[Part 1] "Rules" by Cynthia Lord

by Yaroslav11T S. Tsuchiya Unsplash

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RULES FOR DAVID

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Chew with your mouth closed.

Say “thank you” when someone gives you a present (even if you don’t like it).

If someone says “hi,” you say “hi” back.

When you want to get out of answering something, distract the questioner with another question.

Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.

If the bathroom door is closed, knock (especially if Catherine has a friend over)!

Sometimes people laugh when they like you.

But sometimes they laugh to hurt you.

No toys in the fish tank.

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CHAPTER I. FOLLOW THE RULES

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“Come on, David.”

I let go of his sleeve, afraid I’ll rip it.

When he was little, I could pull my brother behind me if he didn’t want to do something, but now David’s eight and too strong to be pulled.

Opening the front door, I sigh.

My first day of summer vacation is nothing like I dreamed.

I had imagined today warm, with seagulls winging across a blue sky, not overcast and damp.

Still, I refuse to grab my jacket from the peg inside the front door.

“Umbrella?” David asks, a far-off stare in his brown eyes.

“It’s not raining.

Come on.

Mom said go to the car.”

David doesn’t move.

I get his favorite red umbrella.

“Okay, let’s go.”

I step onto the front porch and slide the umbrella into my backpack with my sketch-book and colored pencils.

“Let’s go to the video store,” David says, not moving one inch.

“You’re going to the clinic.

But if you do a good job, Dad’ll take you to the video store when he comes home.”

The video store is David’s favorite place, better than the circus, the fair, or even the beach.

Dad always invites me to come, too, but I say, “No, thanks.”

David has to watch all the previews on the store TVs and walk down each row of videos, flipping boxes over to read the parental advisory and the rating — even on videos Dad would never let him rent.

David’ll say, loud enough for the whole store to hear, “Rated PGthirteen for language and some violence!

Crude humor!”

He’ll keep reaching for boxes and flipping them over, not even seeing the looks people give us.

But the hardest part is when David kneels in the aisle to see the back of a video box a complete stranger is holding in his hand.

Dad says, “No one cares, Catherine.

Don’t be so sensitive,” but he’s wrong.

People do care.

Beside me, David checks his watch.

“I’ll pick you up at five o’clock.”

“Well, maybe five o’clock,” I say.

“Sometimes Dad’s late.”

David shrieks, “Five o’clock!”

“Shh!”

I scan the yards around us to see if anyone heard, and my stomach flips.

A moving van is parked in front of the house next door, back wide open, half full of chairs and boxes.

From inside the truck, two men appear, carrying a couch between them.

My hands tremble, trying to zip my backpack.

“Come on, David.

Mom said go to the car.”

David stands with his sneaker toes on the top step, like it’s a diving board and he’s choosing whether to jump.

“Five o’clock,” he says.

The right answer would be “maybe,” but David only wants surefire answers: “yes” and “no” and “Wednesday at two o’clock,” but never “maybe” or “it depends” or worst of all, “I don’t know.”

Next door the movers set the couch on the driveway.

If I hurry, I can ask them before they head into the house.

“Okay,” I say.

“Dad will pick you up at five o’clock.

That’s the rule.”

David leaps down the steps just as the moving men climb into the van.

He might not understand some things, but David loves rules.

I know I’m setting up a problem for later because Dad’s always late, but I have rules, too, and one of mine is:

Sometimes you’ve gotta work with what you’ve got.

I take David’s elbow to hurry him.

“Let’s go past the fence and talk to those men.”

A little spring mud remains under the pine trees near the fence.

Only a month ago, puddles were everywhere when Mrs. Bowman called me over to say her house had been sold to a woman with a twelve-year-old daughter.

“I knew you’d be pleased,” she said.

“I told the realtor I have a girl just that age living next door and maybe they can be friends.”

A few weeks later, I had stood on my porch, waving, as Mrs. Bowman’s son drove her away to her new apartment attached to his house.

It feels wrong that Mrs. Bowman’s not living in the gray-shingled house next door anymore, and her porch looks empty without her rocking chairs.

But I’m tingly with hopes, too.

I’ve always wanted a friend in my neighborhood, and a next-door friend would be best of all.

Usually in summer I do lots of things by myself because my best friend, Melissa, spends the whole vacation in California with her dad.

This year’ll be different, though.

The girl next door and I can do all my favorite summer things together: swimming at the pond, watching TV, and riding bikes.

We could even send midnight messages from our windows, using flashlights and Morse code, like next-door friends do in books.

And the best part, David won’t have to come since Mom won’t have to drive me and pick me up.

I bite my teeth together, fighting the memory of my last sleepover at Melissa’s.

When Mom came to pick me up, David raced around Melissa’s kitchen, opening doors, looking for their cellar, even when Mom kept telling him this was a trailer and trailers don’t have cellars.

“Real friends understand,” Mom had said on the ride home.

But here’s what I understand: Sometimes everyone gets invited except us, and it’s because of David.

Walking toward the van, I study the moving men.

One has a blotchy face and looks all business.

The younger one wears a half smile and a dirty T-shirt and jeans.

T-shirt Man seems friendlier.

“Remember the rule,” I whisper, my hand pushing David’s back to hurry him.

“If someone says ‘hi,’ you say ‘hi’ back.”

Down the walkway, I run through conversation possibilities in my head, but that one rule should be enough.

There’s only one question I need to ask, then I can take David right to the car.

“Hi!” I call, reaching the corner of the fence.

David flickers his fingers up and down, like he’s playing a piano in the air.

T-shirt Man turns around.

“Do you know when the family’s coming?” I ask.

“Is it today?”

He looks to the other man in the van.

“When are the Petersons coming?”

“If someone says ‘hi,’ you say ‘hi’ back!” David yells.

“That’s the rule!”

Both men stare past me with that familiar look.

The wrinkledforehead look that means, “What’s wrong with this kid?”

I grab David’s hands to stop his fingers.

“They’re coming about five o’clock,” the red-faced man says.

“That’s what she said.”

“Five o’clock!”

David twists under my arm.

My wrist kills from being curled backward.

I grip my toes in my sneakers to hide the pain.

“Thanks!”

I pretend I can see my watch.

“Wow, look at the time!

Sorry, gotta go!”

Chasing David to the car, I hear heavy footsteps on the van’s metal ramp behind me, thunk-thunk.

David covers his ears with his hands.

“It’s five o’clock.

Let’s go to the video store!”

My own hands squeeze to fists.

Sometimes I wish someone would invent a pill so David’d wake up one morning without autism, like someone waking from a long coma, and he’d say, “Jeez, Catherine, where have I been?”

