Me & Emma

  “What happened to the hole?” Emma says quietly.

  “Nothing happened to the hole,” I say. “We just grew, that’s what. We can still get through it, though. You watch. I’ll go first.”

  Now this is a big deal, me going in first and all. There are probably a million different kinds of spiders and caterpillars hiding under this porch, and not the cute doodlebug kind of caterpillar that’s fuzzy and soft. I’m talking about the scaly ones that have a hundred legs to make it run superfast right toward you. But I have to go in first because Emma’s acting all weird, I can just tell. I’m not used to seeing her like this so I better suck it up, like Richard always tells us to do.

  I’m on my knees right in front of the crisscrossed wood that makes an open-air wall with diamond shapes on the side of the porch. I feel like it’ll be sunny any second now so I stick my head through the hole first, and sure enough, my shoulders get caught by the jagged pieces of wood. I wish I said cusswords because I’d say one right about now. What a good thing I don’t because if I said the d-word like I want to, then someone would hear me, and if someone heard me then someone would find us and if someone found us then we’d have to go back home and if we went back home, Richard’d kill us.

  I turn to the side a little and try to move in that way, but it’s like the porch is keeping me out on purpose.

  “Let me try,” Emma whispers. So I pull my head out and crouch over and out of the way so she can try. What’s that? Jeez-um. I think it’s the dog.

  “Hurry up,” I tell her. “Come on!”

  She hears it, too, and pushes her second shoulder blade past the jagged wood like it’s only fingers holding us out. Next thing I know the sound is right above our heads. It’s a clicking noise—paws on wood.

  “Hurry!” I say.

  She pulls her legs through and now it’s my turn but it’s amazing how fast you can go when you’re afraid of getting caught. I stick my arm and shoulder in first, like I’m reaching for something on a shelf, then I fit my head through—but just barely, I feel the wood scratching my cheek—and sure enough, my other shoulder blade pops in with no problem. Good thing because the dog is now barking up a storm above us and footsteps are hurrying to the door to let it out.

  Underneath the porch I feel around for rocks, the bigger the better. Any ones I can find I stack up in front of the hole so when the dog comes out he won’t rat on us. Emma’s taking off her sweater and balling it up and trying to stuff it in the hole but that’s just plain dumb, if you ask me.

  “Don’t,” I say as I pull it out and throw it behind me. “Rocks,” I quickly whisper to her, but it’s too late.

  The latch on the door clicks and we both freeze. Like a bullet from a shotgun the dog busts through the door and down the steps, barking like he’s seen a ghost, which is funny if you think about it since he kind of has. We must look pretty ghostlike to a dog in the almost-dark, if he was watching through the window like I bet he was.

  Right when we heard him scramble down the steps, me and Emma, we hurled ourselves to the far corner of under-the-porch. That’s what I’m calling it here. It’s like behind-the-couch. I cain’t wait to tell Emma I’ve thought of this. I just hope I don’t blow it and say it out loud when I’m only thinking it like in school, because if I do then we’re toast.

  We both stay real quiet like we forgot to breathe. How big is that dog, I’m trying to remember, since what’s left of the hole isn’t that much after the rocks we’ve stacked. He’s barking like a big dog and I’m hoping he is because then he’ll never fit. It sounds to me like he’s circling the steps, so I hold on to Emma just as hard as she’s gripping on to me. We must look like two starfish with all their tentacles tangled up underwater. I can feel her shaking. The barking’s dying down and Emma tilts her head to my ear.

  “I’m never going to go back, you know,” she says. “Never.”

  The way she’s looking at me I get the feeling that she’d kick me to the curb if I told her to come on back with me, not that I’m wanting to do that, let me tell you. But, let’s just say I did want to go home. I bet Emma wouldn’t go, not even with me. It doesn’t seem right, you know? I mean, in most families it’s the younger kids who follow the older ones around. But with us it’s always Emma leading the way. Except for now, under this porch. I think we’re both the same kind of scared about getting caught. No telling what Mrs. Godsey would do to us if the dog roots us out.

  Speaking of the dog, I cain’t hear him so either he ran off somewhere to look for us some more or he’s just plain lazy.

