically flat apart from that first bit. That’s okay. Girls are weaker than boys – it’s a known fact.”

I poked my tongue out at him. “I can’t believe you said that. I was going to do it anyway. You didn’t have to say something stupid like that.”

His face suddenly fell. “Sorry.”

I felt bad about making him feel like he’d said the wrong thing so I reached out and poked him in the ribs.

“Besides, it is not a known fact. Remember at your birthday? You challenged me to arm wrestle and I won.”

“That’s because you cheated!”

“I did not cheat!”

“You did too. You distracted me. Then you went all of a sudden when I wasn’t ready.”

“That wasn’t cheating. That was using my superior brain power. Girls are smarter than boys – it’s a known fact.”

He poked his tongue out at me. We both laughed. I turned around and crouched down so he could climb on my back.

“Come on. I told you I could carry you.”

He climbed onto my back and I had to grit my teeth. He was heavier than I expected. I had to lean forward a bit and Sam’s head was right over my shoulder so I could feel his breath on my cheek. I felt like I would fall forward at any moment. I ground my teeth together and started putting one foot in front of the other. Before I knew it, I was doing it. I was carrying him. I was so proud of myself. I made it beyond the half way point which was past the steeper bit and the flatter ground made it easier. I felt my face pull into a kind of determined grin.

Then Sam called out, “Giddy up, horsey. Giddy up.”

That made me giggle and I lost my rhythm. I felt myself tilt slightly sideways and I started laughing. I staggered a couple of steps and then I lost it completely. I managed to tip myself to the side as I fell so that Sam didn’t land on top and squish me. We both ended up stretched out on the grass. I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t stand up. Sam was still lying there behind me with his arms and legs wrapped around me. I heard a “phah phah” sort of sound from him then he muttered something about mouthfuls of hair. That made us both laugh even more.

I scrambled to my feet and brushed the grass off my clothes. Sam stood himself up and did the same. We were both still giggling. Sam told me to turn around and he brushed down the back of my hoodie. Then he hesitated and told me I had to brush some dirt off my bum. I did that and then looked over my shoulder but I couldn’t see so I had to ask Sam. He said I’d fixed it but his cheeks were kind of pink from blushing.

“You cheated,” I complained. “I was going to make it to the bench before you said that.”

“That wasn’t cheating. That was using my superior brain power.”

We both burst out laughing so hard we had to hold on to each other to stop from falling over.

We both flopped back onto the bench and did that thing where you slowly stop laughing until you’re just sitting there with smiles on your faces.

“Why did you want to know if I could pick you up?” asked Sam.

“Oh! It’s because of my dad – our dad. When they were young and that bad stuff was happening, Dad promised to rescue Aunty Penny. Then, one day when he was about your age, he did. He picked her up and carried her out of there. I guess I wanted to know how hard that was for him to do.”

Sam nodded slowly. “Uncle Peter rescued Mama Penny? That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah!”

“I’d rescue you if bad stuff was happening to you.”

I smiled at him and patted his hand. Then since my hand was on top of his, I left it sitting there. Then I had one of those sudden big thoughts – the ones that go off in my head like an explosion. It was one of those epiphany things – you know? The ones I don’t like having because they hurt so much. Well I know this was one of those because it hurt my brain.

The big thought rolled around inside my head and all the different parts of my brain checked it as the thought rolled past. All the bits of my brain agreed. It was true. It was embarrassing. It didn’t make me want to run away. It wasn’t that bad. But it was embarrassing enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I bit my lip. I didn’t know what to say. I had to say something.

I picked up Sam’s hand and carefully weaved my fingers between his.

“Um ... Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“You kind of, um, like me – don’t you?”

He blushed and tried to pull his hand away from mine but I held onto it.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a trembling sort of voice.

I tried to figure out why he was saying sorry but I had no idea.

“Don’t be. Don’t be sorry, I mean. I feel a bit stupid that I never noticed before now.”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the cleverest girl I know,” he said with a fair amount of force.

“Oh!” I bit my lip, again.

“Being clever doesn’t stop me from doing stupid things sometimes. It doesn’t stop me from feeling stupid when I don’t notice things I should notice.”