And he’d be a regular brother like Melissa has — a brother who’d give back as much as he took, who I could joke with, even fight with.

Someone I could yell at and he’d yell back, and we’d keep going and going until we’d both yelled ourselves out.

But there’s no pill, and our quarrels fray instead of knot, always ending in him crying and me sorry for hurting him over something he can’t help.

“Here’s another rule.”

I open the car door.

“If you want to get away from someone, you can check your watch and say, ‘Sorry, gotta go.’

It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does.”

“Sorry, gotta go?” David asks, climbing into the car.

“That’s right.

I’ll add it to your rules.”

The men carry a mattress, still in plastic, up the walkway next door.

Someday soon I’m going to take a plate of cookies up those steps and ring the doorbell.

And if the girl next door doesn’t have a flashlight, I’ll buy her one that turns on and off easily.

Mom says I have to deal with what is and not to get my hopes up, but how else can hopes go but up?

“Wear your seat belt in the car,” David states.

“That’s the rule.”

“You’re right.”

I click the seat belt across me and open my sketchbook to the back pages.

That’s where I keep all the rules I’m teaching David so if my someday-he’ll-wake-up-a-regular-brother wish doesn’t ever come true, at least he’ll know how the world works, and I won’t have to keep explaining things.

Some of the rules in my collection are easy and always:

Say “excuse me” after you burp.

Don’t stand in front of the TV when other people are watching it.

Flush!

But more are complicated, sometimes rules:

You can yell on a playground, but not during dinner.

A boy can take off his shirt to swim, but not his shorts.

It’s fine to hug Mom, but not the clerk at the video store.

And a few are more hints than rules — but matter just as much:

Sometimes people don’t answer because they didn’t hear you.

Other times it’s because they don’t want to hear you.

Most kids don’t even consider these rules.

Sometime when they were little, their mom and dad must’ve explained it all, but I don’t remember mine doing it.

It seems I’ve always known these things.

Not David, though.

He needs to be taught everything.

Everything from the fact that a peach is not a funny-looking apple to how having long hair doesn’t make someone a girl.

I add to my list:

If you want to get away from someone, check your watch and say,

“Sorry, gotta go!”

“It’s Mom!” David yells.

“Let’s go to the video store!”

She’s on the porch, locking our front door.

I’ll get in trouble if Mom finds out I let him think the wrong thing.

“I’m depending on you, Catherine,” she’ll say.

“How will he learn to be independent if everyone lets him behave and speak the wrong way?”

“You’re going to occupational therapy,” I tell David, “at the clinic.”

He frowns.

“Let’s go to the video store.”

David may not have the sorry-gotta-go rule down, but he’s got this one perfect:

If you say something over and over and over, maybe they’ll give in to shut you up.

“You’re going to OT,” I say.

“Maybe —”

“Maybe” is all it takes.

David twists toward me as far as his seat belt allows, his eyes flashing.

I cover David’s mouth with my hand so the movers don’t hear him scream.

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CHAPTER II. DON'T RUN DOWN THE CLINIC HALLWAY

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When David was three and started coming to the clinic for occupational therapy, I tagged along because I was too little to stay home alone.

Now I’m twelve and can stay home if I want, but I still like to come.

I like talking to Mom on the ride over and back and shopping in the stores across the street, and I love the road between our house and the clinic.

It follows the ocean’s shoreline, and I look for snowy egrets standing stick-still in the salt marshes and osprey circling, hunting fish.

At high tide, waves sparkle under the wooden bridges, and I can guess the tide before I even see the water, just by closing my eyes and breathing the air through the open car windows.

Low tide smells mud-black and tangy, but high tide smells clean and salty.

The clinic is a few streets from the ocean, and in the summer sometimes Mom and I walk to the waterfront park while David has his appointment.

It’s the only time in the week that I get Mom completely to myself and someone else is in charge of David.

Mom likes to stay in the clinic waiting room so she can hear if David has a hard time, but I like when we leave because then she doesn’t look away from me every time she hears him shriek.

At the clinic there’s a waiting room and a long corridor of doors to little offices for hearing tests, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.

David comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to see Stephanie, a woman with kind eyes and an office full of games, swings, a trampoline, and more balls than I’ve ever seen outside a school playground.

I think it’d be fun to go with Stephanie and do what she calls “playing,” but David thinks it’s work.

I wait while Mom says hello to the other waiting-room people, but as soon as Stephanie takes David’s hand, I ask, “Can we go to the park?

We haven’t been since last fall.”

“It’s going to rain.”

Mom sits down on the waiting room couch.

“And it’ll be cold by the water.

You didn’t even bring your jacket.”

“Can we go shopping, then?”

I glance out the window to the line of stores across the street.

My favorite is Elliot’s Antiques.

From the sidewalk it seems only a door, tucked between two downtown shops, but behind the door and up a musty-smelling staircase is a sign:

ELLIOT’S ANTIQUES.

The whole store is like an attic, full of stuff someone’s grandparents once owned but had no more use for.

Things not quite good enough to keep, but not quite bad enough to throw away.

“David had a hard time last week,” Mom says.

“I need to make sure Stephanie can handle it.

Why don’t we read?”

Mom crosses her legs, like she’s settled to stay.

I slump on the couch beside her and check if anyone looks like they’ll mind Mom reading out loud.

I haven’t been to the clinic since my last school vacation, but I recognize the waiting-room people because their appointments are nearly the same time as David’s every week.

Mrs. Frost, a tiny old lady, reads a magazine in the big chair between the front windows (she brings her even-older brother for speech therapy because he had a stroke).

The receptionist with her blond, beauty-parlor hair types fast on her computer.

Carol, a young mother wearing a big skirt and hoop earrings, sits in the rocking chair near the bookshelf.

She leans down, handing her baby with Down syndrome chunky plastic blocks from the toy basket.

In the chair next to the exit, Mrs. Morehouse, Jason’s mother, checks her watch.

And there’s Jason.

I’m not sure how old Jason is, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but even though he’s almost grown, his mother stays with him in the waiting room.

Jason can’t go anywhere unless someone pushes his wheelchair.

I open my backpack, and Mom cleans her glasses on the bottom edge of her shirt.

When I was seven, Mom began reading the Harry Potter series to me, and even though I can read easily to myself now, we still read each new book together.

I never think of the characters without hearing her voices.

I pass her the book.

“Read quiet.”

She turns to our chapter, and I arrange my colored pencils on the couch next to me.