  “I think he’s gone,” I whisper to Emma right up against her ear just in case.

  Not a minute later there’s the sound of the latch opening again and then tin hitting the wood planks over our heads. If I didn’t know the Godseys had a dog I would’ve thought someone dropped something, but my nose tells me different: they’ve put dog food out. And that’s not even bringing Buddy or Spot or whatever his name is in—that’s what I’m worried about. Where is that dog?

  “Caroline?” Emma’s whisper makes my neck go goose-stiff. She never calls me by my full given name. It’s always been Carrie to her.

  Slow-like, almost so slow you can’t see me do it, I turn to where I feel Emma looking and then I see why the dog hasn’t run up to get his breakfast. Just on the other side of the diamond wall is Buddy Spot, down there on all fours, looking like he’s going to spring up and chase after a rabbit, staring right at us like he’s looking down the barrel of a gun. Oh, Lord. Please, Lord.

  Emma and I stop breathing at about the same time. It’s like we both know that if we so much as move a muscle, we’re toast. Burned toast. It’s that time of morning when the day can’t decide what it’s going to be—sunny or foggy, happy or sad—so it’s hard to know for sure, but if you ask me I think there’s smoke coming out of Buddy Spot’s nose. Like one of the Saturday-morning cartoons. We stare right back at him like we’re in a contest. Oh, Lord, I think I’m going to sneeze. Oh, Lord, please don’t let me sneeze. If I sneeze, we’re done for. I’ll shut my eyes! That’s it! I’ll squeeze them shut like this…and then maybe I won’t have to sneeze so bad. I’m squeezing, squeezing…oh, Lord…it’s…working! I think it passed me by! Phee-you.

  But just then all three of us, all at the same time, jerk our heads up to the sound of footsteps inside stomp-stomp-stomping across the floor toward the porch. Buddy Spot looks at us and then back up to the porch and it’s like he’s wondering if he should rat on us or not. Oh, Lord. He’s wanting to bark, I just know it. Emma’s dirty nails cut into my shoulder even more and I feel sick.

  Stomp. Oh, Lord. Stomp. Please, Buddy Spot, I think to myself, go away. Stomp. Good Buddy Spot. Stomp. Nice dog.

  And just like that he gets up, shakes the dirt out of his coat and trots over to the bottom of the stairs to get pet by a hand that looks like it has no owner since most of the stairs cut off the top part of the body standing just about four cattails from us. Buddy Spot’s my favorite dog of all-time. Even better than Lassie. I cain’t wait to pet him myself to thank him for not telling on us.

  The way Buddy Spot, his tail wagging like it is, takes up and follows the hand makes me all the sudden miss Momma. I wonder what she’s going to do when she sees we’re gone. I wonder if Emma really means it that she’s never going back. I mean, never’s a long time. What about if she’s all grown-up and has a baby of her own and wants to show Momma? Will she still never go back? Or what about if she gets arrested and the police say the only way they’ll let her out of prison is if she goes home to her Momma? Will she still never go back? Or what if she’s in a horrible accident and she can’t use her arms and someone has to take care of her all the time and feed her mushy food like babies eat? Who’s going to do that but Momma? I guess I would do that. But what if I’m dead? Will she still never go back?

  The ground we’re sitting on hurts my
rear end and smells bad altogether. Plus I’m starving. Emma, she can take going without food, but not me. I need to eat something. I really miss Momma. I can understand Emma doesn’t miss Momma as much as me since Momma’s not all that nice to her, but I sure do miss her already.

  It’s morning for real now. And that seems strange since we haven’t really slept, so it feels like the end of the day and not the beginning. Richard must be getting ready to move on and up right about now. Me and Emma, well I guess you could say we’re not moving up or on, we’re just moving out.

  Emma lets go of my shoulders and I look down to see four half moons carved into my skin, marking how scared my sister was. She looks at them, too, and then looks away, like she didn’t need me so bad after all. We both know different, though.

  “What do we do now?” I whisper to her. I’m tired of being the leader.

