Notes from a Liar and Her Dog

  “Are you okay?” Just Carol asks me. She stares at my one sock foot. It is sore. I stepped wrong on a rock. But I am okay.

  I nod, wishing I could say no, because if I was hurt, she wouldn’t be so mad at me. I hate having her mad. But what was I supposed to do? Let the lions eat Pistachio? It wasn’t my fault, I feel like screaming. But I sit quiet, inspecting the toe of my sock. I hate people. They are too complicated. Dogs are way better. Dogs never chew you out or get disappointed in you. They understand everything. They are loyal, no matter what.

  Mary-Judy drives us down the road to the Do Not Enter sign. She gets out of her truck and opens the gate. This is a job Just Carol usually does. That Mary-Judy hasn’t let her is a bad sign. Mary-Judy gets back in and pulls the truck up to the building where our lockers are. “Get your stuff. I’ll wait!” Mary-Judy whispers.

  Just Carol and I get out. There is another keeper sitting at the picnic table. She is staring at us like we are criminals. I take off my boot and stuff my feet in my sneakers without untying. Just Carol gets her lunch out of the refrigerator. Mine is still taped to my belly, which is uncomfortable, and I know it’s going to hurt like heck to pull off.

  We climb back in the truck and I wonder where we are going. Then I get it. We are being thrown out, Just Carol and me. Oh, great! This wasn’t Just Carol’s fault, it was an accident. Nobody meant for Pistachio to come untied. I think about trying to explain this to Mary-Judy. I look over at her hard, scared face and I decide against it. She’s not going to change her mind about this right now.

  Mary-Judy drives us out to the parking lot. She drives up to Just Carol’s car and stops so close, I can hardly squeeze out. Still, Mary-Judy doesn’t say anything. Not one word. She waits while Carol unlocks the car, gets in, puts on her seat belt. She waits while Just Carol starts the car. She is still waiting when we drive out of the parking lot.

  I feel tired and shaky. My head is buzzing and I’m worried about Pistachio, who is burrowing into me like he is scared. I have been petting him so much, my hand feels numb to the feel of his fur. I look over at Just Carol and wonder what she is thinking as she drives down the long zoo road. She is so quiet, I can’t tell.

  We are driving through the grass hills, green from a recent rain. I look again at Just Carol. Her face is blank. I can’t read her, but it’s bad that she’s so quiet.

  “I didn’t lie,” I blurt out. “I had to go in there, otherwise Pistachio would have…otherwise the lions would have …”

  “Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” Just Carol interrupts. “Mary Judy said she can’t figure out why the lions didn’t get you. She said she’d never have believed you could have gotten out of there in one piece.”

  “I couldn’t just leave him!”

  “Why didn’t you ask for help?”

  “How do I know Mary-Judy would have helped? How do I know she wouldn’t have just left him in there?”

  “You’re always a one-man show, aren’t you, Ant? You’re your own country. But I guess what really upsets me is how you consistently value Pistachio’s life over your own.”

  I shake my head and stare at the gas station we are driving by. Just Carol is really stepping on the gas pedal. I wish she would slow down. I don’t want to get home so fast.

  “It’s true,” Just Carol says. “On the other hand, I do feel partly to blame. It was my idea to tie up Pistachio.”

  I glance over at her. Her eyes are drilling into me. She is looking at me so long, I worry she will drive off the road. “My dog was in trouble, so I helped him. Anybody in the world would have done the same as me.”

  “You think so?”

  “Any kid would’ve. Nobody would let their dog die. Even Joyce Ann Jensen would break a rule to save her dog.”

  Just Carol shakes her head like she can’t believe me. “You just don’t get it, do you, Ant? It isn’t about breaking rules. It’s about your life.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I didn’t get hurt.”

  She says nothing. I hate when she goes quiet like this. We are getting close to my house. I’m afraid she’s not going to say anything else, so I start again. “I am sorry about you losing your zoo job. Really I am.”

  “Yeah…me, too.”

