SummerHill Secrets, Volume 1 (2 page)

Back inside my bedroom, I put Abednego down and locked the door. Lissa sat on my bed while I turned on the lamp. “I’ll get something for your lip,” I said, hurrying to the bathroom adjoining my room.

Lissa was pulling off her jacket and scarf when I returned with damp tissues. Her tennies were stiff from the cold.

“Here, this’ll help.” I gave her the wet tissues. “Careful. Don’t press too hard.”

She nodded as if to thank me, holding the crumpled wad on her bottom lip. Tentatively, she glanced around the room, taking note of the wall nearest her. It was covered with framed photography—some of my very best. Lissa was shaking, so I turned up the controls on the electric blanket.

“You’ll warm up fast in here,” I said, pulling back the blanket and the blue hand-quilted comforter, the latter a gift from my Amish neighbors down the lane.

Lissa crawled into bed, jeans and all.

I searched in the closet for my sleeping bag and rolled it out on the floor next to the bed. “If we’re quiet, Skip’ll never know you’re here.”

Lissa looked at me sadly through the slits in her puffy eyelids. She dabbed her lip gently.

I sat on top of my sleeping bag, worried for my friend. “You’re really hurt, aren’t you?”

She squeaked, “Uh-huh,” in an uncontrollable voice. Tears filled her eyes.

“What happened tonight?”

Her shoulders heaved under the blankets as she buried her head in my pillow. The wad of wet tissues rolled out of her hand and onto the floor.

“Talk to me, Liss,” I said, kneeling up, stroking her back. I hoped her answer wasn’t something truly horrible.

Minutes passed. Except for an occasional sob, the room was silent. At last, she looked at me with tearful blue eyes. “My dad got mad.”

A lump caught in my throat just as Abednego jumped onto the bed. I moved the cat trio one by one on top of the little lumps made by Lissa’s feet.

She eased back against the pillow. “I freak out, Merry. I freak when my dad’s drunk.” She wiped the tears. “I can’t go home anymore.”

Pulling the covers up around her chin, I tucked her in like she was a helpless little child. “Don’t worry, Lissa, I’ll think of something.

Maybe we can talk to the school counselor tomorrow.”

“I can’t go to school,” she blurted. “People will be looking for me.”

“Which people?” I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Maybe the cops,” she whispered. “I’m a runaway, aren’t I?” She watched the kittens congregate at her feet.

“What about your mom? She’ll be worried.”

“I told her I’d leave someday.” Lissa stopped.

“What about the history test? You can’t skip out on
that
. Mr. Wilson’s make-up tests are hideous.” I was groping at thin air. Anything to talk sense into her.

She sighed. “I need your help, Merry.”

“What can I do?” I whispered.

“Keep me safe.” She touched me. “Please?”

I looked down at her hand on my arm. “Don’t you have any relatives in Lancaster?” It was a long shot.

She shook her head.

I pulled my left earring out, glanced at it, and put it right back in. “What about your grandma?” I asked.

“She lives in Philadelphia now,” Lissa said.

I pushed my hair back, taking a deep breath. Lissa was asking a lot, especially with my parents gone. I started to speak, to set her straight about what I should and shouldn’t do, but tears began to flow unchecked down her cheeks.

“Okay, Liss,” I said, “but only for tonight.” I clicked off the blue-and-white striped lamp on the table beside the bed, hoping I was doing the right thing.

In the darkness, my friend pleaded, “Promise to keep my secret?”

I shuddered at what it meant. If Mom and Dad were back from their mission trip, they’d know exactly what to do. I pushed my fingers through the length of my hair and crawled into my sleeping bag. A moonbeam played hide-and-seek as a cloud drifted by.

Lissa reached her hand out to me. “Merry…please?”

A feeling of determination flooded me as I took her cold hand in both of mine. “Don’t worry. You can count on me.”

I stared at a small photo on the far wall. Small but distinct, the picture was a close-up of a gravestone covered with yellow daisies. The gravestone reminded me of another place, another time. A time when I could’ve helped but didn’t.

I hardly slept the rest of the night. I’d given my word to hide Lissa and keep her secret. A secret bigger than us both.

I awakened the next morning to pounding. “Get up, Merry! You’re going to be late!” Skip hollered through the door. “Don’t you know people die in bed?”

