Kristen looks at her sister, then at Tanya. “She has to be here because she is my sister. But you don’t have to be here, Tanya.”
Tanya sinks down onto the couch and pouts.
She tries to exclude Lorna all summer, but Kristen won’t allow it. Kristen decides who stays and who goes. Lorna is allowed to watch TV with them, and she sits next to Kristen so Tanya can’t. But Kristen explains to her that thirteen-year-olds don’t want to hang out with nine-year-olds, so she can’t do everything with them. Lorna is grateful for anything she gets.
When school starts, there are too many kids at Lorna’s new school, but she does not go unnoticed in her class, especially without Kristen’s bright light to shield her. Lorna is in the fourth grade and stands nearly as tall as her diminutive teacher. One boy accuses her of being in the sixth grade because of her height.
She hates school. No one likes her. She tries to make friends on the playground, but no one lets her join in. Sometimes she comes home in the afternoon to Mom screaming at Dad on the telephone about money. Nana is always in the kitchen, always happy. But Lorna has begun to notice the scent of her grandmother. It smells a little like beer, but not exactly beer.
Nana makes pastries and bread for the girls, and they are so good. Mom says Lorna is eating too much and will get fat. Kristensays to leave Lorna alone. Mom never mentions food to Kristen, who remains slender and pretty no matter what.
Kristen has a radio in her room. At night, when they are supposed to be doing their homework, Kristen teaches Lorna all the latest dances. They perform them for Mom and Nana, who always applaud. Once, Mom tried to do the dance with them, and they all laughed until tears were sliding down their faces.
When Kristen’s friends come over—and there are more and more of them—she kicks Lorna out. But she always comes looking for her the next day.
One night, Kristen comes to her room, bored. Mom is on the phone fighting with Dad. She says Nana is passed out in her chair. She glances out Lorna’s window. “Let’s jump to that limb and climb down. Everyone is at the park tonight.”
“Who is everyone?”
“My friends. Come on, don’t be a chicken.” Kristen opens Lorna’s window and climbs out onto the ledge. She jumps, fearless. She almost misses the limb but manages to catch it and haul herself up. She assesses her options and begins to shimmy down, using the long, twisting boughs as a stepladder. “Come on, Lolo!” she shout-whispers. But Lorna is afraid she will fall. She won’t do it.
“You’re never going to do anything fun if you’re a chicken,” Kristen says, and disappears into the night.
Lorna falls asleep. Sometime in the night, Kristen comes home. She crawls into bed with Lorna and tucks Lorna’s favorite stuffed animal in with them. She smells like Nana. She is gone when Lorna wakes up the next morning.
The next afternoon, two police officers come to the house, looking for Kristen. She’s with her friend. The officers say some kids broke into a house down the street.
Mom and Nana are appalled. Mom is angry that the policehave come to their door and insists her daughter had nothing to do with it.
“She was upstairs with her sister all night. Wasn’t she, Lorna?” she asks.
The police officers look at Lorna. She doesn’t know what to do. She thinks she should tell the truth, but what would they do to Kristen?
“Don’t let them scare you—just tell them,” her mother says again, sounding annoyed.
“Yes,” Lorna says.
After the police are gone, Kristen finally comes home, and Mom confronts her. “Did you sneak out? Did you break into someone’s house with your delinquent friends?”
“Not a whole house. Just the screened-in porch.”
Mom shouts, Nana cries. Kristen claims it was Todd’s idea and they all went along with it.
“So if Todd said to jump off a cliff, would you do that too?”
Kristen laughs. “Maybe.”
“Help me understand, Kristen. Were you drinking?” Mom asks coldly.
“No,” Kristen says, and sounds offended. But Lorna knows she was—she smelled it.
Her mother believes Kristen. She turns to argue with Nana about who was supposed to be watching who, and why didn’t she get the alarms like Mom asked? Kristen winks at Lorna. Then she puts her hand in her shorts pocket and slowly pulls it out. Behind Mom’s back, she shows Lorna what looks like one of Mom’s cigarettes, but without the filter. Lorna doesn’t know what it is, but she knows it’s bad.
Mom calls Dad about the police. He is coming over to give Kristen a “talking-to.”
“No,” Kristen groans. “Call him back and tell him not to come. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
When Dad arrives, he and Mom argue. Mom says they will probably charge Kristen with trespassing. Dad says she will have to make amends. He asks where Mom was when her daughter was out joyriding. Mom turns red in the face and asks where he was. They argue about whose fault it is that Kristen is like this.