Hunting out the window for something to draw, I consider the line of stores and restaurants across the street, but they look tired and “between.”

In a week or two, the gift shop window will have splashy beach towels and plastic sand buckets, the hotel will show off the “No” lit up with the “vacancy,” and the parking lot will be full of seagulls strutting between the cars and perched on the streetlights, screeching for someone to drop a bite of sandwich or a French fry.

I wish time would hurry and there’d be sailboats tying up at the landing and tour buses passing through, and I’d already have the first hellos traded with Somebody Peterson, the girl next door.

I figure by five fifteen that first hi-trading could be over.

Especially if I just happen to be outside at five o’clock when she arrives.

I sink back into the vinyl couch cushions, my sketchbook propped against my knees, listening to Mom’s voice changing, character to character.

There’s not much new to draw in the waiting room.

The same yellowed awards cluster the walls, the same books spill off the bookshelf, and the same old toys are heaped in the toy basket.

And there are only two people I haven’t already drawn: Jason and his mother.

I worry that glancing will turn into staring too easy with Jason, and I hate when people stare at David.

But Jason’s mother fidgets — crossing her legs, picking up magazines, putting them down, smoothing her short, flipped-under, brown hair — so she’d be harder to draw.

Mom said Jason started coming to the clinic after Christmas, but the first time I saw him was February vacation.

That day I didn’t know where to look, so I looked at his feet on his wheelchair footrests.

Maybe by drawing Jason, I could look at him easier.

Looking closer can make something beautiful.

Sometimes I can change how I feel about something by drawing it.

Drawing makes me find the curves, the shadows, the ins and outs,

and the beautiful parts.

I solved my hating snakes by drawing their scales, tiny and silvery, overlapping and overlapping, until all I saw was how perfect they were.

Can’t say I’d want a snake crawling across me, but I don’t have to run screaming to Dad every time I see a garden snake now.

“Should I go on?” Mom asks.

“I could stop there.”

“No, keep reading.”

I turn to a clean page in my sketchbook and swoop a faint pencil line, beginning the outline of Jason’s head: over the top, down his temple and cheek, around the bumps of jaw and chin, and back to where my line began.

I don’t know what’s wrong with Jason, and it doesn’t seem polite to ask.

Whatever it is, though, it’s something big.

There’s a tray on Jason’s wheelchair, and on the tray is a communication book.

At first Jason’s book seems like a big blue photograph album, but inside it’s full of word cards, not photographs.

Jason can’t speak, but he turns the pages and touches the cards to tell his mother if he wants a drink, or has to use the bathroom, or is mad about something.

Today he’s mad — fighting mad.

Jason slides his hand across his book, jabbing at cards.

His fingers curl, clawlike, as his knuckle raps one word and another.

“Yes, I know they had a guitar,” Mrs. Morehouse says, fiddling with her earring.

“But I told you, we didn’t have time to stop.

If I had stopped, you’d have been late for speech!”

Jason stabs his book.

I hope he has a “So what?” or a “Whatever!” card.

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His hands twitch, and he makes rumbling-throat sounds, near to growling.

Mom shuts our book.

Jason’s jaw is a little crooked, not as perfect as I drew.

But if I draw how it really is, it might look like I made a mistake.

Reddish brown waves of hair sweep over Jason’s brow.

A few wayward strands dangle near his eyes.

Hair’s my favorite thing to draw, but I only rough it in.

Otherwise, I may not have time to finish before Jason’s speech therapist comes out to get him.

“What?”

Jason’s mother asks.

I’ll draw his eyes downcast, looking at his book.

That way they’ll be mostly lids, and it won’t matter that I don’t know what color they are.

“Girl don’t?

What girl?”

Everything falls quiet.

I glance up.

Mrs. Morehouse is staring at me.

“Are you drawing my son?”

My pencil freezes, midstroke.

“Just because he can’t talk,” she says, “don’t assume he doesn’t mind!”

Everyone looks at me.

My fingers move over my sketchbook, finding the corner.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, turning the page.

It takes all my strength, every ounce, not to cry.

“A drink?”

I hear Mrs. Morehouse say.

“All right.

Wait here.”

Mom reaches over, but I scoot down the couch, out of reach.

I pick up a lime-colored pencil and swish a tiny blade of grass on my page.

One eyelash-curve of green, cutting all that white.

Footsteps pass me, but I don’t look up.

I tick line after line, making grass.

“Oops,” Mrs. Morehouse says.

“It’s only a little spill.”

I risk a peek.

If that were David, he’d be wild to get those clothes off, but Jason sits there, a dark water spot spread on the front of his navy Red Sox shirt.

Maybe he doesn’t mind.

Or maybe he knows there isn’t another shirt.

Or maybe he’s used to being wet.

David wouldn’t care about any of those things.

That shirt’d be off, faster than you could blink.

And the pants, too — if any had spilled there and I didn’t remind him of the pants rule quick enough:

Keep your pants on!

Unless Mom, Dad, or the doctor tells you to

take them off.

Mom opens our book again.

“Let’s see, where were we?”

“Harry was about to use his cloak.”

“That’s right.”

As she reads, I think how useful a cloak that made me invisible would be right now.

If I had one, I’d throw it over my head and run out the door and across the parking lot and the street, all the way through the waterfront park to the wharf, and board the first boat I saw going somewhere, anywhere else.

Mom reads, the receptionist types at her computer, Mrs. Frost looks at a magazine, and the baby sleeps on Carol’s lap, his little fingers still clutching a pink plastic block.

“HI, JASON!”

Jason’s smiling speech therapist finally comes out to get him.

I’m relieved to see her, even though Mom stops reading when she comes.

“How’s his day been going?” the therapist asks his mother.

“He wanted to stop at a yard sale,” Mrs. Morehouse says.

“So, he’s upset.”

“Oh?”

The therapist turns to Jason.

“YOU WANTED” (hands pointing, pulling) “TO STOP” (one hand karate-chopping the other) “AT A YARD SALE?” (fingers flying, eyebrows arched in a question).

Jason scowls.

His therapist pouts, her finger tapping his communication book.

“Sad.”

I swallow a giggle.

Sad?

Is she kidding?

If I were Jason, I’d want cards that said: “Get out of my face!” and “Go away!” and “This stinks a big one!”

The therapist pushes Jason’s wheelchair down the corridor, and Mrs. Morehouse picks up her purse.

“I have a couple of errands,” she tells the receptionist.

“I’ll be right back.”

The bell above the clinic door jangles as she leaves.

Through the window, I watch her cross the parking lot to her van.

“What do you think Jason would do with a guitar?”