  Emma squinches her shoulders up and then down again and keeps looking out through the diamond wall like that’s where the answer lies.

  “Uh-oh,” she says under her breath, and I look in that direction and I see it sitting there on the other side of the diamond-patterned wall, just out of reach. The bottle of Jif, knocked over on its side! I must’ve dropped it when we heard the dog and hurried to get under here.

  “We got to get it back,” Emma says. I just stare at it like I’m working on a magic trick that’ll bring it to us. “If someone sees it we’re dead.”

  Before I can say or do anything, Emma is crawling over to the hole we’ve blocked and starts unstacking the rocks.

  “What if the dog comes back?” I whisper over to her.

  “That dog’s gone for the day, if you ask me,” she whispers to me as she pops her shoulders on through and reaches for the peanut butter.

  “Hurry,” I say.

  “Jackpot,” she says once she’s crawled back to me. She quietly twists the lid off and holds it in front of me so I can get a fingerful. Peanut butter never tasted so good, let me tell you.

  While I try to lick it off of the roof of my mouth, Emma counts on her fingers.

  “We’ve been gone about seven hours, I bet,” she says. “It’s seven in the morning, don’t you think?” I nod back to her because that’s exactly what time I’d have guessed.

  “I’m starving,” she says. I’m working on my third fingerful of Jif so I cain’t even open my mouth, though I do hold the jar out for her but she just shakes her head.

  “Why?” I manage to say through peanut butter. I don’t understand. When Momma makes us fluffernutter sandwiches we peel the bread apart and Emma takes the fluffer side and I take the peanut butter, but I never imagined she’d rather starve than eat peanut butter.

  Then Emma does something I never thought in a million years that girl would do. She crawls back over to the rock stack, unstacks them again, pushes her shoulders through, pulls her legs out, too, and disappears up the porch stairs. Just like that. I am sitting here holding the Jif jar, peanut butter still in my mouth, and I cain’t even breathe I’m so nervous! She’s real quiet but I can tell she’s tiptoeing up the stairs. What she is planning on doing is the shocking-ist part. Before I can even crawl over to the hole to get ready to save her from a Godsey she’s back by the diamond wall and I cain’t believe what she has in her hand. The tin bowl full of dog food! She carefully places it just inside the hole then pops herself in and stacks the rocks neatly.

  “What in the h-e-c-k do you think you’re doing?” I ask her this clearly since the peanut butter melted in my mouth after getting tired of waiting for me to chew it down and swallow.

  “What does it look like I’m doing,” she says, just like she did a few hours ago when she unpacked her box in the Nest. Then she cups her hand and scoops out some of the kibble. She doesn’t even sniff it before she tastes it! She just eats it like it’s ice cream on a hot August day. I sit there watching her and wondering how I could be related to a girl that would eat dog food when, above us, a door opens and flip-flops slap against the porch.

  We freeze.

  Emma doesn’t chew and I don’t breathe.

  Step one—slap. Step two—slap. Step three—slap. Right now I think I’m going to wet my pants. Step four—slap. Oh, Lord. Step five—slap. Ground.

  It’s Mrs. Godsey. Holy cow. Her feet are pointing out like she’s going to walk away from the house, and inside my head I’m praying that’s the case, but there’s a pit in my stomach tells me otherwise. Oh, Lord.

  “Where is that damn bowl?” she says to no one. Then her feet turn to one side of the porch steps. We’re so close to her I can see the pink nail polish chipping off her toes. Her feet turn to the other side of the steps.

  Oh, Lord, we’re toast. I know it now.

  She’s walking toward us. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. “What in the hell…?” she mutters to herself while she bends over, and then we see her squatting just a couple of feet away from us, reaching for something in the dirt. She’s wearing a housecoat like Momma has, only hers isn’t faded, it looks brand new. The flowers on it aren’t the kind you ever see on the side of the highway. They’re bright purple and yellow and red, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers. I know for a fact she gets her hair done up and sprayed at Luanne’s Beauty Parlor that’s not

  really a beauty parlor, it’s just a room off Luanne’s kitchen with a bubble dryer and sink. Momma says Mrs. Godsey’s so vain she’s jealous of her own mirror. She always wears lipstick, but right now, I guess because it’s so early in the day, she doesn’t have any on, but it doesn’t matter, she’s still pretty. What is she looking at right there in the dirt and why won’t she go away?