  “Any chance you can get it back…you know, after Mary-Judy cools off?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know, Ant. I’m too upset now to think about it.”

  Oh no! What about Harrison? What if he can’t go to the zoo anymore, either? I can’t believe what a mess this is.

  “So, what now?” I ask.

  “What now? Now I’m going to take you home.” Just Carol reaches for her sunglasses.

  “You said we’d work out, you know, the problem I told you about before.” I know I shouldn’t say this. Not now. But I can’t help it. I don’t know what else to do.

  She sighs. “Look, I’ll talk to your mom about her plans for Pistachio, but before I do that, you need to talk to her.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No, it’s not. I shouldn’t be in the middle of this. You need to talk to her.”

  We are almost at my house now. This is my only chance. “How about if I talk to you, instead of her. We could talk…all the time. You know, me and you. And you could take care of me—not that I need a lot of taking care of. I’m practically grown up and I take care of myself.”

  I can’t believe I’ve said this. My stomach drops down, the way it does when the elevator goes down too fast. I feel woozy. My head is hot. My ears are hot, too. I wish I could crawl under the seat.

  I can feel Just Carol looking at me.

  “I’m just kidding,” I whisper, my voice suddenly hoarse. “That was only a joke.”

  We are at my house now. Just Carol pulls up in front of the cement path, turns off the key, crosses her arms. “What’s going on, Ant?”

  I stare out the window, unable to say more. Just Carol is quiet, too. We watch the neighbor’s yellow car pull into the garage.

  “Ant?”

  All I can think about is going upstairs to my room, barricading the door with the dresser, and getting under the covers with Pistachio.

  “Ant?”

  “The MacPhersons are moving again. To Connecticut,” I whisper.

  “Oh,” Just Carol says. It is long the way she says it. More like a sound than a word.

  25

  ELIZABETH

  I am standing outside my house. Just Carol is gone. She has been gone for several minutes now, but I haven’t moved. I’m too upset to move. It’s not that she said no, because she didn’t. She didn’t say yes, either. “I don’t really know if that would be the best thing for you, Ant” were Just Carol’s exact words. Hah. I know that line. It really means “I don’t know if that would be the best thing for me.” I love how grown-ups pretend they are looking out for you, when they are really looking out for themselves.

  Still, I haven’t given up hope. But I’m not exactly going to wait around for Just Carol to make up her mind, either. I’ll peel my lunch off my belly, get my stuff, and go to Harrison’s house. I know this is a dumb plan. If I’m gone, the first place my mom will look is Harrison’s house. And Mr. Emerson will make me call my mom, anyway. He’ll never let me run away there. But this is the only idea I have right now. I tell my feet to walk forward. Both my mom’s car and my dad’s car are gone, so at least I’ll have the house to myself.

  My feet walk across the lawn to the side door and my hands try the knob. It is open. Then I see why. Elizabeth is in the kitchen. She is sitting on the counter, swinging her legs. “Hey,” she says in her perky voice. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

  I look around to see if someone is behind me.

  “You, dummy,” she says.

  “Why are you glad to see me?” I ask as I get Pistachio a drink of water. After what he’s been through, he’s probably really thirsty.

  “Because I need your help. Look, you got the
edge with Mom right now. You know what she told me yesterday? She said you ‘turned over a new leaf.’”

  “I did not.”

  “I guess she went to get a copy of your report card because you didn’t bring home the right one, which is so weird.” She shakes her head. “She said you got mostly A’s.”

  “I DID NOT TURN OVER A NEW LEAF!” I scream.

  “Fine, fine, you’re the same dirty old leaf side. Geez.” She shakes her head and juts her chin out. “Do you want to hear my idea or not?”

  I roll my eyes. Elizabeth takes my hand and pulls me into the living room. She points at the couch, where I am supposed to sit down. This is just like Elizabeth. She can’t have a regular conversation. Everything is a performance.

