SummerHill Secrets, Volume 2 (30 page)

At lunch, Chelsea showed up with Lissa. I was already getting seated at a table with Ashley.

“Well, here we are, together again,” Chelsea said, salting her fries. “Has anyone seen the wizard today?”

“Not me,” Ashley said.

“Not
I
,” I echoed, correcting her English.

Ashley grimaced. “Where do you think he’s hiding?”

I shrugged. “Jon never misses school—doesn’t seem to catch colds much.”

“True,” Lissa said. “Wish I knew his health secret.”

I laughed. “I think
I
know. He scares the germs away. As simple as that.”

Ashley gasped. “You can’t mean that, Mer. Jon’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Of course she didn’t mean he was homely. Everybody knows Jon’s cute,” Lissa said. “
Very
cute.”

“Ah, gotcha! Somebody’s got a crush on the Wizard,” I said. But my heart sank.

The four of us leaned on our elbows into the table, whispering comments about some of the other guys in our class. And that’s the way we spent our time—eating and sharing girl talk.

When the first bell rang, Chelsea groaned. “Aw, we didn’t practice our you-know-what.”

“Oh well,” said Ashley. “If Jon’s out sick with the flu or whatever, he’s lost a whole day of alliterating, too.”

“What do you mean,
too
?” I reached for a napkin. “We haven’t lost any time. Let’s practice on other students—locker partners, teachers—you get the picture.”

“Oh! Wait a minute,” Chelsea blurted. “You just said something that reminded me of where Jon might be.”

I frowned, thinking back. “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘Get the picture’…and I
do
know where the Alliteration Wizard is.” She went on to explain that the basketball all-stars were having group shots made for the school yearbook. “Betcha Jon’s taking pictures right now!”

“Let’s check it out,” I said. My girl friends picked up their trays and followed me right up to the cafeteria window to deposit our empty trays and trash, then down the hall to the gymnasium. I felt like the Pied Piper of James Buchanan High.

“Sure enough,” I said as we peered through the door to the gymnasium.

“There’s our man,” Ashley sighed, her hair falling down over her shoulder.

I didn’t exactly know what to think of her comment. But I realized anew that my commitment to teach these girls how to speak alliteration-eze was actually spilling over into my formerly private territory.

“Why are we spying?” I said at last, stepping back from the door.

“That’s what I wanna know,” Ashley spoke up. “We oughta be working on our secret language.”

The final bell rang.

“Yee-ikes! We have three minutes to get to class!”

It must’ve looked mighty strange, four girls scrambling off in opposite directions. But we did exactly that, and I didn’t see Jon in any of the usual spots—not even at his locker—for the rest of the day.

I did encounter Rachel Zook, however. She’d kept her promise and was waiting on my front porch, all bundled up in her Plain attire.

“Goodness, girl, what’re you doing sitting out here in the cold?” I said, running up the steps.

“Waiting for my English cousin.”

“C’mon.” I grinned at her, and the two of us headed inside, arm in arm.

For once in a blue moon, Mom wasn’t waiting with hot cocoa, freshly baked cookies, and a big smile as we entered the house. But my cat quartet was snug at home, and they came bounding down the main hall toward Rachel and me.

“Well, look at all of you,” I said, bending down to pet each one.

Rachel put up with my fussing over the cats, though she seemed antsy to get on with what she wanted to discuss.

“Want something hot? A snack, maybe?” I asked.

“Hot chocolate’s nice.” She followed me down the hallway to the kitchen. There on the counter, I discovered a scribbled note.

Merry—

I mixed up some cocoa for you to warm…there’s a new batch of cookies in the pantry.

You mustn’t worry when you read this. Daddy wasn’t feeling too well this morning, so I’m heading to town to be with him.

Love you, honey,
Mom

I almost laughed—sarcastically, that is. “Don’t worry, she says.” How was
that
possible?

“What’sa matter?” Rachel asked.

Her voice startled me. “Uh…I…my dad got sick, I guess,” I told her.

“How sick?”

Suddenly, I was no longer interested in heating a chocolate drink for either Rachel or myself. “Excuse me for a second,” I said, heading to my father’s study down the hall.

“I could come back another time,” Rachel was calling to me from the kitchen.

“Just wait. I want to call the hospital.” I hurried into the study and picked up the phone.

Something’s weird about this
, I thought as I punched the numbers. When the hospital information person came on the line, I asked if Doctor Hanson had been admitted.

“Yes, he’s in room 127. One moment, please.” I thought she’d never connect me.

“Hello?” my mother answered, and I was truly relieved to hear her voice.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

She sighed. “Oh, honey, it’s been a frightening day, but Daddy’s going to be all right.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“I don’t want you to worry about this, Merry,” she said. “Your father’s ulcer flared up again, but he’s going to be fine.”

“He’d
better
be,” I mumbled, tears welling up. “Can I see him?”

“Not tonight, but soon. He’s going to spend the night here…they’ll be doing additional testing first thing in the morning.” She sounded tired, and I knew I was pushing my luck to keep asking questions.

