Gone in a Flash by Susan Rogers Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

dragged her comforter. She plodded down the stairs barefoot, came into the family room and, upon seeing Bess on the sofa, said, ‘Get up!’
    ‘No-oo!’ Bess said, stretching the tiny negative into a two-syllable word.
    Alicia had wisely chosen the comfy chair, leaving the loveseat open.
    ‘Take the loveseat!’ Megan told Bess. ‘My legs are too long for that. I need the sofa!’
    ‘So cut off your legs,’ Bess said, staring intently at the TV. ‘Ha! Did you see that?’ she squealed, turning her head toward Alicia.
    Megan took that opportunity to continue Bess’s momentum to the left and pushed her off the sofa. Megan got on the sofa, bed pillow under her head, comforter covering her body.
    ‘You bitch!’ Bess shouted from the floor.
    ‘Bite me,’ Megan said calmly from the comfort of the sofa.
    Getting to her feet, Bess said, ‘Mom said I couldn’t bite you anymore, even when you ask for it, but she said nothing about pulling your hair out!’ Which she proceeded to do from the head of the sofa.
    ‘Get your hands off me!’ Megan yelled. ‘Mom! Help!’
    ‘Jeez, Megan, leave Mom alone, she’s trying to work!’ Alicia said.
    ‘Then you help me!’ Megan pleaded, now her back was balanced like a seesaw on the arm of the sofa, her hands on Bess’s hands as they pulled her hair. ‘She’s trying to kill me!’
    ‘That would be fine, too,’ Bess said through gritted teeth.
    ‘What the hell is going on in here?’ E.J. asked, coming in. ‘Bess, let go of Megan’s hair!’
    Grinning like the Cheshire cat, Bess let go, and Megan’s tentative balance on the seesaw sofa arm was skewed a little to the upper body, and she fell on her head on the hardwood floor of the family room.
    When she landed, Bess laughed out loud. Megan jumped up and Bess ran, Megan not that far behind.
    ‘Girls! Stop it right this minute!’ E.J. shouted.
    They didn’t stop.
    ‘I’m gonna kill you!’ Megan shouted.
    ‘You’re so fat you’ll never be able to catch me!’ Bess shouted back.
    ‘Mom! She called me fat!’
    E.J. sighed. ‘Bess, don’t call your sister fat.’
    ‘Fatty, fatty two by four, couldn’t get through the kitchen door! So she starved to death!’ Bess called out, laughing as she made yet another circle around the family room.
    ‘I’ve got five dollars,’ Alicia said lazily. ‘Y’all got any money? We could go to the movies.’
    The other two stopped, mid-run. Bess fell onto the loveseat and stuck her hand in her pocket. ‘Ooo, a ten!’
    ‘Let me go check my purse,’ Megan said, and headed out to the foyer where all the purses hung on the coat rack. She came back in, her purse under her arm, her wallet in her hands. ‘Three, four, ooo, a five, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. I have twelve dollars.’
    ‘Bring in my purse, wouldja?’ Bess asked.
    ‘Mine, too,’ Alicia said.
    ‘Get ’em yourselves,’ Megan said, ‘I have to go change.’
    The girls dug through their purses and came up with a total of thirty-eight dollars. Bess had her original ten, Megan twelve, and Alicia, who’d had a five in her pocket, found six more in her purse. All together it was enough to get the three of them into the seven-dollar matinee and buy a large popcorn to share. Megan came down dressed for the movies in skin-tight jeans, a tank top and sweaters over her arm. She handed one to each of her sisters and kept one for herself.
    ‘It gets cold in the theater,’ she explained to her mom.
    ‘I understand,’ her mom said.
    They then proceeded to pull sodas out of the refrigerator and stick them in the bottom of their purses.
    ‘OK, Mom, we’re off,’ Bess said.
    ‘Do you know what’s showing and what time it’s showing?’ E.J. asked.
    ‘No,’ all three girls said in unison. Megan said, ‘It doesn’t really matter, Mom. We’ll find something once we get there.’
    ‘Well, don’t get caught with those sodas. And remember to cough when you open them.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am, we’ve only been doing this