  “Okay,” Elizabeth says. She is standing in front of me with one finger in the air, her whole body tense, as if she is waiting for the music to begin. “You talk to Mom about how happy you are now and how you don’t know if you can move, because it’s been such a struggle for you—turning over a new leaf—” She mouths this part and then jumps all the way around to demonstrate. “You are doing better in school now and you have friends—but don’t mention Harrison, she hates him. That art teacher lady. Talk about her—and you think the move to Connecticut would be too much for you and you’d go back to your old ways and probably end up in juvenile hall. But don’t make it a threat or anything!”

  I groan and bury my face in my hands.

  “And I’m going to work on the golf thing with Dad. In Connecticut you can’t play golf year round, you know. So even if he has more time, what’s he going to do with it? And you’ll work the human suffering angle with Mom. You’re fragile.” She grabs a glass pear from on top of the TV, then leaps around the room with it. “You could go bad in Connecticut. And then Mom will have to go on one of those talk shows and explain how she let her daughter turn into a delinquent. And she’s going to have to figure out what to wear when she has to sit in court because you’re on trial for things, like murder and stuff.”

  I snort and roll my eyes.

  “And if you really turn out bad, they’ll cover it on TV, and then everybody will see what a bad mother she is. That’s a good angle.” Elizabeth points at me. “You should mention that.”

  “In the first place, it’s not going to work. And in the second place, what’s it to you, anyway? I thought you were going to live with Miss Marion Margo?” I walk back into the kitchen to get the scissors. Pistachio follows along behind me. I get the good scissors and hold my T-shirt up with my teeth. I try to work the blade into the gap between the banana and the tape.

  “Of course it will work.” Elizabeth leaps into the kitchen. “What are you doing? Why did you tape a banana to your belly? God, you are so weird.”

  “I had to take Pistachio in my lunch bag. There wasn’t room for my lunch,” I say. Pistachio seems better now. He is wiggling his little body and doing a dance by the shelf where I keep his Milk-Bones. I am glad to see this. I can’t quite believe that just an hour ago, he was inside the lions’ cage. I think about telling Elizabeth this, but I decide against it. Elizabeth isn’t going to listen right now. Her head is full of plans. Besides, there’s no way she’ll believe me.

  “Why did you put him in your lunch bag? Do you know how gross that is? He probably shedded in there. Did you take your thermos, too? Because if you did, you’re going to have dog hair in your milk for the rest of the year.”

  I’m not really paying attention to her because I’m concentrating on getting one-half of the scissors blade worked up under the adhesive tape. I wish I’d thought about how hard this would be to get off before I put it on. I didn’t need to put on this much tape.

  “Here, let me do that,” she says. I hand her the scissors. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but Elizabeth is good with her hands. If anyone can get this tape off without taking half my skin with it, it is Elizabeth.

  We go into the bathroom and she makes me take my shirt off. Then she walks all the way around me as if she’s planning her attack. I feel funny standing in my bra with the cups that wrinkle over because I don’t exactly fill them out the way you’re supposed to. I hope Elizabeth doesn’t say anything about this. Her breasts aren’t any bigger than mine, but she spends two hours in the dressing room until she finds a bra that fits perfect. I can’t be bothered with this.

  “I think it’s better if we do a fast pull,” she says. “It’s going to hurt more, but it will be over quicker.”

  I nod. “Just tell me when.”

  “When.” She takes the tape and rips it off.

  “OUCH!” I scream. It feels as if she’s ripped my flesh off.

  “Hold still,” she says, and rips again.

  “Ouch!” I yell again.

  “Almost done,” she says just the way our mother does. “One more.”

  “Ouch!” I scream again.

  “That’s it.” She hands me the scissors. She is smiling like what would the world do without her.

  “Thanks,” I mumble. “But don’t change the subject. What happened with Miss Margo?”

  Elizabeth shrugs.

  “Come on!” I say.

  She sighs and flutters her eyelids. “Maybe I didn’t ask her. Maybe I didn’t want to share a room with her daughter, who hides moldy old peanut butter sandwiches under her bed. Maybe I don’t want to do yard work every day like I’m some kind of indentured servant.”