“Tell Daddy I love him,” I said. “And you, too.”

“I’ll be home later, after supper sometime,” she said. “There’s plenty of food in the fridge. You won’t starve.”

“No problem, Mom, I’ll warm up something. Count on me.”

“Thanks, Merry. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up, strangely aware of steam whistling lightly in the radiator under the window next to me.

Pulling the curtain back, I looked out. The sky was trying to show its icy-blue face, but low clouds kept interfering, skimming across like white, wooly lambs chasing each other in the springtime.

“Oh, Lord Jesus, help my dad,” I whispered to the heavenlies. “Please…”

Quickly, I headed back to the kitchen and filled Rachel in as I set about getting something to soothe us.

She played with the strings that hung down from her
Kapp
, staring at the table. “Ya know, I think about things like this, Cousin Merry. That is, if something unexpected would happen to me, ya know.”

“You’re too young to worry like that! You’re not going anywhere, Rachel—I’m telling you right now.”

She looked up at me, her voice shaky as she spoke. “I’ve actually worried what would happen if I died before—”

“Before what, Rachel? What on earth are you talking about?” I asked her sharply.

“There are certain things I wanna do.
Hafta
do. Not because I wish to hurt my parents or disobey the bishop. It goes deeper in me than any of that.”

I suspected where she was going with this. “You’re talking about the picture you want taken. Am I right?”

“Jah.” She nodded her head.

“Well, if it means that much to you.”

She stood up suddenly. “Ya’ll do it for me? Honest, ya will?”

I stirred her hot chocolate and placed it down on the mat in front of her. “I’m your very own personal photographer.”

I must’ve been out of my mind to agree to her wishes, but those no-nonsense blue eyes were far too serious to ignore. We were distant cousins, for pete’s sake!

My mother still hadn’t returned home as I headed for bed. I’d finished all my homework, even chatted on the phone with Chelsea and Lissa for a while—filling up the emptiness in the house.

I never mentioned a thing about Dad spending the night in the hospital. Just wasn’t in the mood to talk to them about it, especially because I didn’t really know what was wrong.

Welcoming the dark, I slipped into bed and pulled the sheets up around my head. Turning on my side, I held Lily White close. The freshly laundered smell of my pillow slip reminded me that most likely Mom was the one bearing the brunt of the day’s trauma.

In many ways, she and I were alike. She took charge when there was a crisis, automatically it seemed. I was the same way. “Miss-Fix-It,” I’d called myself in the past. But I felt as if I might be mellowing a bit when it came to being such a rescuer.

Still, in rethinking my answer to Rachel’s request for a photograph, I should’ve refused. The “old” Merry might’ve. But I was feeling more adventuresome these days, and I felt it was time to change things about myself. Not that I’d be one-hundred-percent-amen successful.

Thankfully, it wasn’t going to be a stormy night. It’s hard to feel confident during a storm—makes you feel helpless, almost childlike. With my older brother, Skip, away at college and Mom becoming more involved in collecting antiques, which involved some travel, I had to be at home alone at least occasionally.

So tonight I was thankful for a moon and a starlit sky. Feeling cozy under my comforter, I talked to God, expressing my concern for Dad. “Please let him know you’re there with him, and bring my mother home safely. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I don’t know why I didn’t pray about Levi Zook, as I often did. Nor did I ask the Lord to make it clear to me if and when I might also receive a divine “call” like his. The main thing on my mind tonight was the idea of being alone in this big, one-hundred-year-old house. Without Dad. And with Mom somewhere between SummerHill and downtown Lancaster.

About the time my eyes were too heavy to keep them open, I heard the car pull into our driveway. Good. Mom was home. It was okay to give in to the sandman.

The next morning at breakfast, Mom was full of talk. “It was like pulling teeth to convince your father to spend the night in the hospital.”

“But the docs wanted to check him out, right?”

She nodded, looking perky for the early hour. “You know how he is.”

I knew. In fact, I’d gotten some of my own stubborn streak from him. “Will he have to be more careful about what he eats again?” I asked, staring at the mountain of scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast on my plate.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, sitting down.

“Guess he’ll have to start doing the cooking around here, then,” I teased her.

“Meaning what?”

“Dad’s just…uh…not as hung up on food, I guess.” I almost added,
like you are
. But I was smart and kept my mouth shut.

“Well, along with adhering to a stricter diet, he’s going to have to get out and exercise. I’ve been telling him for years, a brisk twenty-minute walk can make a big difference.”

Mom oughta know. She was religious about her daily walks. Couldn’t talk her out of walking even if a tornado was heading this direction.

It turned out that Dad was given nearly a week off. But did he follow doctor’s orders and rest? My father chose this period of time to get overly involved in my homework assignments.
All
of them. Meaning he stood over me as I worked. I should’ve been mighty glad about the academic help, I guess, but by Thursday it was beginning to annoy me.