Notes from a Liar and Her Dog Page 8

  Love,

  Ant and Pistachio

  11

  THE POSTCARD

  It’s Wednesday evening and I’m on the phone talking to Harrison.

  “You have to ask your mom if you can come over. You have to. We’ve got stuff to do,” Harrison says.

  Elizabeth picks up the downstairs extension. “Come on, you kids,” she says. “Get off! I’ve got an important call to make.”

  “I still don’t see what we need to do at your house,” I say, ignoring Elizabeth. I am used to her butting in this way.

  “We got to plan our apology,” Harrison explains.

  “What’s there to plan? I just say I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Sorry? Sorry for what?” Elizabeth asks.

  I put my hand over the receiver and scream down at Elizabeth, “GET OFF! IT’S NOT YOUR TURN!”

  “No, Antonia! I need to make an important call right now,” Elizabeth says into the phone.

  “Hold on,” I tell Harrison. I put the receiver down and run downstairs.

  “GET OFF!” I scream at Elizabeth.

  “You can talk to Harrison any old time. I have to call someone important. It’s like 911,” Elizabeth says.

  “911?”

  “Like 911, I said,” Elizabeth says.

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Fine, you wait, then,” I tell her.

  “You know, Antonia, I heard Pistachio just a minute ago. He was coughing. It didn’t sound good. If I were you, I’d go check on him. Maybe he…you know.” She sticks her tongue out and hangs her head, like she is cartoon dead.

  “You’ve been in the kitchen. You couldn’t have heard anything.”

  “Before I was downstairs I was upstairs,” Elizabeth says.

  “Oh, right,” I say. I know this is another ploy and I hate Elizabeth for it. But it gets me just the same. Once I start worrying about Pistachio, I can’t stay on the phone. I don’t know why we don’t get a cordless phone, then I could talk in my own room with Pistachio curled up next to me. Everyone in the world has a cordless phone except us.

  I grab the receiver from Elizabeth. “I’ll call you back, Harrison,” I say.

  My mother comes in the kitchen just as I’m running out to check on Pistachio.

  “What’s all this racket about?” my mother asks.

  “Antonia is being a phone hog. Like always,” Elizabeth says.

  “Hang up the phone up there, Antonia!” my mother yells after me. “And then come down here, I want to talk to you!” I’m at the top of the stairs now. Elizabeth is right behind me.

  I look in on Pistachio. He jumps up and wags his stubby tail when he sees me and practically leaps into my arms. I take him back into the hall. Of course, Elizabeth has the phone pulled inside her room now. The cord is stretched tight. It isn’t long enough to get to my room, only her room. But she can’t get the door shut over the curly part, so I can still hear. I stop to find out who she is calling that is like 911.

  “I’d like to speak with Don MacPherson, please,” she says in her most sophisticated voice.

  Dad? She’s calling DAD. Oh, this will be good. I lean into the door and listen as hard as I can.

  “He isn’t. I see. And when do you expect him back?”

  I marvel at the way she says this. Everything about it sounds so grown-up. Even the tone is smooth, as if she’s said this a million times before.

  “Okay. Good. No, no message. Thank you,” Elizabeth says. Her voice sounds relieved.

  How weird. I’m about to go in and ask her what in the heck she’s doing calling Dad, when my mom calls up the stairs. “Antonia, didn’t I ask you to come down?”

  I shrug. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” I walk downstairs, holding Pistachio against my belly.

  “You know, Antonia, you really must learn to share,” my mother says.

  I think about telling her the truth, but it won’t do any good. I follow her into the kitchen, where she sits on a stool. There’s a catalog in front of her and a stack of mail on the counter. Uh-oh. What’s this about? Is there a bill from the vet here? Did they track me down from Pistachio’s license number? No, I decide. If there was a bill, my mother would be so angry, she would have stormed upstairs to get me. This is something different.

  I pull out a white wooden chair and plunk myself down. My mother gives me the evil eye and shakes her head. “Antonia,” she says, “must you sit down as if your legs have been pulled out from under you?”