  Oh. My. Lord. It’s my stamp book! Just as I see this, Mrs. Godsey turns her head and looks straight in at us.

  “What in the hell?” She says this out loud now so we can hear it. “Who’s there?” She claws her housecoat closed at the neck but she needn’t bother since it’s zipped up so far as I can tell.

  Emma shrinks into me and I remember I’m not watching this on TV. It’s really happening.

  “Who’s there? Billy, that you in there? Come out right now!”

  Emma’s pushing herself even harder into me and I can hear what she said to me not so long ago: “I’m never going back.”

  “You hear me, boy? Get out here right now.” Mrs. Godsey has straightened up—all we see are her feet and a little of her legs but she’s still there and from the sounds of it, not likely to walk away now.

  “I’m going to count to three and if you aren’t out by then I’ll tan your hide so dark your friends’ll think you’re colored.”

  “One,” she says with her right foot—no, I got it backward, it’s her left—tapping in the dirt. Even with flip-flops on it makes a pretty grown-up sound.

  “Two.”

  I inch forward into a crawl and try to move toward the hole, but Emma’s holding my ankle so I can’t get very far.

  “Three!” Just as she says three she’s down squatting again. This time she’s pushing the rocks in and away from the hole and before I can back up her arm is in and her fingers are gripping my arm! “Get out here on the double!”

  Emma lets go of my ankle and I’m dragged by five fingers up to the beginning of the hole. She knows she has to let go for me to fit my way back on through, and I do, after taking a huge breath in for courage.

  I cain’t see her face as I pull myself through but I can imagine it’s all twisted up in surprise. For someone who thinks a Billy is coming out from under the porch, a Caroline is quite a surprise, I bet.

  “Good Lord in heaven,” she says out loud. When I look up from the dirt I see she’s gripping her housecoat even tighter at the neck.

  “What in God’s name? Is that Libby Culver’s child?” She asks this with her nose all crinkled up like I smell bad. Then she looks back under the porch. “Anyone else in there with you?”


  Here’s the tricky thing: do I tell her yes and risk her hauling Emma out or do I lie and say I’m alone and let Emma go on by herself? Jeez-um. What do I do?

  “Answer me, girl!”

  “Um…” But before I can say anything else I see that Mrs. Godsey is looking back at the hole for herself. She’s not going to wait for me to answer. Oh, Emma.

  “It’s just me!” I try but I’m too late. Emma is at the edge of the hole looking out at the way things are going to have to go.

  I feel colder than frog toes. Mrs. Godsey isn’t saying as much but I know she’s mean and mad and that’s not a great combination in a lady like Mrs. Godsey.

  “I don’t know whether to box your ears myself or just let your momma do it,” she says. I cain’t bear to look at Emma, since I know she’s going to want to make a run for it and I don’t know if I can do that right about now. I’m tired and those little licks of peanut butter didn’t exactly quiet my stomach.

  “Git on up to the house so I can call your momma,” Mrs. Godsey says.

  “It’s okay, we’ll just head on back, Mrs. Godsey,” Emma says in a voice I don’t recognize.

  “Oh, will we?” she says, trying to get her voice as high as Emma’s.

  “Yes, ma’am, we’ll go right back on home now,” Emma says, “we were just playing hide-and-seek.”

  “Hide-and-seek?”

  She’s never going to buy that.

  “Yes, ma’am,” says the squeaky-high voice. “But it’s over now so we’re heading home. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Where’s my dog’s bowl of food?” Mrs. Godsey is bending her fat body in half to try to see under the porch stairs.

  “I don’t know,” Emma lies. And then she takes off running. Mrs. Godsey is staring after her when I run off, too, and we’re free again.

  I thought I didn’t have it in me to run, but as soon as I start I forget how tired I am so we keep going until the Godsey farm is a distant memory. Emma finally stops but she’s panting so hard she might as well still be running.