Chapter 15

Ruby

On the morning of September twelfth, as Heather cuddled in bed enjoying her last few moments of peace, the phone rang. Her mother answered it, and then came into Heather’s room with a pale face.

“Heather, wake up,” Mrs. Primm said, shaking her daughter. “That was the babysitter.”

Heather sat up. Her scar ached with a dull pain that usually faded as the day progressed, often with the help of Burton’s ointment. “What did she want?” Heather asked groggily, rubbing the scar.

“She hasn’t been here in over a week, and in those days she has been harassed by friends, neighbors, and members of the media. They want to know what she knows about—well, about our situation. With all the pressure, she’s decided that she can no longer—she can no longer work for us.” Her tone was a mixture of sorrow and frustration, but Heather couldn’t help but detect just a hint of accusation.

Heather took a moment to process this. “So who’s going to watch Ruby in the mornings? She’s only in first grade, a little young to lock up the house and see herself to the bus stop.”

Mother sighed. “I just—I don’t know.” But from her tone of voice, it was clear that she did know. She knew only too well.

Heather found herself slumped over the breakfast table with her mother and sister. She pushed around bits of cereal in her bowl of milk. She was nervous enough about returning to school. And now this?

“So you understand what we’re saying, Ruby?” Mother asked.

Ruby shrugged. “Why did Miss Emma leave? Didn’t she wanna babysit me anymore? Did I do somefin?”

“‘Cause of me,” Heather muttered.

“Heather didn’t do anything bad.” Ruby stared down at her toast. “Did she?”

Mother looked up from her coffee. Heather, too, looked up to see what her mother would answer. “No,” she said, hesitantly at first. “No, Honey, of course not. Neither of you did anything wrong.”

Heather nodded in agreement, more for Ruby’s sake than any other reason.

“Then what happened to Heather’s face?” Ruby asked.

“It was an accident,” Mother said.

She and Heather had fabricated a story to tell Ruby, one they’d told many times over the past week.

“I want to hear it,” Ruby said, crossing her arms. “All of it.”

Ruby was normally a quiet, well-behaved child. But ever since Heather’s “accident,” she had started acting out in school, behaving only when home with Heather. Three days earlier, she had even been sent home with a note from her teacher informing Mrs. Primm that Ruby had been talking out of turn and “exhibiting behavior unusual for such a normally angelic child.”

“You already heard the story.” Mother frowned. “Now eat your toast. We’ve got to get ready for school.”

Ruby pouted. “But it’s too early to go to school.”

“We’ve been over this three times already. The babysitter can’t watch you anymore, so you’re going to go to school with Heather for now. Some of the teachers at Heather’s high school have children in the elementary school. The children ride to the high school with their parents, and they stay in the library during first period. There’s a bus that stops by the high school during first period to pick them up and bring them to the elementary school. We’re going to the high school this morning to see if you can stay with them.”

“That doesn’t sound like any fun,” Ruby said.

“Ruby, this is not like you at all! It’ll only be until I can find another babysitter. Besides, maybe you’ll make some new friends.”

“Who care about friends?” Ruby crossed her arms. “I’d rather stay here and watch cartoons.”

Mrs. Primm shot Heather a look.

Heather softened her face. “Come on, Ruby. Won’t you do this for me? It’s something a good journalist would do. A good journalist would look at this as an opportunity to gain all kinds of experience—it would offer lots of things to write about in The Ruby Review.”

“I don’t want to be a good journalist,” Ruby said. “Not anymore. I don’t even want to be a bad journalist. I don’t want to be any kind of journalist!”

“Why?” Heather asked.

“I don’t want to get my face cut up when I’m older. And I don’t want my friends saying bad things about me on the computer.”

“Ruby!” Mother scowled and bit her lip. “Finish your toast and get dressed. You’re going to ride to school with Heather today.”

Ruby shot Mother a mischievous look that Heather hadn’t seen since Ruby was a playful little toddler. “I’ll finish my toast and get dressed,” Ruby said with a sparkle in her eye, “if Heather tells me the story of what happened to her face.”

“I’ve already told you,” Heather said.

“Well I want to hear it again,” Ruby insisted.

“No,” Heather snapped.

“Then I’m not going!” Ruby declared. She smashed her toast, jelly-side-down, onto the table.”

“Ruby!”

“Heather, please,” Mother pleaded, slamming down her coffee. “Whatever will make her obedient. Just tell her the story.”

Heather sighed. “Fine. Eat your toast.”

Ruby’s face melted into compliance. She picked up her toast and ran her finger along the table, scooping up the jelly she had smashed into the wood grain.

“I was out in the woods behind our house,” Heather said, trying to remember all the details she and her mother had fabricated. “I was enjoying the beautiful fall weather. I lost track of time, and when I looked up it was already getting dark.”

Ruby gave Heather a skeptical glance.

“You know how it gets so dark so fast in the fall,” Mother added.

Heather nodded. “So there I was, out in the woods, and the sky getting dark–”

“Was the bad man with you?” Ruby asked.

“The bad man?”

“The man with the black backpack. He comes here sometimes. The man who lives next door,” Ruby said.

