Page 39

Star laughed.

"No, not tonight, but it would have been good with all the rain."

"I've got some seeds in the garage," I said. "I'll throw them out later."

"Fine," Jade said quickly.

"We'll check it out tomorrow and decide what else has to be done," Jade said.

"Can we go inside finally'?" Jade cried. "I dread looking at myself in the mirror."

"So don't and spare the mirror," Star said. Misty laughed.

We all headed for the back door. I was the last to enter. I paused and looked into the darkness.

If she hated me before, I thought, she'll hate me more now. She'll hate me for eternity.

I turned and entered the house. The door snapped shut behind me.

I felt like the only life I had known was over. Star had read the right verse from the Bible. It was a time to be born, a time to heal; a time to laugh and to dance Finally, it was a time to love.

I hoped.

5 Terror in the Night

"Look at me! Look at all of us!" Jade cried when we were inside and standing near the only fulllength mirror downstairs in the hallway.

The four of us stood clumped together, gazing at our images. Our clothes and hair were soaked, our shoes were muddied, and everyone's face was streaked with grime.

"I can't go home looking like this," Jade moaned, and ran her fingers through her hair. When she saw the dirt on them, on the backs of them, and up her arms, she groaned again. "I look like the gardener!"

"So, we'll bathe and shower before we go home," Star declared. "Don't get so upset. You'll break out with a pimple."

"Star's right. And we can all just wash and dry our clothes," Misty said. "Can't we do that, Cat?"

"Sure," I said shrugging. "I'll put all the clothing in the machine. That was always one of my chores," I added. "We recently had the dryer repaired, even though Geraldine preferred hanging clothes on the line out back." I gazed at the floor. "We're tracking in tons of mud, too," I said.

It was funny how I kept thinking Geraldine still could hear every word spoken in this house, especially my words, and see everything we did as well. Her orders, complaints and criticism lingered on the walls and echoed through the rooms, reminding me we could bury her, but not her shadow or her voice.

"Stop being her and making us feel bad," Jade ordered. "She's gone."

"Oh, I didn't mean to do that. I..."

"Well, Cat's right. It's still a mess. Who's going to clean it up?" Star demanded. "You Beverlies?"

"We'll clean it up," Misty said. "First we should get out of these clothes so we don't drag mud any further around the house."

She pulled her T-shirt off, kicked off her sneakers, and began to undo her jeans, dropping everything in a pile right where she stood.

"I can't wash this outfit. It's supposed to be drycleaned only," Jade moaned. "It might shrink or stretch."

"So, if it does, just blame it on your maid," Star told her. "I'm sure you've done that before?'

"I have not!"

"I have a pullover and a skirt you can borrow if you don't want to wash your outfit," I suggested, hoping to quench an argument before it began.

She thought a moment. I guess she was imagining her- self in my clothes and wasn't pleased with the thought. She shook her head and began to get undressed, too.