“IT’S YOUR TURN!”
“No, it’s your turn!”
We push and shove, wrestling, though I’m a lot bigger, and Mom and Dad will yell at me if Opal gets hurt. Which she does, the baby brat, in a minute. She bumps her elbow on the chair and starts yelling. I’m gonna get in trouble, but I don’t care because it is her turn.
“It’s your turn,” I tell her. “I did it yesterday!”
“Mama!”
“Check the chore chart,” Mom says from the laundry room. She shows up in the doorway with a basket loaded with towels and stuff. “One of you, do the dishwasher. One of you, feed the dog and make sure she has fresh water. Both of you, gather the trash.”
Opal and I stare at each other, both of us frowning. Opal crosses her arms and kicks her foot against the chair. This stubs her toe, and she hops up and down, hollering.
“Settle the kettle,” Dad says from the living room. He’s putting together a bookcase from Ikea for my room. He told me it’s supposed to be easy because it comes with all the tools you need, but he’s been saying a lot of bad words.
“Velvet, it’s your turn,” Opal whispers really loud.
I don’t want to empty the dishwasher. I know it’s not my turn. I know it’s Opal’s turn, because yesterday, while she watched cartoons on Daddy’s computer, I emptied the dishwasher and I put a sticker on the chore chart. I could prove it to her. I could point it right out, and she’d have to do it for two days in a row because I did.
But suddenly, I don’t really care so much. If she wants to be a baby booger brain about it, she can. I’ll unload the dishwasher, because I’d rather do that than open the stinky can of dog food and put it in the bowl, and then rinse the other one and put clean water in it. Jody slobbers all over everything and gets her fur all over it, and when you’re trying to feed her, she sometimes bumps into you so hard that everything spills. And she steps on your feet with her dirty paws, and I just got new white sneakers.
“I’ll do the dishwasher, Opal.” Sugar wouldn’t melt in my mouth, my mom would say.
Opal doesn’t even look suspicious. She just wiggles and laughs. I bet she thinks she’s getting the best of me, but guess what: ten minutes later, when I’m finished with the dishwasher and she’s covered in dog slobber, I’m the one who’s laughing.
“Yeah, Dexter, I’d like that chore chart back.” I sigh. The puppy sniffs my foot and then whines at the back door to go out, so I open it for him. At least he’s housebroken.
The memory isn’t a bad one. It is less about the dishwasher than about the time when we all were a family, and that’s what makes me sad as I rinse the dishes and put them in the drying rack. My dad built me that bookcase, and it’s still in my room. But my dad’s gone. The towels my mom was folding that day are probably still in the linen closet, but my mom’s not the same as she was back then.
Everything’s different, and it shouldn’t surprise or upset me anymore, but right now it does.
I don’t have time to mope, though. Opal’s pounding down the stairs, taking the last two at the same time with a leap, one hand on the railing to keep herself from falling. She thunders through the living room.
“Jeez, elephant feet. Settle the … kettle,” I finish, thinking of my dad. I tell her to brush her teeth and wash her face. To at least try to comb a few of the tangles from her hair. “And eat some breakfast. We have a lot to do today.”
Opal rolls her eyes. “Like what?”
I lay it out for her. “So we’re going to go through each house, room by room, and get anything we need.”
“It will feel like we’re stealing.” She looks around the kitchen with a guilty expression.
“You’re the one who thought of it. Don’t worry, it will be okay.” I want to reassure her, because I understand how she feels. It will feel like stealing. It will also feel like salvation. “We’ll only take from the empty houses. And we don’t have a choice, Opal.” I don’t want to scare her, but I need her to understand how important it is. “Dress in long pants and long sleeves, too.”
“But it’s hot!”
“Yeah, and we don’t know what we’re going to be dealing with in any of these houses. There could be … stuff.”
Opal perks up. “Gross stuff?”
“Maybe.” I eye her. “Maybe you should stay home.”
“No! No, Velvet, I want to go!” She hops out of her chair, dancing in an agony of not wanting to be denied.
“It’s going to be hot and sweaty, and yeah. Maybe gross.” I keep my smile hidden.
Opal nods. “Like the dead pig.”
“Or worse, Opal.” I’m not smiling now. I’m serious. “You have to promise to listen to me. Do what I say. We have to be careful, because there could be—”
“Connies. I know.” Her expression darkens.
“Or other things,” I say gently. “There could be regular people.”
Opal frowns. She’s grown so much taller over the past few months that pretty soon she’ll be looking me in the eyes. Her hair’s still too long, and her pants not long enough.
“We’ll have to find you some new clothes,” I say.
“Hooray!” She jumps up and down.
For a second, I think she’s being a brat, but then I see that she’s really happy. That makes me happy, too. The thought of robbing houses to get her some new jeans suddenly seems more like an adventure and less like desperate necessity.
“Mom,” I call up the stairs.
Mrs. Holly comes to the railing. “Your mother’s still sleeping, Velvet. What do you want?”
I frown. “Still sleeping? It’s late already.”
Well, it feels late. Honestly, without clocks, it’s hard to tell anymore. Mrs. Holly puts a finger to her lips.
“Yes. Shhh.”
“I’m gonna get dressed.” Opal pushes past me to head upstairs, leaving me with the dishes that I put in the sink with barely a longing glance at the dishwasher.
The puppy, which has been growing even faster than Opal, scratches at the back door to be let in. Then he tries to follow us when Opal comes downstairs and we head for the front door. “Dexter, stay.”
“Can’t he come with us? He’d be good protection.” Opal bends to give him some love.
“He can stay here. Protect Mom and Mrs. Holly,” I tell her, thinking of how annoying it will be to have to keep an eye on the dog as well as my kid sister.
Opal frowns. “But …”
“He barks at anyone who comes by. They need him here more than we do,” I remind her, and she reluctantly agrees.
“I’ll keep him.” Mrs. Holly hooks a finger through Dexter’s collar, and he sits obediently. “You girls be careful.”
Opal does a little dance, fingers bopping from side to side as she sings. “We’re gonna get. Stuff to eat. We’re gonna get. Stuff to wear. We’re gonna get—”
“You’re gonna get. A kick in the pants,” I sing back.
“Velvet. Stop. Teasing.”
Surprised, I turn to see my mom standing halfway down the stairs. She looks tired, like she didn’t sleep at all. The circles under her eyes are dark as bruises, and her hair’s a tangled mess. She smiles, though, and holds out a piece of paper.
Opal and I share a look. I take the scrap of paper, on which she’s scrawled … a list? “What’s this?”
“We need.”
I scan it. Her handwriting is unrecognizable, a toddler’s scrawl. I can sort of make out a few words. Soap. Candles. But … “Mom, you wrote this?”
“We need,” she says, “these things.”
I don’t want to make her feel bad by getting too excited, but this is the most she’s done in a long time. For the first time in a while, hope leaps up inside my heart. I look at the paper, but can’t make out anything except a few letters here and there. I hug her hard and say into her ear, “I’ll see what I can do.”