  I shrug, hoping this isn’t going to be one of her you-must-be-more-ladylike lectures. I hate all that ladylike stuff. I’m not a tomboy. I just don’t see why being a girl should mean I have to follow a bunch of stupid rules about how I sit, who opens the door, and how often I do the dishes.

  “I don’t understand you,” my mother says. This is the way she often starts her talks with me. She’s not as angry as usual, though. And she has paused after saying this, as if she actually wants a response this time. I look around the kitchen. Everything is neat. It’s always this way. Even when my mother is cooking a big meal, she still manages to keep the place clean. Not Mr. Emerson. When Mr. Emerson cooks, his kitchen looks as if somebody has turned the room upside down and everything has spilled out.

  “I got this notice from your school a few days ago.” She’s holding a small yellow postcard in her hand. “It says because you are doing so well in math, you’ve been invited to attend the District 2 Math-a-thon.”

  I smile when I see this. I can’t help myself. We had a math test a couple of weeks ago and the six highest scorers got picked for this. I can’t believe one of them is me. I am so pleased it is practically busting out of me.

  “I was sure they’d made a mistake, because the last report card I got said you got a D in math, so I called up your teacher, Mr. Lewis, and he told me he gave you an A in math.” My mother puts the card down and takes a sip of coffee. Then she looks at me, as if I am a puzzle and she is trying to figure me out.

  I look down at the tabletop. I trace the lines with my finger. I am busy marveling at myself. Apparently I scored higher than practically everyone else!

  “Actually,” my mother says, “Mr. Lewis said if there was anything higher than an A you would have gotten that. He said he thought you were testing at a tenth- or eleventh-grade level in math.”

  She waits a minute for this to sink in. She is watching me and I am watching the sugar canister. I trace the letters S-U-G-A-R with my eyes.

  “You can imagine how embarrassing this was,” she starts in again. Her brown eyes are watching me. “How very stupid it made me look that here I think my child is flunking when she’s at the top of her class. But then I’ve come to expect these little surprises from you. And once I got over feeling angry, I began to wonder why on God’s green earth you would do this. Why you’d want me to think you were doing poorly when you were really doing well. You know, Antonia, I have no idea why you do these things. I really don’t understand the first thing about you.”

  I wonder if I should nod my head. She is right, but will it make her angry if I agree with her? Usually the more I say, the longer my mother grounds me for.

  “Why did you do this?” she asks.

  I shrug, like what’s the big deal.

  She takes a deep breath and seems to try to relax. “Why do you lie when it would be easier to tell the truth?”

  “Easier for who?”

  My mother groans and shakes her head. She puts her hand on her forehead as if she has a headache. “Easier for everyone. If you told the truth …,” my mother starts. “Oh, Antonia, I am so tired of having these discussions with you. …”

  I shrug again. “Whatever,” I say. I don’t look at her when I say this, though. I’m suddenly so disappointed, I can’t bear to look her in the eye. There is nothing I can do to please my mother. Nothing.

  Later, when she’s gone, I go down and get the postcard. I want it for my real parents’ book. T
his is the first time I’ve been asked to be in a Math-a-thon. My real parents will be pretty excited about this. They’ll realize that only six students in my whole grade got invited. They’ll figure this out right away!

  12

  ELIZABETH’S DRESS REHEARSAL

  When I wake up Sunday morning, I go downstairs to take Pistachio out.

  My mom is in her turquoise terry cloth bathrobe. She is getting a can of OJ concentrate out of the freezer. She looks fuzzy, like she’s not quite awake. When my dad is home he bounces out of bed, ready to do battle. My mother must ease herself into the day, the way a very old lady pulls herself to a standing position.

  Usually, I try not to talk to her about important stuff until later in the day, but this can’t wait. Last night Harrison called to say I had to come over to his house first thing this morning so we can plan how to convince Just Carol to take us back to the zoo. He said we had to act fast, because Kigali needed him and she can’t wait. “What if she decides she won’t eat for anyone else?” he asked. I told him he should go to the zoo without me. But he said: “Forget it, Ant. Just forget it.”

  “Good morning, Mom,” I say.

  She squints at me, as if anyone who says this is suspect. “Antonia?” she asks. She dumps the concentrate out of the can and turns on the tap. Her actions are jerky and automatic, as if she is being operated by a remote control.