  “If you didn’t ask her, how come you know all that?” I ask as I pull my shirt over my head. I’m glad to get my shirt back on, glad that Elizabeth didn’t say anything about my bra.

  “You think I’m an idiot?” She cocks her head and rocks a little. “I’m not going to plan to live with someone without doing a little research first.”

  This sounds true, but I bet there is more to it than this. This is the way Elizabeth is. She only says part of the truth, the part that leads you to think what she wants you to think. It isn’t a lie, exactly, but it doesn’t give you a clear sense of the truth, either.

  “So, are you going to help or what?”

  I shake my head.

  “Why not?” She glares at me.

  I hand Elizabeth the purple brochure.

  She looks it over, outside then in. She inspects every inch as if it is a piece of evidence. “So?”

  “So? Don’t be stupid. Mom’s never liked Pistachio and she hates having him in her car. What do you think she’s planning?”

  “God, you’re lame. Mom’s not going to put Pistachio to sleep.” She tweaks the brochure with her finger. “This doesn’t mean anything. Look! Look what she circled! The part about a trip being hard on old dogs.”

  “Yeah, that’s her excuse.”

  “Why don’t you just talk to her? You never talk to anyone about anything. You just go off half—what does Mom call it—half-cocked. Just like Dad when he gets all bent out of shape and up and quits. Look, she’s never going to let you go live with Harrison. So this is our only chance. Will you help or not?”

  “Who said I was going to live with Harrison?” I’m mad that she guessed this.

  Elizabeth turns her head and looks sideways at me. “Like, duh? What else are you going to do?”

  “If you must know, I have a lot of options,” I say as I walk back to the kitchen and get the Cheez-It box out of the cupboard. I dig my hand in and pull out the biggest possible handful of orange crackers. “But I will help you, so long as you promise one thing.”

  “What?” She steals a cracker from me. She breaks it, pops half in her mouth, and tosses the other half back.

  “If she tries to take Pistachio, you’ll help me.”

  “What…she’s going to take him at gunpoint?”

  “You have to promise,” I say.

  “All right, all right, I promise,” she says with a swirly twirl and two leaps.

  26

  ANT

  As usual, Elizabeth is making this talk with my mom into a big production. She did my hair in a weird hairdo wit
h bunches of bobby pins that are giving me a headache. She ironed one of my dresses and made me wear shoes. I hate shoes. They bug me to death. And then she spent a good twenty minutes trying to figure out “the location.” She said, “You know how the president always goes to the Rose Garden when he makes a nice announcement to give an award or something. But if it’s a serious announcement, about bombing, you see him in the Oval Office or the Map Room. This is a Rose Garden talk. The day is perfect for it,” she says. It is an incredibly warm day for November, that’s for sure. Still, I think she’s nuts, but I do what she says. Especially since the nearest thing to the Rose Garden is our backyard. And since Pistachio is allowed back there, this means he can stay with me. This is important.

  Now Elizabeth is setting out folding chairs and a card table on the cement. She uses a striped beach towel for a tablecloth and puts a Dixie cup full of yellow wildflowers in the middle. Then she brings out lemonade in a blue plastic pitcher and a plate of rice cakes with jelly. The ice cubes clink against the pitcher when she sets it down. She has even remembered to bring my mom’s sunglasses. They are neatly folded by her plate.

  “Ant, sit down before Mom comes so she doesn’t see you walk.”

  “What’s the matter with the way I walk?”

  “Nothing…if you like monkeys.” Elizabeth hunches her shoulders and swings her arms in front of her as if she’s walking on crutches, then jumps her legs forward.

  “Come on …,” I say, snapping my head back.

  Elizabeth ignores me. She is into her performance now. She stands up extra tall, stretches her squat neck to the sky, holds the sides of her skirt, and steps lightly toe-heel, toe-heel, her face smiling like she is being watched by adoring crowds. “This is how you should walk,” she explains.

  “Oh yeah, just what I want to be…the Sugarplum Fairy,” I tell her.