Ask Anybody (13 page)

We waited a long time. We saw a man drive up in a truck, get out and try the front door. Then he went around back. He must've gone inside. After a while he came out, looked up at the house and shook his fist at it. He drove down the road and stopped at our house. My father went to the door. It was Mr. Johnson, the man who owned the house. He was looking for the Fosters, he told us. They were behind in their rent and he'd come to collect. We said we didn't know where they were.

Rowena's mother came up the road at a gallop. Rowena said, “I better go see what she wants.” She went out, trembling. We watched Rowena's mother wave her arms about, then turn and stomp off.

“Maybe they got in an auto accident,” Betty said. “Maybe they're all in the hospital.”

We waited a little longer. Nobody came to the house except people looking for the yard sale. I thought of the twenty-five dollars and ten cents Nell had with her in the cigar box. I thought of Nell's brothers hurtling through the State of Maine in Uncle Joe's pickup, maybe throwing up all over the back seat right at this minute. I tried to imagine Nell's mother belting out one of Dolly Parton's songs in a lighthearted fashion, sitting beside Uncle Joe, wearing Rowena's mother's fur coat to keep her warm.

I thought of the old dog.

When I couldn't sit still another minute, I told Betty and Rowena I was going for a walk in the woods.

“What for?” they asked me. “You think they're hiding out there?” Rowena's mother had gone home, threatening to call the police. She was in a state. She was going to sue somebody, she said. I don't know who.

“They're far away by now,” I said. “I just want to take a walk.” They said they'd wait a little longer, in case we were wrong and Nell and the rest of them came back, after all.

The pine needles covered the woods floor in a thick layer. They were slippery and smelled wonderful. When I was little, I had a pillow filled with pine needles that I used to sleep on until some of them worked their way through the covering and poked me in the face. I still have that pillow somewhere. I walked way back into the woods until I found the little wooden cross we'd been told by old timers marked the graves of three Indians buried there. Some said the cross was nothing but the marker for the grave of an old tabby cat, but I didn't believe that. A crow cawed somewhere above me, and another crow answered. Patches of leftover snow lay tucked back in the deepest part of the wood, and the small brook we used to fish in was running high. Maybe me and the boys would fish there this spring when the smelts were running. We never caught anything, but it was always fun trying. The ground was spongy soft in places. Not soft enough to bury a dog in but almost.

I kept my eyes open. There were no traces of the old dog. It was as if he'd never been.

I never saw Nell again. As my father had guessed, they'd skipped town owing money, not only to Mr. Johnson but to lots of other people. They'd taken Rowena's mother's fur coat, the cigar box with our profits from the yard sale. The works.

It was as if Nell had never been, either. I kept thinking she might send me a postcard from wherever it was they'd gone to from here. But I never heard from her. After a while a new family moved into the house. They had two little boys just the right ages for Tad and Sidney. I dream about Nell now and then. She flashes her green fingernails and whispers about making their tongues tingle. I refuse to be sorry for her. I absolutely refuse.

I told my mother about her. About how she said her hair was naturally curly, about her brothers and how they'd been in practically every state in the union, except for some of the M's and Alaska and Hawaii. About Uncle Joe and her other uncle with the spread out West and fifty horses. Maybe that's where they were headed right at this minute. About her father who'd flown the coop. And how she didn't want me to show her where the principal's office was on her first day of school. About her not wearing any underpants if she didn't feel like it.

“She sounds like somebody you'll always remember, that's for sure,” my mother said.

She's right. I will.

You have to know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, my father says. You have to learn to pick and choose. Life is full of decisions and surprises. And disappointments.

I'm sadder and wiser than I was before Nell moved up the road from us. I'm also not as mean as I once was.

Ask anybody.

I said to Rowena, “Have you noticed I'm not as mean as I once was?” All she said was, “That's what you think.”

What does she know.

About the Author

Constance C. Greene is the author of over twenty highly successful young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book
A Girl Called Al, Al(exandra) the Great, Getting Nowhere
, and
Beat the Turtle Drum,
which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Award–winning after-school special
Very Good Friends
. Greene lives in Milford, Connecticut.

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All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1983 by Constance C. Greene

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0093-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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EBOOKS BY CONSTANCE C. GREENE

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