  “I need to go to Harrison’s house,” I explain. She is stirring with a long wooden spoon.

  “Antonia?” she interrupts me. “Not so loud, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whisper. “I need to go over to Harrison’s house on account of it’s important for school.”

  She squints again. Mrs. MacPherson hasn’t put her contacts in yet and I don’t think she sees very well without them. She pats at her bathrobe pocket to see if her glasses are in there. They are. She puts them on.

  “For school?” She looks at me funny, like she doesn’t believe me.

  “Kind of only because a teacher is mad at us and we have to figure out how to get her un-mad.” I hadn’t planned on telling her the truth here. I surprise myself sometimes.

  “Oh,” she says. She nods like she believes me. People being mad at me makes a lot of sense to her. “Fine,” she says.

  “Fine? Aren’t you going to ask why?”

  “Don’t press your luck, Antonia, I said fine. And no, I don’t want to know why you’re in trouble again. When you come home, take your shoes off outside and go straight into the bathroom and take a shower. I won’t have my house smelling like chickens and God knows what else. And be careful what you eat there. In fact, maybe you shouldn’t eat anything at all. And wash your hands …”

  But I don’t hear the rest because I’m running upstairs to call Harrison. “Harrison?” I say when I hear his voice on the phone. “She said I could.”

  “YES!” Harrison yells so loud, I have to pull the receiver away from my ear.

  “I’ll be over in an hour,” I say when he calms down.

  “No. Now. I’ll get my dad to pick you up.”

  Apparently, Harrison has a plan. This is the only time he gets bossy. I get Pistachio and put him in his favorite coat pocket. Not to hide this time, just because he likes it there.

  “I thought you were going to Harrison’s,” my mother says when I go back downstairs.

  “I am. His dad’s going to pick me up.”

  Kate comes in the kitchen. She’s carrying her notebook. She sees I have my jacket on and Pistachio is in my pocket. “Where are you going?” she asks. Her pencil is poised waiting to record what I say.

  “To Harrison’s house,” I say.

  “Does Mom know?” she asks.

  “Yes, Mom knows,” Mrs. MacPherson says.

  Kate nods. Her curls flop around her face. It doesn’t look as if she’s brushed her hair yet this morning.

  “Oh, and by the way, what time is your Math-a-thon week after next?” my mom asks. “I wrote down the twenty-eighth, but I didn’t write down the time. I thought I had that postcard here, but it seems to have disappeared. Did you see it, Antonia?”

  I tear at my thumbnail. Not saying anything isn’t lying, it’s just not saying anything.

  “Good morning.” Your Highness pushes through the kitchen door. She’s wearing pink tights and a pink sweater and her hair is neatly combed in a ballerina bun. Elizabeth is great at making appearances. When she walks into a room, it always seems as if she’s expecting to be handed a bouquet of flowers.

  “Good morning,” my mother says. “The reason I am asking is Elizabeth has a dress rehearsal on the twenty-eighth, too.”

  I look down at the chipped Formica counter. My finger traces the uneven shape that has chipped off, revealing the wood underneath. I breathe short, like my lungs are rolled up inside me.

  “Antonia?” my mother asks.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” I say, shoving my finger against the grain of the wood, hoping for a splinter.

  “That’s when my dress rehearsal is, Mom, and you have to go to that! You promised you would. Angela Beaumont’s mom is going. Angela Beaumont’s mom goes to everything!” Elizabeth says to my mom.

  “Well, maybe I could go for part,” my mother suggests. “Or maybe if Dad’s home he can go to one and I can go to the other.”

  “Both of Angela Beaumont’s parents go for the entire time,” Elizabeth says.

  My mom looks at Elizabeth. She looks at me. She bites her lip. “Well, I did commit to that first, Antonia,” my mother says. “I’m supposed to bring the lemonade.”

  The old pain rises in my chest. I try to shove it back down. So what if she would rather see Elizabeth’s four hundredth dress rehearsal than my first Math-a-thon? So what? She isn’t my real mother, anyway. It doesn’t matter. “Don’t worry. You’re not invited to the Math-a-thon, Mom,” I say, my voice calm, even, unemotional.