“Do you mean that kindly Burton Childress?” Mother put a hand to her temple. “Why on earth do you call him the bad man?”

“Because he is. It was when he started showing up that Adam went away. Why doesn’t Adam ever come over an’ read to me anymore?” Ruby pouted.

Heather looked at her mother.

Mother shrugged.

“The bad man,” Heather began but bit her lip, correcting herself. “Burton wasn’t with me. I was by myself. I had been reading a horror novel the night before, and my head filled with all sorts of ideas. Spooks and ghosts and serial killers. I got it in my mind that I wanted to get home as quickly as possible. So I ran. And that was a bad idea in the dark. Before long, I had tripped on a tree root.”

“And that’s how you got your face cut up?”

Heather snickered. “I didn’t get my face cut up. It just got cut up.”

“By falling on a tree root?” Ruby asked.

“I tripped on a root, and I landed on a sharp rock.”

Ruby studied her sister’s scar. “I don’t believe you,” she said in almost a whisper.

Mother put her mug in the sink and turned back to the girls. “Ruby, you’ve finished your toast, and Heather’s finished her story. Now won’t you get dressed so you can go to school with Heather?”

“I suppose,” Ruby said. But before Heather or her mother could stop her, Ruby was tracing a line of sticky jelly along her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. “Even if you aren’t true, I still am.”

Mother shot her a look. “Now, Ruby, we’re going to be asking Principal Elders a favor today, so you’ve got to be on your best behavior. I want you to look nice. Go wash your face and put on your blazer. The one you wear when you work on The Ruby Review. You look so nice in that.”

Ever since she started kindergarten, Ruby had followed her sister’s footsteps in wanting to be a journalist. For Halloween that year, Heather had made Ruby a little blazer, which Ruby had worn many times each week since that Halloween a year ago. In the blazer’s pocket she kept a small digital camera she used to snap pictures for The Ruby Review, which she produced using Heather’s laptop. She also kept a notepad and a handful of pencils—“A story could strike at any moment,” she would always chant, imitating her sister. Ruby could barely be convinced to part with that blazer, even to wash it.

But since Heather’s incident, she hadn’t worn it at all. “No blazer,” Ruby insisted, crossing her arms.

“Please, Rue?” Heather turned to her sister. “Adam would want you to.”

At the mention of Adam’s name, Ruby cracked a smile. With a sparkle in her eye, she ran from the table without clearing her plate. She disappeared into her room and closed the door.

“What’s gotten into her?” Heather asked.

“It’s just a phase,” Mother said, clearing Ruby’s mess. “It’ll pass.”

Fifteen minutes later, Heather, Ruby, and Mrs. Primm piled into the car to head to school. Despite the early hour, Heather wasn’t afraid of being attacked again. She felt that the scar protected her from that. She had already been punished for her crime against school morale, and the scar was proof of that for anyone to see.

Mother pulled up to the curb in front of the school. Heather and Ruby got out.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Heather said.

She tried arguments about exposing Ruby to inappropriate high school dress codes—or lack thereof, about profanities and kissing in the hallways. She even suggested that Heather’s own social standing would make her an inappropriate guardian.

But Mother was no help. Despite Heather’s protests, her mother begged Heather to watch Ruby, if only just for the morning.

“Mom, I think I should wait outside while you talk to Principal Elders,” Heather said through the open passenger window. “I’ll wait with the car.” Heather pointed to the visitor parking spaces.

Mother looked at Heather. “Honey, I don’t think that’ll work.”

“Why not? I really can’t talk to Principal Elders, Mom. I think I should wait outside until you and Ruby work it out with him.”

Mother shook her head. “I’m not going to be talking to Principal Elders, Heather.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are.”

“Mom!”

“If you and Ruby show up alone, he can’t say no. At least not for today. If I went in there and he said no, I’d have to watch Ruby until her bus came, and I have an early meeting I’ve got to get to.”

“You always have an early meeting. And it’s not fair. She’s your daughter, not mine!”

“Please, Heather. Do this for me. If he says no, then tomorrow I’ll watch Ruby myself until we can find another sitter. I promise. Please? I’m on my way to getting a really big account at work, and I—” Her voice trailed off. “Besides, Heather, if it weren’t for you, Rue’s babysitter wouldn’t have quit. I’m proud of you for sticking to the truth, but you’ve got to take responsibility for the consequences of bringing the truth out into the open. Your father leaving. The fallout from your blog. In the real world, there are consequences.”

Heather barely knew how to react. Her mother’s last comment hit her like a punch in the gut. But Mrs. Primm didn’t stick around long enough to see Heather’s eyes water. She had already shifted into drive and was on her way to her important meeting.

Heather sniffed. “Even my own mother has turned against me.” She took Ruby by the hand and watched her mother drive away.

A brief moment of panic raced her heart as she recalled what had happened the last time her mother had left her in such a way and such a place.

“It won’t happen again,” Heather told herself with resolve. Her scar burned as if in reply. “Come on, Ruby.”

Ruby, who had a long wool coat buttoned all the way to the top, had been unusually quiet since hearing Heather’s story. She followed her sister obediently into the school and into the main office. She even willingly followed into the last place Heather ever wanted to be.

The office of Principal Elders.