Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

"Didn't I? I must be forcing myself to ignore it," she said, but she didn't sound truthful at all.

By now, if we cast a lie at each other, it flew for a second and then fell like a bird with heart failure. She glanced back at me, her eyes flickering and her expression pleading with me not to ask anything else. I folded my hands on my books and stared ahead.

At the time, I didn't have enough of a diabolical mind. I thought it was possible she had been in some altercation with one of the other girls and I just hadn't heard about it yet. When we arrived at school, I listened to see if anyone was talking about a fight between Karen and someone, maybe in the girls' bathroom, but no one was. Of course, I became even more curious.

On the way home that day, I nodded at her arm and asked, "That still hurt?"

"Never did. It looks worse than it really is," she told me, and again turned away to signal that this was not a topic for discussion.

And so I put it back into my log of things I would rather forget. I didn't think of it again until I saw her walking alone one early evening soon after and realized she was crying. I had come into the village on my bike to get myself a chocolate marshmallow ice cream cone at George's Ice Cream Parlor. It was a reward I was giving myself for finishing all my homework early, including reading all four assigned chapters of Huckleberry Finn and answering the study guide questions. Lately, I had become a very good student, and my father took another look at me and decided I would be as much college material as Jesse was, after all. It came under the heading "Some Take Longer to Grow Up."

"Finally," he said, "you have your priorities straight. There is hope for you yet, Zipporah."

I didn't say anything. In my mind, it didn't require a thank you. I never thought there wasn't hope for me, and I doubted my father ever thought that, either, even though I was never on the honor roll. I never failed anything. True, I swam in the pool of the average or just above, but there was nothing about me that would bring my parents any shame. The worst crime I had committed to date was talking too much in class and serving two days' detention.

I saw Karen walking toward the east side of town, her head down, her right hand periodically moving across her cheeks to flick off tears like a human windshield wiper. I decided to forgo my ice cream reward and pedal on after her. George's was dangerously near closing anyway, since it was the offseason, and by this time in the evening, most people had retreated to their homes and wrapped themselves in the glow of their television sets. The streets were deserted, and the periods between some automobile traffic and none were longer and longer. I didn't want to scare her, so I called out while I was still a little behind her. She walked on as if she hadn't heard me. I drew closer and called out louder.

She stopped but didn't turn. I saw her shoulders rise as if she were anticipating a blow or a shout or simply wanted to hide inside herself more. It put some hesitation in my excited approach, and I slowed my pedaling.

"Hey," I said when I drew up to her.

She took a deep breath and turned. She didn't say anything.

"What are you doing? I mean, where are you going?" I asked.

"For a walk. Just for a walk."

"Oh. I came into town for an ice cream. You want an ice cream cone?" I asked, even though I was nearly certain that by the time we would get to George's now, the lights would be out.

She shook her head.

"So, how come you're just taking a walk?"

She didn't answer.

"Karen?"

"Leave me alone," she replied, and walked on.

I felt as if she had slapped my face. I remember the blood rushing into my cheeks.

"Sure, I'll leave you alone," I said indignantly. I watched her for a moment and then turned and pedaled back, now annoyed that I wouldn't get my ice cream cone.

I pedaled harder and faster in frustration and had worked up a good sweat by the time I arrived at my house. I put my bike away in the garage and tried to get up to my bedroom without my parents noticing. My mother was off for two days, and my father had just finished a case and was taking a breather. They sat in the living room watching television, although I knew my father would have a book opened as well and would read during the commercials. He hated wasting time.

"A minute lost is a minute gone forever," he told me repeatedly.

I conjured up some great lost-and-found department with the shelves weighed down by seconds, minutes, and hours. There was a meek little bald man with thick eyeglasses, clicking a stopwatch and waving his long, bony right forefinger in my face as he chanted, "Lost and forgotten, lost and

forgotten."

The steps of the stairway betrayed me with their gleeful creaks and squeaks.

"Zipporah?" my mother called. "Where were you? Why didn't you tell us you were going out? Where could you go this time of night, anyway?" She rattled off her questions as if she thought she might forget one.

I turned slowly and walked to the living room. My father looked up from his book. It was always a mat

ter of great interest to me to see how my father considered me. Sometimes he looked genuinely confused and gave me the feeling he was wondering how someone like me could be born of his seed, and sometimes he looked delightfully amused and gave me the feeling he saw something of himself at my age, just as he often saw in Jesse. Right now, he looked vaguely. annoyed, because I had caused an