  Frown lines cut across my mom’s forehead. “But I thought that postcard said …”

  I shake my head. “They decided there isn’t enough room for the parents. They were going to hold it in the gym, but then they couldn’t get the gym. And there isn’t enough space in the library for a big audience. But they didn’t know this when the postcard went out. They told us to tell our parents.” I make my face all sincere and I look straight into my mom’s eyes. Please don’t believe me, a voice deep inside me begs. Please come. I want you to come. But I stuff the voice down.

  “Oh.” She shrugs. “Well, I guess that solves my problem, doesn’t it?” Her face lights up. She smiles her wide-toothed smile.

  I feel as if somebody has taken pliers to my insides.

  The fake-music doorbell chimes. It sounds like somebody died.

  “Who is that?” my mother asks.

  Kate races to the door and presses her nose against the Coke-bottle-glass window that runs alongside the door. “It’s Harrison’s dad,” she reports.

  “Well, I guess you’re going, then,” my mother says to me. “But I look like a train wreck, so don’t you dare ask him in.”

  “Okay,” I say, and I’m out the door, whisking Mr. Emerson back down the front path. I want out of there. I don’t want to give my mom the chance to change her mind. It was only last month she said I was not allowed to set foot in the Emersons’ house “until hell freezes over,” and now here I am planning to spend the day there with her complete permission. I should be happy about this, but I’m not.

  13

  THE EMERSONS

  The Emersons have a funny house. On the outside it looks like a farmhouse and a big old barn, only there isn’t any cropland. Just a yard with a palm tree. On the inside, it’s filled with carpet pieces from Harrison’s Aunt Sue’s carpet store. There isn’t much in the way of furniture, though, unless you count the beanbag chairs. They are everywhere. At the Emersons they either don’t have something or they have it in quantity, like there’s never any scissors, but Harrison and I counted eleven vegetable peelers one day.

  Still, I like t
he Emerson house. For one thing, it’s one of the only places in Sarah’s Road that is far enough from Sarah’s Road so you don’t hear the road noises. But the best thing is Mr. Emerson doesn’t mind if you make a mess. In fact, he acts like you couldn’t possibly be having fun unless you have a chicken living in your kitchen and three or four projects going on in the living room. Whenever I start cleaning up, Mr. Emerson says, “Leave it, Ant. You and Harrison might want to get back to that tomorrow.”

  At my house the only place you’re allowed to make a mess is the backyard, and even then my mom will kill you if you don’t clean up the second you’re done. Harrison’s house is a much better place to do projects, which is clearly what Harrison has in mind today.

  “Okay, here’s what we need to do …,” Harrison says when we are sitting cross-legged on his brown corduroy bedspread. “We’ve got to write her a note saying we’re sorry—”

  “I’m not sorry, though.”

  “Yes, you are.” He gets Pistachio, who has made a spot for himself between us.

  “I am?”

  He nods so hard, I can hear his hair move.

  I sigh. He’s right. I am sorry. I didn’t want to mess up Zoo Teens, that’s for sure. It was so much fun taking care of the animals with Just Carol. But now everything is all screwed up. There seems no point in trying so hard about this. “She’s never going to let me come back to the zoo, Harrison.”

  “Yes, she is. All you have to do is promise never to bring Tashi again. You can leave him over here if you’re worried about his pills. My dad will give them to him.” He touches Tashi lightly, the way you touch the frosting on a cake when you don’t want to leave a mark. Pistachio licks Harrison’s bitten-up fingernails.

  “You need to eat corn, Ant.”

  “What?”

  “You know, say you were wrong and you made a mistake.”

  “Oh. Crow. Eat crow, not corn.”

  Harrison crinkles up his nose. “Whatever.” He scratches at his chest. “We’ll make a card. A very big card and…we need food.”

  “Food?”

  He nods. “If you want to change somebody’s mind, you got to bake them stuff. Pie, I think. And I’m going to draw the card. It’s going to be this big.” He puts his arms as wide as they will go. “You’re going to write the inside. This will take care of everything.”