I groaned, then bolted upright, glancing up from my sleeping bag. Lissa was still asleep. Thank goodness for locked bedroom doors!

“Last call, cat breath,” my big brother called. “Or you’re history!”

History—Mr. Wilson’s test! I dragged my limp legs from the sleeping bag as the events of last night came rushing back. I hurried into the bathroom adjoining my room and turned on the shower. Reaching for a clean washcloth and a bar of soap, I lathered up, remembering the first day I’d met Lissa Vyner.

It was eighth grade. Last year. I’d taken first place in the photography contest at Mifflin Junior High School. Felt pretty smug about it, too. It was a high that set me sailing into second semester. That’s when the new girl showed up in my class—a pretty girl—with hair the color of wheat at harvest. As for her broken arm, she’d blamed it on being accident prone.

Lissa was also quite forgetful when it came to necessary things, which I discovered after our first P.E. class together. The teacher had insisted on everyone hitting the showers, sweaty or not. But Lissa had forgotten her soap. And a hairbrush!

The next day, I came to her rescue again. This time it was a matter of life and death. She’d misplaced her red pen, and red pens were essential equipment in Miss Cassavant’s math class.
“If you aren’t prepared to grade your classmate’s homework, you aren’t prepared for life,”
the flamboyant Miss Cassavant would say.

Soon Lissa and I became good friends. Occasionally, she confided in me about her family. She felt lonely at home and hated being the only child. Lissa hated something else, too. The way her dad drank. The way it changed him. Now all of it made sense: her frequent black eyes, her broken arm…

A knock on the bathroom door startled me. “Thought you’d left,” Lissa whispered as she crept in.

I peeked around the steamed-up shower door. “Sleep okay?”

“I think so,” she said. “Mind if I use your brush?” She leaned close to the mirror, untying her yellow hair ribbon before brushing her wavy, shoulder-length hair. “It feels good being here, Mer. It’s as if I have a real sister.”

Grabbing my towel, I sighed and wrapped it around me. I didn’t want to think about sisters. Real or not. “I’ve come up with a solution,” I said, changing the subject.

Lissa kept brushing her hair.

“First of all, help yourself to anything you’d like to wear in my closet while I get something for us to eat. And…could you just hang out in my room today?”

Lissa nodded, holding my brush in midair.

“Now, be sure to keep the bedroom door locked just in case,” I continued, reaching for my bathrobe. “We’ll talk more after school, okay?” It was the best I could do on such short notice—a rather boring scheme, not the creative kind I was known for—but at least she’d be well hidden.

“What about your brother?” she asked.

I wrapped my hair in a towel. “Don’t worry. Skip has intramurals on Tuesdays, so we’re set.”

Lissa wandered out of the bathroom over to my white corner bookcase and reached for a poetry book.

“Help yourself,” I said, spying the book she held. “That one’s pure genius.”

“I thought only bleeding hearts read poetry.”

“
I
read it,” I said. “And I’m far less anguished than you think.” A few strands of hair escaped, tickling my shoulders with water drops. I pushed them into the towel and investigated my wardrobe.

“Remember, don’t tell anyone at school where I am, or I’m doomed!” There was desperation in Lissa’s voice.

“Count on it,” I said, choosing my favorite sweater, a delicious coral color. It made my chestnut brown hair and eyes look even darker. Aunt Teri had knit it for my fifteenth birthday, September 22—almost two months ago. Confidence exuded from the sweater. Some clothes were like that. Maybe it was because Aunt Teri, creative and lovely, was so confident herself, despite being completely deaf. Anyway, I needed this sweater today for more than one reason.

Lissa sat on my bed, paging through the poetry book. Just then Abednego raised his sleepy head and made a beeline for my friend. “Hey,” she said, giggling, “look at you, big guy.” She patted his head.

“He’s super picky about his friends.” I watched in amazement as Abednego let her hold him.

“I know just what you need,” she said, carrying him into the bathroom. When they came out, Abednego was wearing Lissa’s yellow hair ribbon around his chubby neck.

“You look very handsome,” Lissa cooed into his ear. Then she put him down, headed back into the bathroom, and closed the door.

“Boy cats don’t wear hair ribbons,” I muttered, quite puzzled at Abednego’s obvious interest in Lissa.

The phone rang and I hurried down the hallway to Skip’s room.