We both sat together quietly for a moment. The problem with having enormously big thoughts is they tend to blast every other thought right out of your head. Eventually another thought peeked out from behind a rock where it had taken shelter.

“Do you want to know what I’m thinking about now?” I asked.

“What?”

“Pecan pie,” I said.

“Yum. I’m starving.”

“Let’s go then.”

I stood up and used our joined hands to pull Sam to his feet.

As we walked toward the front door, I realized that Mum and Aunty Penny were standing in the window. They had their arms looped together and they were watching us with little smiles on their faces. I wondered how long they’d been watching us. If they were going to make a fuss about us rolling on the ground and getting our clothes dirty then they should have said something before we played that football game out the back.

I stopped Sam just before we walked through the front door.

“I’m up to thirty-five different things that could happen to Dan.”

He looked at me carefully. “You really are worried something will happen to him. I thought you were just having a panic attack.”

I frowned at him. “I was having a panic attack. I was so worried about him that I was having a panic attack. I’m not panicking any more but I’m still worried. I know it’s mostly my brain being silly, but I can’t help feeling worried.”

“You could always call him and make sure he arrived safely.”

I felt my jaw drop. That was the second time in two minutes that I’d felt stupid about something. “That’s an awesome idea. I will. Thanks.”

I lifted up my hand so that I could look at my watch. It wasn’t easy to do because I had to do it without letting go of Sam’s hand.

“He should be nearly there by now. I might use my cell so I don’t have to talk to him in front of the whole family.”

We went inside and started to walk through the living room towards my bedroom.

I saw the TV was showing another football game and I stopped.

“Sam, if terrorists attacked Pearl’s house, the TV would stop showing the game and report it, wouldn’t they?”

“Um ... sure. But why would terrorists attack Pearl’s house?”

“They’re terrorists. Nobody really understands why they do anything.”

“Oh! I guess. Are you going to call Dan or not?”

“Yeah! Come on.”

We kept holding hands as we wove our way through the living room. All of the adults were in there. Most of them were watching the game. Mum and Aunty Penny were still standing at the window except they had turned to look at us as we walked through the room. Mum still had that weird little smile on her face. She didn’t say anything – she just watched us as we walked through the room. I started to feel nervous. Mum was obviously thinking about something to do with me and I had no clue what it was. I wondered if Mum knew that Aunty Penny had talked to me about her childhood. That might explain the weird looks.

Outside my bedroom I suddenly stopped. It occurred to me that Sam hadn’t seen the inside of my bedroom in the last month. That’s a good thing. I’m not ready to have Sam see me naked – not even pictures of me naked. I’m not going to be inviting the twins into my room anytime soon either. I’ve kind of gotten used to having those paintings all over the walls of my room. More than that, I really like having those paintings in my room. But they do complicate my life sometimes.

I pushed Sam against the wall of the hallway beside my door and told him to stay there. Inside my room, I picked up my cell phone from its place on my desk and hesitated. If I made my call in here then Sam would be left standing out in the hallway for all of that time on his own and that would be rude. If I went out into the hallway and made the call there then he would be listening to everything I said. I bit my lip. It was an impossible decision to make. One of the painted versions of me – the one where I was leaning against the mirror – smirked at me.

“You be quiet,” I told her. “And put some clothes on.”

In the end, the rules of hospitality driven into me by The Parents overcame my need to keep the call private.

Sam was still leaning against the wall where I’d left him – I guess it was only half a minute or so since I left him so that wasn’t too surprising. I took Sam’s wrist and led him to the end of the hallway outside The Parents’ room – far enough from the noisy living room that I could use the cell in private.

I called up Dan’s number and hit the button to dial it. I nearly burst into tears when I got the “switched off or out of area” message. I got sent to voicemail so I talked – fast.

“Dan, where are you? What’s happened? Why is your cell switched off? Are you okay? Call me.” I hesitated, then I got angry. “Dan Freeman, if you’ve gone and got yourself killed, I’m never talking to you again. Call me. Now!”

I had to stop because I was starting to hyperventilate. I hung up the cell and waved it at Sam. I kept waving it until I got my breath back.

“It’s switched off!” I told him, helplessly.

“Yeah! I got that. But you left a message so there’s not much else you can do. Can we get some pie now?”