I ask Mom.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Maybe just having one would be enough.”

Watching the van’s red taillights, I wonder, Enough for what?

But as the van pulls away, I close my eyes and make a wish.

Please go back and buy that guitar.

In case Mom’s right.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Jason’s feelings.

I was only sketching.”

“You could tell him that,” Mom says.

I cringe.

“But he can’t answer me.”

“Maybe he’ll point to the answer in his book.

Or maybe he’ll answer in his head.”

Mom returns to reading, and I draw the front of a gray-shingled house, porch steps, and a front door with a doorbell.

I reach for a blue-sky pencil, but pick up midnight black instead.

I hear a faraway David-shriek, and Mom stops reading to watch the corridor.

But then it’s quiet, and I figure David gave in and did whatever Stephanie wanted.

My drawing takes shape under my hand: lemon for the stars, cream for the moon, pine for the trees along the fence, charcoal gray for the darkened windows, all but one.

When the clinic bell jangles again, I peek up long enough to see Jason’s mother isn’t holding a guitar.

“HERE WE ARE!”

The speech therapist pushes Jason’s wheelchair up beside me.

“I saw you drive in,” she says to his mother.

“He was so upset, we stopped early.”

Mom slides her elbow over in a “here’s your chance, Catherine” nudge.

“Hi, Jason,” she says.

“How are you today?”

His head stays bowed, his chin almost touching his chest.

Mom’s question hangs in the air.

Maybe Jason is answering in his head?

Maybe he’s think-saying, “I’m fine, thank you.”

Or maybe, “Well, I’ve been better.”

Or maybe, he’s think-screaming, “I’m in this wheelchair, you idiot!

How do you suppose I am?”

Whatever he’s thinking, his silence stings me.

I lay my sketchbook on my lap.

“I’m sorry about that guitar,” I tell the reddish brown waves of hair on Jason’s head.

“I like music, too.”

His head snaps up and Jason stares hard — right into my eyes.

His eyes are stunning, ice blue.

Mrs. Morehouse spins his chair toward the door, and Mom stands up to help.

“It’s okay.”

Mrs. Morehouse holds the door open with her foot.

“I can get it.”

I pick up my palest-yellow pencil and add a dot to my drawing, gleaming in a window.

From the dot, I sweep down a shivering beam cutting the darkness.

I imagine myself sitting on my bed, hugging my knees, counting Morse code dashes and dots.

A-r-e y-o-u t-h-e-r-e?

The bell jangles again.

I look up to see Mrs. Morehouse in the doorway, watching me.

She crosses her arms over her stomach.

Mrs. Frost drops her magazine and even the receptionist has stopped typing, her hands held above her keyboard like a conductor waiting to cue a symphony.

“Jason insisted I come back,” Mrs. Morehouse says, “and tell you he likes the picture you’re drawing.”

She turns to leave.

I look out the window to Jason at the top of the ramp.

“Wait!”

Lifting my page, I pull gently so it’ll tear neatly.

Colored pencils fall off my lap, scattering and rolling across the floor, but I don’t bother with them.

“If he likes it, he can have it.

Please tell him the dot in the window is a flashlight.”

His mother smiles.

“I’ll tell him.”

I’m too embarrassed to watch her give Jason my picture, so I get down on my knees and hunt for colored pencils, some of which have rolled under the heater.

“That was kind of you, sweetheart,” Mom says.

I slump back on the couch.

Though I move my orange pencil over a fresh page, I’m only making lines.

Too-busy-to-talk lines.

Leave-me-alone lines.

I bear down so hard, my pencil lead breaks.

“Sorry!

Gotta go!”

David runs through the waiting room, heading for the door to outside, his brown hair damp with sweat.

Mom jumps up to block his way.

I flip to my rule collection and add:

If you want to get away with something, don’t announce it first.

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CHAPTER III. IF IT’S TOO LOUD, COVER YOUR EARS OR ASK THE OTHER PERSON TO BE QUIET

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On the ride home from the clinic, the rain comes.

David holds his hands over his ears, blocking the tiny squeaks of the windshield wipers against the glass.

David hears everything extra loud, Stephanie says.

Milk being poured, shopping carts clanging at the grocery store, my pet guinea pigs squealing, the school bus braking as it pulls up to the corner, and the whoosh of the bus door opening — all those things and a million more make David cover his ears, fast as lightning.

The last day of school should’ve been a happy day, but I can’t think of it without seeing David at the bus stop, clutching his umbrella, his head tipped way over to his shoulder to cover one ear, his hand covering the other.

Ryan Deschaine said he’d steal David’s umbrella if he let go of it, and David believed him.

I told him Ryan was joking, but that made it worse, because David laughed and laughed in that twisted position, and Ryan mimicked David, tipping his own head way over, laughing.

I got in trouble with the bus driver because she caught me shoving Ryan.

We had to sit in the front seats so she could keep an eye on us, she said.

On the ride to school, I added another rule to David’s list:

Sometimes people laugh when they like you.

But sometimes they laugh to hurt you.

I hope David can learn that rule by September, when we have to go back to the bus stop.

“Maybe the family next door will be moving in when we get home.”

I watch a heron hunting fish in the low-water area under the bridge.

His feathers are dark, slick with rain.

“The movers said five, but maybe they were wrong.”

“Maybe,” Mom says, “but our new neighbors might have a long drive, and there’s always last-minute things to do when you move.”

I try to hold my hope down, but it keeps popping up again.

Until Mom turns the corner to our street and I see Ryan Deschaine getting on his bike, an orange newspaper bag slung on his shoulder, his curly black hair looking frizzy from the rain.

I let loose one hope, skyward: I hope he gets soaked.

David waves out the car window.

“Hi, Ryan!”

“Don’t say ‘hi’ to him,” I tell David.

“He’s not your friend.”

“Catherine!” Mom snaps, the reflection from her glasses flashing in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t stop David from talking to people!

Not after all the work we’ve done on initiating conversation.”

Part of me wants to tell her about Ryan, but she’ll call his mother or the bus office and make it worse for David next year.

Mom doesn’t understand how not everyone is on David’s side.

“I ran into Ryan’s mom the other day and she was telling me all the fun things the community center is sponsoring for kids this summer,” Mom says.

“Wouldn’t you like to sign up for something, Catherine?”

Why is it the minute kids have free time, parents want to fill it up?

“She said they’re having swimming lessons, tennis, yoga,” Mom continues.

“They’re even sponsoring a few bus trips and a summer dance.

Won’t that be fun?”

“I have a rule against dancing,” I tell her.

