The Goodbye Time by Celeste Conway Read Free Book Online

of soft stuffed animals.
    “Aunt Mimi?” she whispered suddenly.
    “Johnny?” I thought she had fallen asleep.
    “Do you know about me little cousin Jeremy?”
    “What about ’im?”
    “Did y’know he’s going away?”
    “Jeremy?”
    “Yeah. It’s been decided. He’s going away to a special school in London.”
    For a second I didn’t answer. Then I said, “That’s better for ’im, Johnny.”
    “You fancy?”
    “Yeah. He’ll be with other kids like him.”
    “Yeah, I s’pose.”
    “And his mum won’t be so knackered.”
    “True enough.” Her voice had gotten very soft. “It’s just that he might miss us.”
    “But there’ll always be someone there with him.” I was trying to remember all the things my mom had said the other night. I don’t know why it was so hard.
    “But they won’t be
us.
They’ll all be strangers he doesn’t know. And they won’t know how to help him—how sometimes he wants a certain toy. Or sometimes you have to rub his head. I just hate to think of him waking up in the middle of the night and calling for me or Bug Eye, and we won’t be there to hear him, so he’ll just keep calling louder, but no matter how loud he calls for us, he’ll wait and wait and we’ll never come.” She was crying now. I could hear the bubbles in her voice.
    “Oh, Katy, they’ll come!” I got out of bed and plopped onto the blow-up mattress next to her. “My mom said there’d be special people always awake to go to him. It’s their job to stay awake all night.”
    “But they aren’t us! And Sam’s such a baby, even though he’s really big.” I didn’t know what to say to her. I couldn’t remember the other good things my mom had listed. I wished she was there to tell Katy all the things she had told me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I reached for my oldest teddy bear and pushed him into Katy’s arms. She took him and held him really tight.
    Then she said, “We’re taking him on Thursday. We’ll just drop him off. He has no idea.”
    “My mom says he won’t understand. That it’s harder for you than it is for him.”
    “I know my mom feels really bad. But she says it has to happen. She’s really afraid for me and Gem.”
    “You called her Gem.”
    “What?”
    “Your sister. That’s the first time you ever called her Gem.”
    “Bug Eye, I meant. She’s moving into Sam’s old room with all her stupid fairy stuff. We told our mom—both of us did—that we wanted her to take the room so she won’t have to keep sleeping on the couch. But she said she didn’t want to. She said she likes the stupid couch and wants Bug Eye to have a room. She wants us both to have a room.”
    “Wow,” I said. “She’s really nice. Not many moms would do that, I bet.”
    “Yeah, I know. She doesn’t always seem so nice, but that’s because she’s stressed and stuff.”
    “And now just think, she won’t have to always feel so stressed.”
    “Yeah,” said Katy softly. “And we won’t have to worry that Sam might end up hurting her.”
    “You can visit Sam too,” I told her. “It’ll really be a treat for him.”
    “I can go every day if I want to.”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s not like we’ll never see him again.”
    “Heck, no,” I said. “And you can bring him Cheerios. And those cookies he likes. And that stringy cheese.”
    “And his favorite,” said Katy. “Gummy worms.” She settled back down with my teddy bear and I kind of tucked them in. I climbed up to my own bed.
    “I’m glad you’re my friend,” she whispered.
    “And I’m glad you’re mine.”
    “Good night, Anna.”
    “Night, Katy.”
    In a couple of minutes she was asleep. I lay there for a while listening to her even breaths, thinking about Sam. I hoped it was true what my mom had said, that he would be okay. Then I started to think of Tom. He’d be leaving too in a couple of months. I knew it wasn’t the same as Sam, but I also knew that in a way he would never come back. Oh