I looked at him and blinked a couple of times while I processed what he’d said.

“Okay,” I said, after a long pause.

I held my cell in one hand and held out my other hand for Sam.

We walked into the kitchen still holding hands. We took, maybe, two steps into the kitchen and stopped. Mira was sitting on a stool in the corner with a scowl on her face. On the wall above her head an old oven timer was ticking away. It was showing seven minutes. Dad nailed that timer to the wall when we first moved into the house. It’s been there ever since and has been used frequently. At the other end of the kitchen, Leroy sat on a similar stool. The matching timer above him was also saying seven minutes.

I let go of Sam and went to stand in front of Mira. Sam walked with me and stood just behind my shoulder.

Mira glared at me. I raised an eyebrow at her.

“You’re on the naughty stool,” I said.

Mira almost snarled in response.

“What did you do?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I swore at Leroy in front of Aunt Louise.”

“And... ?”

“And I refused to apologize.”

I nodded at her and turned around to Leroy.

“What about you, Leroy? Why are you on the naughty stool?”

He sighed. “I was mouthing off at Mira. I didn’t know Uncle Peter could hear me.”

“He called me a slut!” called out Mira.

“I apologized.”

“Only because Uncle Peter made you.”

Leroy grunted, which I took to mean that Mira was correct.

“I don’t see why I have to sit here on this stupid stool,” whined Mira. “She’s treating me like I’m five years old.”

I turned away to stop myself from laughing at her. I steered Sam towards the table and headed to the fridge for the pie.

“Mum’s house. Her rules!” I shrugged. “But you knew that already. You’ve been here before. You’ve even spent time on that stool before. You must have known what would happen as soon as you refused to do something she asked you to do.”

“She’s freaking scary. Does she do this to your friends as well?”

I shrugged. “Sure. But we tell our friends the rules and most of them are smart enough to avoid crossing the line.”

Laura DiMartino did a stint on the stool soon after she became friends with my sister. The other girls in that gang had been stunned into silence for the entire time. Since then, not one of that group has ever disrespected Mum or Dad – not to their faces anyway. I don’t know what they say to each other in private. Of course, it’s never happened to Liz. I doubt if she’s ever even thought of misbehaving at our house.

In the meantime I’d gotten two plates out of the cabinet and a couple of sporks – you know, those forky-spoon things. I put my cell down on the table next to my place and grabbed a sharp knife. I cut a couple of slices of pecan pie, added a spoonful of whipped cream to each and slid one plate in front of Sam. I sat down next to Sam and picked up my spork.

“That looks really good. Can I have some?” asked Leroy.

I shrugged. “Sorry! Not for another six and a half minutes. But when your time is done, help yourself. You saw where the plates are. There are fifty different types of pie in the fridge. Maybe you could offer your sister some. It would prove that you meant that apology.”

I raised my eyebrow at him and that stopped him from making the comment he’d been about to make. Leroy and Mira sat in silence and stewed while Sam and I silently enjoyed our pie. I must have checked my cell phone five times – making sure it was switched on, making sure it wasn’t ringing too quietly to hear.

We’d nearly finished when Angie wandered into the kitchen.

“Hi there, Angel,” I said. “Do you want something? Do you want a drink? Are you hungry?”

“Can I please have some juice?”

“Sure.” I jumped up to pour some juice into a cup for Angie.

Angie wandered over to stand in front of Mira.

“Why are you on the naughty chair?” asked Angie.

Mira sneered down at her. “It’s none of your business, midget. Get lost.”

Angie pouted and put her hands on her hips. “You hafta tell. It’s the rule. Or else it adds another minute.”

Tara had come into the kitchen while that was happening. She grinned at Mira.

“Angie’s right, you know,” said Tara. “Part of the punishment is explaining why you’re there to anyone who asks. But for us, it’s an extra two minutes. Angie gets one minute extra because she’s little. She only gets five minutes on the stool in the first place.”

Tara came over to me and took the juice from me so she could pour some for herself.

“That’s how you can tell you aren’t being treated like a five year old,” I told Mira – trying to keep a straight face. “If you were five, you’d only be there for seven minutes instead of the eighteen minutes you two started with.”