“No dancing unless I’m alone in my room or it’s pitch-black dark.”

“Don’t be silly.

I think it sounds wonderful.”

I want to say, “Then you do it,” but that’ll get me in trouble.

If you don’t want to do something, say, “Hmm.

I’ll think about it”

and maybe the asker will forget the whole bad idea.

“Hmm.

I’ll think about it.”

I lean forward, looking between the front seats, until I see the driveway next door, a long strip of rain-black tar, empty.

I fall back against my seat.

******

All afternoon I try to keep too busy to check my watch every fifteen minutes, but by four o’clock I can’t stand waiting in my room anymore.

I take my sketchbook and head for the porch where there’s a good view of the neighbor’s driveway.

As I open the front door, I hear Mom’s voice from somewhere down the hallway: “Please stop asking me, David!

Dad’ll pick you up at five o’clock, and that’s the last time I’m saying it!”

I rush outside to our porch swing, worried Mom’s next words will be “Why don’t you find Catherine and see what she’s doing?”

I draw to the steady patter of rain on the roof and cars gushing through puddles on the road.

At quarter to five, a slow splashing makes me look up.

A minivan passes through a puddle and into the driveway next door.

I pull my feet up onto the swing, watching over the top of my sketchbook.

A woman gets out of the van and runs for the porch, her purse held over her short hair.

From the passenger side, a girl climbs out.

Tall with straight brown hair falling past her elbows, she’s not fat or skinny, a perfect between.

She doesn’t run — just walks, like the rain doesn’t bother her at all.

Sitting here thinking about what happened with Jason and seeing Ryan, I figure today might be a bad-luck day, and I should let all that bad luck run out overnight before I try something else big.

Plus, I haven’t baked anything yet and I want my introducing day to be perfect, not me standing on her porch, dripping wet, handing her soggy cookies.

The girl follows her mother inside without once looking over to my house.

Our front door opens.

“Let’s go to the video store,” David says, holding his umbrella under his arm.

He hops onto the swing with me, squiggling my pencil line.

“Seven minutes.”

“Sometimes Dad’s late.”

Dad always has an excuse: traffic, last-minute customers at the pharmacy who’ve run out of their prescriptions and can’t wait until morning, a salesman stopping by with drug samples.

But I think even if things went just right, Dad would still be late.

It’s part of him, like his brown hair or his glasses or his name tag and lab coat.

I gave up expecting Dad to be on time years ago, but David thinks everything a person says is the truth.

Dad works all the extra hours he can, even on Saturdays, so Mom can afford to work part-time at home.

She used to have an office downtown, but David got kicked out of day care, so now she runs her tax-preparation business from our spare bedroom.

The good part of having Mom home is she’s around to talk to and can take me places, but the bad part is David has to come wherever we go, and sometimes I have to babysit while she meets with clients or makes phone calls.

She says it doesn’t sound professional when she has to put her hand over the phone and yell, “David!

Put those pants back on!”

David checks his watch.

“Six minutes and thirty-three seconds.”

In exactly six minutes and thirty-three seconds, there’s going to be a scene.

I know it as sure as I know the window next door is open, and David’s scream will travel from my porch, across our yard, and through that open window.

A red sports car zooms by on the road, puddle-spraying our fence.

“Let’s count cars,” I suggest.

“There’s one.”

He glances up.

It’s not easy to sidetrack David, especially when it involves the video store, but he does like to count cars.

A truck rolls by.

“Two!”

Raising his arm, David holds it out so he can see both the road and his watch.

“And five minutes six seconds.”

“Well, maybe five minutes.”

“Three cars!

And four minutes fifty-eight seconds.”

I give up.

We count cars: four, five, six.

And he counts minutes: three, two, one.

“Remember the rule.”

I flip to the back of my sketchbook and show him.

Late doesn’t mean not coming.

Our new neighbor’s front door opens.

“Ten!

Nine!”

David shouts the seconds, like an announcer at a rocket launch.

The girl steps onto her porch.

“Eight!

Seven!”

I scramble to cover his mouth, but David jumps off the porch swing.

A car’s coming.

Please let it be Dad.

“Six!

Five!”

David yells, and the girl next door glances our way.

“Four!

Three!

Two!

ONE!”

I peek over, but the girl isn’t glancing now; she’s staring right at us.

“Seven cars!” David screams as the car goes past.

“‘“The whole world is covered with buttons, and not one of them is mine!”’”

I jump up to stop his hands, flapping now like two fierce and angry birds.

“Is he okay?” the girl calls.

“I could help you look for it.”

Look for it?

“Do you need help finding his button?” she asks.

“Oh!

No, thanks!”

I struggle to hold David down.

The truth is, I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining, especially hollering from my porch to hers.

Talking to David can be like a treasure hunt.

You have to look underneath the words to figure out what he’s trying to say.

It helps if you know his conversation rules:

Don’t use two words when one will do.

If you don’t have the words you need, borrow someone else’s.

If you need to borrow words, Arnold Lobel wrote some good ones.

That button line comes from a story in one of David’s favorite books, Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Are Friends.

In the story Toad keeps finding buttons — big ones, little ones, square ones — but none of the buttons he finds is the right button.

Like none of the passing cars is Dad’s.

But that would take too much explaining, and the girl is already going back inside her house.

No cookies.

No trading “hi” or “my name is.”

No flashlight discussion or even a “nice to meet you.”

Her first-ever words to me were,

Is he okay?

I could help you look for it.

Look for it?

Do you need help finding his button?

Oh!

No, thanks!

“I’ll pick you up at five o’clock,” David whispers.

A tear gleams like a tiny pearl on David’s eyelashes.

My grip on him softens.

“Dad’s still coming,” I say.

“Late doesn’t mean not coming.”

But those words don’t help.

So I reach over, wipe away his tear with the side of my thumb, and say the only words I know will calm him:

‘“Frog, you are looking quite green.”’”

David sniffles.

‘“But I always look green,” said Frog.

“I am a frog.”’”

I pause, pretending I don’t remember what comes next, though I can do the entire book word for word, by heart.

‘“Today you look very green, even for a frog,” said Toad.’”

David looks at me.

I nod.

“Even for a frog.”

David and I sit on the swing until Dad pulls into the driveway.

“Ready to go, sport?” he calls, though David is already running down the steps, headed for the car.

I watch David trying to get into the car without closing his umbrella.

“I’m sorry I’m late!”

Dad waves to me.

“Mrs. Jesland came in at the last minute and needed her heart pills.

Want to come, Catherine?”

“No, thanks.”

I check my watch.