“How’s every little thing today?” came the scratchy voice as I answered the phone. The voice belonged to Miss Spindler, our neighbor around the corner. Mom had asked her to check on us while she and Dad were gone. And check up, she did. In fact, the last few days she’d been calling nonstop, even showing up nearly every evening with some rich, exotic dessert.

“We’re fine, thanks,” I reassured her.

“Anything you need?” came the next question.

I thought of Lissa. I’d be crazy to let Miss Spindler in on our secret. “I think we’re set here, but thanks,” I said, discouraging her from coming over today.

“Well, just give a holler if you think of anything you need.”

“Okay, I will…if we need anything.” I hung up the phone, heading back to the bedroom. “I need my hair dryer, Lissa,” I called through a crack in the bathroom door.

No answer. I paused, waiting for her reply.

“Lissa, you okay?” I knocked and waited a moment, then lightly touched the door. Slowly, it opened to reveal ugly welts and bruises on Lissa’s right thigh. I cringed in horror.

Startled, she tried to cover up her leg.

“I-I’m sorry,” I said.

Silence hung between us, and then she started to cry. Deep, heart-wrenching sobs.

I ached for Lissa. “How did this happen?” I asked, squelching my shock.

“You’ll never believe it.” She kept her head down.

“Try me, Liss.”

“I fell down the steps.”

Anger swelled inside me. Not toward her, but toward whoever had done this. “Now, how about the truth,” I whispered.

Wincing, she stood up. “It’s a long, long story.”

“I should call our family doctor.” I leaned on the doorknob, hurting for my friend.

“Right, and I’ll end up in some lousy foster home. No thanks, I’ve already been
that
route.”

The impact of her words sent my mind reeling. “A foster home?”

“Two years ago.” She said it through clenched teeth.

“What happened?”

“What do you think?” She sighed. “Now things are even worse with my dad at the police department. He’s got every one of those cops fooled.”

I didn’t know what to say. Lissa’s father was a policeman, too, so he was supposed to be one of the good guys.

Lissa’s words interrupted my thoughts. “If caseworkers get involved,” she added, “they’ll eventually send me back home, and he’ll beat me up again.”

My throat turned to cotton.

“I hate my dad.” Tears spilled down her cheek. “And Mom, too, for not making it stop.”

I wanted to wave a wand and make things better for my friend. “I’m so sorry,” I said, determined more than ever to take care of her.

Abruptly, Lissa stood up, reaching for the shower door. “He’ll never hit me again.” By the cold stiffness in her voice, I knew the conversation was over.

Frustrated and terribly worried, I mentioned breakfast. Lissa needed something nourishing, but I had only enough time to grab some juice and sticky buns.

While in the kitchen, I filled the cats’ dishes with their favorite tuna food. They crowded around, nosing their way into the breakfast delight.

I washed my hands before putting three sticky buns—two for Lissa, one for me—and two glasses of orange juice on a tray. Then I headed up the back stairs.

Lissa was sitting on the bed admiring my wall gallery when I came into the room. “When did you start taking pictures?” She studied a tall picture of a willow tree in the springtime.

I set the tray down on the bed. “I won a cheap camera for selling the most Girl Scout cookies in first grade,” I explained. “Taking pictures started out as a hobby, but somehow it’s become an obsession.”

“Your shots are great,” she said, reaching for a glass of juice.

I gathered up my books and found my digital camera, one of three cameras in my collection, lying on the desk near the window.

“Taking more pictures today?” she asked.

“I like to have a camera handy at all times. You never know when a picture might present itself.”

A pensive smile crossed Lissa’s face.

“Let’s pray before I catch the bus,” I suggested.

Lissa seemed surprised. “Why?”

“Because I care about you. And God does, too.”

She smiled weakly, then nodded her consent.

After the prayer, Lissa wiped her eyes. “That was sweet, Merry. My grandmother talks to God, too. I wish I could be more like her…and you.”

“I don’t always do the right thing.”
After all, how smart is harboring a runaway?
“Don’t forget to lock this door when I leave.” I grabbed the sticky bun and bit into the sugary bread. Then I washed it down with a long drink of orange juice. My mother would worry if she knew I hadn’t had a full breakfast today. Oh well, what was one day?

I glanced in the mirror again. “Maybe we should call your grandmother after school. Someone in your family ought to know you’re safe.”