Five forty-two.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER IV. SOMETIMES YOU’VE GOTTA WORK WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT

----------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday morning I made cookies.

But when I rang the doorbell next door, and rang it again, no one answered.

Mom said there’s a lot to do when you move, and I should let our new neighbors get unpacked, anyway.

This morning I wanted to try again, but the minivan was already gone when I went outside.

On the drive to the clinic, I try not to let my hopes run loose, but they rush with the water under the bridges.

I hope the girl next door loves swimming because we have a pond a few streets away from my house (and now, hers!).

I hope she’s not allergic to guinea pigs since I have two.

I hope she’s a little bit shy and likes to draw and read, and I hope she doesn’t think it’s babyish to send Morse code messages.

At the clinic Mom says it’s still too cold for the park.

I draw sailboats bobbing on summer waves while Mom reads aloud a scene where a spell goes wrong for Harry.

I catch Mrs. Frost smiling at us, and I think she’s listening, too.

The bell above the clinic door jangles and Mom looks up from the pages.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” she says to Jason’s mother.

“Hi, Jason.”

Jason doesn’t move his head, but his eyes turn to me.

“Ahhh!”

I flinch.

I know Jason can’t help it, but sometimes, the sounds he makes are loud and creepy.

Jason raps his communication book.

“My son wants to thank you for the picture you gave him,” Mrs. Morehouse says to me.

“In fact, he asked me to hang it on his wall.”

Jason’s mouth drops open.

I give Jason my I-hate-when-my-mom-does-that-too eye roll.

He smiles and taps his book.

“Jason is wondering if he could have your name in his book?”

Mrs. Morehouse watches his hand move card to card.

“So he can talk to you.

Would you mind, Catherine?”

It seems weird to think of my name in some boy’s communication book, but I don’t know how I could say no, so I say, “Okay.”

She takes a little card and a pen from her purse.

Watching her, I wonder how that’d feel, to have to wait for someone to make a word before I could use it.

And to have all my words lying out in the open, complete strangers able to walk by and see everything that mattered to me, without even knowing my name.

Jason grimaces at the card.

“Well, you know I can’t draw,” Mrs. Morehouse says.

“Do you want me to put her name without a picture?”

“I could draw it.”

Jeez!

Where’d that come from?

Just popped out of my mouth without checking with my brain first.

“That’d be great.”

Mrs. Morehouse pulls another blank card from her purse.

“If you draw on this, it’ll fit in his book.”

On my way past Jason’s wheelchair, I study a page of his communication book so my card’ll match his others.

About two inches square, each card has a simple black-and-white line drawing and the word or phrase printed along the top.

His book has clear vinyl pages, like an album for trading cards, only with smaller pockets to fit the word cards.

Back at my spot on the couch, I ask Mom if I can borrow the little makeup mirror from her purse.

I lay the mirror and the card on my sketchbook to give me something firm underneath while I draw.

Two inches wide, two inches high: a white block, waiting for me to appear inside.

But how should I look?

Like my school picture, with justcombed hair and my say-cheese smile?

Or like I do at home, with ponytail hair and wearing my favorite purple T-shirt?

I can’t decide, so I do the easy part first and write “Catherine” at the top in tiny, neat letters.

I might not be the world’s best artist, but I can draw better than the stick figures and line drawings on Jason’s other cards, all perfect circles and ruler-straight lines.

I choose a peach-colored pencil and study my face in the mirror.

I draw the slow curve of my right cheek, sweeping down to my too-pointy chin, up my other cheek, over the top of my head, and back to where my line began.

I draw how I usually look: brown ponytail, blue-gray eyes, wearing my purple T-shirt.

Not a perfect circle or ruler-straight line anywhere.

Besides, Jason probably wouldn’t recognize the school-picture me, anyway.

But when Mrs. Morehouse tries to slide my card into one of the little clear pockets in Jason’s book, it’s the tiniest bit too big.

“I’ll take a sliver off the side,” she says, heading for the receptionist’s desk.

“Let me get some scissors.”

Beside me, Jason taps.

“Excuse me!” I call to Mrs. Morehouse’s back.

“He wants something!”

She doesn’t even turn around.

“Would you see what it is?”

I’m scared I won’t understand Jason, but she’s already chatting with the receptionist.

Holding my breath, I peer down at his finger pointing to —

Thank you.

“Oh.”

I let go my breath.

“You’re welcome.”

Mrs. Morehouse trims my word to fit his book, and Jason lets out a loud “Ahhh!”

He says it so loud, Mrs. Frost turns down her hearing aid.

Jason slaps,

Good job.

My name stands out, colorful and detailed among the black-and-white plainness of his other cards.

Sandwich.

Pizza.

Soda.

Drink.

Eat.

More.

Good.

Nice.

Bad.

Sad.

Happy.

Mad.

Van.

Want.

Go.

I’m sorry.

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

Make.

Tell.

Help.

Wait.

Baseball.

Book.

Music.

Guitar.

Piano.

Like.

Please.

Thank you.

Me, too.

Okay.

Hi.

Good-bye.

Boy.

Girl.

Man.

Woman.

Picture.

Word.

Good job.

What?

Who?

Why?

and many more, all the way to

Catherine.

I long to pull his cards out and add red to the van, yellow to the happy face, and thick purple jelly between the slices of bread in the sandwich.

I want to show Jason I’m sorry for not-looking at him the same embarrassed way I hate people not-looking at David.

But how?

“If you ever want me to make you more words,” I say, “just ask.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Morehouse says, adjusting her earring.

“But there’s no need.

These cards are part of a speech program we use, and it comes with a whole book of words.

I can copy whatever he needs from there.”

Jason shoots his mother a what?

look.

Yes.

More.

Picture.

Mrs. Morehouse sighs.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, Catherine?”

“I’m sure.”

I turn the pages of Jason’s communication book, reading through his cards so I don’t repeat the words or phrases he already has.

Which shouldn’t be hard, since all his words are boring.

But to be polite, I ask his mother what words she suggests I make.

“Something you like would be nice.

Then he could talk to you about it.”

She pulls a stack of blank cards from her purse.

“Would seven be too many?”

“Seven’s fine.”

Taking the cards, I’m not sure what to do.

Go back to the couch?

Stay here?

Jason turns a page in his communication book, and my insides twist.

“Well.”

I glance at my watch.

“Sorry, I —”

“HI, JASON!”

His speech therapist smiles, striding into the waiting room.

“Am I interrupting something?”

I open my mouth to say no, but she’s already looking past me.

“How’s his day been going?”

Jason taps,

Good.

“He’s been a bit cranky,” Mrs. Morehouse says.

“I think he stayed up too late last night watching the Red Sox.

It went to extra innings.”

“OH?

ARE YOU” (points to Jason) “CRANKY?” (gesture plus crabby face).

Jason sighs.

No.

“Good, because we’re going to have fun today.”

The therapist turns to Mrs. Morehouse and adds, “It’s time for evaluations.

Why don’t you come with us, and I’ll show you what I have in mind.”

Jason tilts his head toward me, his hand moving slyly across his book.

Stupid.

Speech.

Woman.

I cover my mouth with my hand, so I won’t laugh out loud.

Jason makes her sound like a superhero: Speech Woman!

Avenger of Adverbs!

Protector of Pronouns!

Champion of Chitchat!

“’Bye,” I mumble through my fingers.

Good-bye.

He turns his page back to touch Catherine.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER V. IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE WORDS YOU NEED, BORROW SOMEONE ELSE’S

----------------------------------------------------------

At home I line Jason’s blank cards on my desk, ready to draw.

But choosing words is harder than I thought.

Seven white squares, full of possibility.

I look around my bedroom for ideas: from the checkered rug on my floor to the calendar of Georgia O’Keeffe flower paintings Dad bought me at the art museum he took me to last summer.

That’s my dream — to be an artist and have people gasp when they see my paintings, like I do on the first day of each new month.

I have a tiny clothespin at the bottom of the calendar pages, so I don’t cheat and peek ahead — I want each month’s flower to be a surprise.

On my door is a long mirror surrounded with colored sticky-note reminders: my library books are due (Bring fine money!), August 8th is Melissa’s birthday (Remember it takes seven to nine business days for mail to get to California!

Plan ahead!), and even a few reminders left over from school (Find lunch card!) (Project due Tuesday!).

I kept those up because it’s nice to see them and know they don’t matter anymore.

On my desk is the little bamboo plant in the blue-swirly dish Melissa gave me for my last birthday, and my computer with the longest, hardest-to-spell password I could think of: “anthropological.”

That’s so David won’t figure it out.

Across one bookshelf is a row of art supplies in cans: pencils, markers, and paint-brushes.

On the next shelf are paint bottles and stacks of paper, everything from thick watercolor paper to filmy sheets of jewel-colored tissue paper.

And lots of things I’ve collected: shells, rocks, a tiny glass elephant, a blackened old skeleton key my grandmother found in a chest but which unlocks nothing.

I kept it because I like how it feels in my hand, the heart shape of the top and the jagged teeth at the bottom, and because —

Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.

Between my desk and my bed is a long window with gauzy purple curtains that let daylight through, even when the curtains are closed, and on the windowsill is a row of tiny colored bottles I bought one day at Elliot’s Antiques: sunlit purple, green, and gold.

On the other side of my desk hangs my bulletin board, covered with drawings and little paintings: a pencil-gray castle I started but never finished, a monkey painted on an emerald tissue-paper rain forest, a colored-pencil cartoon from three years ago of my guinea pigs dancing — I still like it, even if it’s old and I can do better now.

Well, there’s something.

I pick up my pencil and write on the first cards:

Drawing.

Guinea pig.

Under my window, Nutmeg and Cinnamon purr happily, shuffling through the shavings in their cage.

Nutmeg lifts her head, and I look away quick.

Anytime they catch me watching them, my guinea pigs think I

should feed them.

Picking up the next card, I decide I shouldn’t do just “me” words.

That day with the guitar, Jason could’ve used something fiery to say.

Something juicier than “sad” or “mad.”

A string of words pop to mind, but I don’t want to get in trouble with his mother.

So I choose:

Gross!

Awesome!

Stinks a big one!!!

I’m not going to show these to Mom — especially the last one.

I don’t remember seeing exclamation points on any of Jason’s other cards, but “awesome” with a period doesn’t seem right.

And if “gross” has one exclamation point, “stinks a big one” needs at least three.

My pen hovers over the sixth card.

I could do another favorite: “raspberry sherbet” or “ice-skating” or “goldfish.”

I look past my messy closet —

Open closet doors carefully.

Sometimes things fall out.

— to the CDs, cassettes, and books lining the shelves near my bed.

But Jason already has “book” and “music,” and who knows if he even likes raspberry sherbet.

I could pick words about the clinic: “hallway” or “bookshelf” or “magazine.”

Or I could do funny words like “hoity-toity” or angry ones like “Oh, YEAH?”

or hurt words like “I didn’t mean to.”

There’s a gazillion words and phrases I could choose, and none of them seem worth one of my two last cards.

So I push the blank cards aside and draw pictures for the others.

Drawing a guinea pig is easy.

I sketch an oval, fat and compact, add black eyes, tiny rounded ears, tucked-under feet, and a mess of everywhich-way hair.

A furry baked potato.

The other words are harder.

What does “awesome” look like?

A smiley face?

A sunrise?

A double hot-fudge sundae?

My door creaks open a couple inches.

A brown eye peeks through the crack.

David never remembers to knock.

It irritates me so much I taped this rule right above my doorknob.

This is Catherine’s room.

David must knock!

“No toys in the fish tank,” he says.

I pull forward one of my two blank cards and write in big block letters an unbendable, sharp-cornered David-word:

RULE.

By the time I get to the living room, David’s already crouched in front of the fish tank, his smiling face reflected in the glass.

Out the window behind the aquarium, I see Mom in the yard talking to the mailman.

And in the fish tank, one of my old Barbie dolls sits on the gravel, her arm raised in a friendly wave, as though she’s spotted Ken across the living room and is inviting him to join her.

And don’t forget the scuba equipment, darling!

Barbie’s pink-lipstick smile beams through the water, her long hair floating around her like a tangle of white-blond kelp.

The goldfish nibble at it, and Barbie, Queen of the Fishes, waves cheerfully.

The goldfish are used to David dropping strange beings into their tank.

They always swim over to check out the newest arrival and try to eat it.

When that doesn’t work, they accept it, along with their usual plastic plants and little castle.

“Remember the rule.”

I flip open the top of the aquarium.

“No toys in the fish tank.”

David nods, but I’m not fooled.

He may not buy into the fish tank rule, but he’s got this one down pat:

If you want someone to leave you alone, agree with her.

“You can only put things in here that belong,” I explain.

“Like stuff you buy at a pet store.

That’s all that goes in the fish tank.”

David leans in for a closer view as I pull Barbie up through the water.

‘“Will power is trying hard not to do something that you really

want to do,” said Frog.’”

He glances to me, hopeful.

Mom says David’ll never learn to talk right if we keep letting him borrow words, but his face is so full of please?

I say, ‘“You mean like trying not to eat all of these cookies?”

asked Toad.’”

Water from Barbie’s hair trickles down my arm as I hold her over the fish tank, waiting for the dripping to stop.

Through the window, I notice Mom’s gone and the girl next door is in her yard with Ryan Deschaine.

He points at my house, and the girl spins around.

She waves.

I drop Barbie to wave back.

“No toys in the fish tank!” David cries.

“It’s wet!”

“It’s okay,” I say out of the corner of my smile.

“It was an accident.

I’ll get her back out.”

Ryan keeps talking, his hands moving like he’s explaining something.

I hope he isn’t saying things about me — especially not how I yelled at him when he called David a retard on the bus.

But her wave didn’t seem like a making-fun wave, it seemed more of a “hi.”

“Wet!”

Glancing to David, I see his pants wadded at his feet.

I jump in front of the window to pull the curtains closed.

“David, go find Mom.

Now!”

I have a pants rule, too.

Pantless brothers are not my problem.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VI. SOMETIMES THINGS WORK OUT, BUT DON’T COUNT ON IT

----------------------------------------------------------

On Saturday I find Mom in the kitchen pressing raw hamburger into patties.

“I was thinking we should invite the new neighbors to our barbeque,” she says.

“This could be a nice chance to introduce ourselves.”

“Great!”

I watch her hands shape another hamburger and know I’d better choose my next words carefully.

“What about David?”

“What about him?”

“Sometimes he forgets the rule about chewing with his mouth closed or he drinks from someone else’s soda.

Or —”

“They live next door, Catherine.”

Mom looks over the top of her glasses at me.

“You can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.”

I trace a line on the linoleum with my toe.

“I know but it’s hard enough to make new friends without worrying he’ll do something embarrassing.

I just want it to be nice today, a fun cookout with nothing going wrong.”

“Dad and I’ll watch him.”

That’s actually the worst possible answer.

It’s only a teeny step from both parents watching to neither watching — each thinking the other’s in charge.

“Maybe you could make a schedule?

And take turns?”

“We’ll both watch him.”

She pounds the hamburger with the palm of her left hand to flatten it.

“Why don’t you run over and invite the neighbors now, so I’ll know how much food to prepare?”

“What time should I say?”

“Tell them lunch will be at one, though they’re welcome to come early.”

She tears waxed paper from the roll and covers the layer of hamburgers.

Heading for the hallway, I remember what I came into the kitchen to ask.

“Can we go to the mall later?

I need some new colored pencils.

My crimson and indigo are only about two inches long now, and I’d love more greens.”

“Maybe you could earn them by doing extra baby-sitting?”

I grit my teeth to keep from snapping, “If David wanted them, you’d buy them.”

But there’s no point, because I already know her answer:

That’s different.

She’s right.

It is different and here’s how: Everyone expects a tiny bit from him and a huge lot from me.

In the hallway I bounce between worrying things could go wrong (what if David spills something on his shorts and takes them off in front of everyone?) and hoping things go right (the girl next door might really like me).

Before I open the front door, I close my eyes and wish: Just this once, let it be easy.

Outside, Dad is pitching a tennis ball to David on the front lawn.

“Here it comes!”

David swings too late and the ball thumps against the side of the porch.

“All done?

Let’s watch TV?”

“Like I said, you have to try ten times before you can watch TV.”

Dad picks another tennis ball from the pile on the grass at his feet.

“Catherine, tell him when to swing.”

David and I sigh together.

He lifts the plastic bat and moves his feet apart.

“Swing!”

I yell as the ball comes close.

David misses anyway.

“You need a bigger ball,” I tell Dad.

“He’d have a better chance.”

“It’d help if we had a catcher,” he replies.

“Want to play?”

I look across the fence pickets to the woman in her lawn chair, reading.

“No, thanks.

Mom said I could invite the family next door to our cookout, and she’s waiting to hear if they’re coming.”

Dad bends to grab the next ball from the pile.

“And you’ll be in charge of David.”

It’s only half the truth, but if Dad thinks he’s in charge, he won’t wait for Mom to do something.

“All right,” he says.

“Elbows up.

Get ready to swing, David.”

Walking to the fence, I notice the woman is younger than Mom, with short, brown hair and sunglasses so dark I can’t see her eyes.

Excuse me?

She sets her paperback facedown on her lap.

“Hello.”

“Hi.

I live next door.”

I cringe at how stupid I sound.

Of course I live next door!

Why else would I be talking over our fence to her?

She smiles.

“My daughter, Kristi, will be excited to meet you.

She’s with her dad this weekend, but I’ll send her over to introduce herself when she gets back.”

My heart drops.

She’s not home.

“That’d be great.

My mom was wondering —?”

David shrieks.

I turn to see the plastic bat flying through the air.

David runs in a tight circle, flailing his arms, his mouth wide in another ear-piercing howl.

As Mom dashes down the porch steps, Dad calls to her, “It’s all right!

It’s just a bee.”

I can’t see our new neighbor’s eyes behind her sunglasses, but her lips aren’t smiling.

I want to sink behind the fence and hide, but it wouldn’t do any good.

She’d still see me between the slats.

Oh, look at the time, I say, checking my watch.

Sorry, gotta go.

’Bye, the woman says.

“I’ll tell Kristi you stopped over.”

Hurrying for the house, I pass Mom sitting cross-legged on the grass with David thrashing in her arms.

David’s so big he doesn’t fit on Mom’s lap anymore, and they look twisted, an awkward tangle of elbows and knees, arms and legs.

Dad picks up the plastic bat.

“Don’t baby him,” he says to Mom.

“The bee didn’t even land on him.”

His back already to her, Dad doesn’t see Mom’s lowered eyebrows.

“He can’t help being afraid!” she snaps.

“Why can’t you comfort him?

It shouldn’t always have to be me.”

“You’re the one who ran out of the house!”

Dad shoots back.

I glance to the fence, hoping the lady next door can’t hear them.

She’s reading, her book held high to block the sun.

“Shh,” Mom soothes David.

“It’s all right.

A bee won’t hurt you unless you bother him.”

I want to yell at her, “It’s not that easy!”

David can’t even figure out what’ll bother me.

I kick a tennis ball out of my way and watch it skitter across the grass and bounce against the steps.

Dad bends to pick up the tennis ball.

As I run up the porch steps, he asks wearily, “Did you invite our new neighbors?”

“They’re busy,” I lie, closing the front door behind me.