Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock Read Free Book Online

calling me like I’m a little kitten. “Here kitty, kitty,” he calls. Come on up here, he says, like his room’s a fun place to be. “Come here, sweet girl,” he calls.

    EL[ZAB[!TH FLOCK

    “Don’t go up there,” Emma says to me with those eyes of hers that know it all even though she’s two years younger than me.
    “I’ll be right back,” I say, trying not to look scared, turning the day’s events over and over in my head. I didn’t do anything wrong, I think. Breakfast was my turn and I made the eggs just like he said to, I tell myself at the bottom of the stairs. I know from the sound in his voice it’s a trap. It’s the way you call to one of the chickens when it’s dinner. You don’t chase it, you let it come to you. You call it by trying to
    sound pretty. Here chicky, chicky.
    “Coming,” I answer him.
    The stairs feel steep so I hold on to the banister even though I go up and down them a million times a day without even thinking twice about it.
    “What’s taking you so long, girl,” he hollers, the try for sweetness turning the wordgirl into a curl in the air. I picture him reaching out with chicken feed in the palm of his hand, waiting for me to peck it so he can grab me with the other when I’m not looking.
    “No,” Emma says from the bottom of the stairs. “Carrie,” she calls to me. “No.”
    The sound in her voice makes me want to throw up. Momma’s not here, I think to myself. I’ve got to do as he says.
    At the top of the stairs I look around for a safe place to run, but in our house there are none. Except behind-the-couch, but right now I’m too far away from there.
    I look into Richard and Momma’s room and inhale. Even from the top of the stairs I can smell it. Momma’s perfume cain’t cover the smell of Richard and his sweaty clothes. Richard is sitting on the edge of the bed that used to belong to my grandmother. The bed is covered with a graying fabric that has a pretty flower pattern sewn on it in the same

    48

    49

    M[! & EMMA

    material. I love to trace that pattern when Momma’s still soft from sleep and me and Emma crawl up onto the bed ‘cause Richard’s not
    home.
    “Come here,” he says. He’s hunched over and is resting his elbows on his knees. When I tiptoe into the room he straightens, and I can see that his pants are unzipped. Now I really want to vomit.
    “I said get over here,” he says to me, but I cain’t move my legs. They’re like dandelion roots that won’t let go of the soil. Just as he’s about to say it again, Emma comes in from behind me, pushes me out of the room and closes the door. Just like that. I waited there a few seconds and then I ran behind-the-couch. That’s how much of a coward I am. I let my little sister take the heat for me. I don’t know why Richard would have forgotten to do up his pants before the beating but I try not to think about that. There are no sounds coming from up there but I know it’s bad. Emma never cries when it’s bad. Only when she thinks she can change something does she cry. She couldn’t change this. I put my forehead down onto the tops of my knees and wait for her to come back down but she never does. I am wedged be-hind-the-couch picking at the yellow line in the plaid pattern, hoping she’s okay. Why hasn’t she come back down yet? I wait. Then I wait some more. Then I think maybe she thinks I went back upstairs to our room so maybe I should go there and look for her to see what that was all about. So I start out from behind-the-couch by digging my heels into the linoleum and pulling my rear end along an inch or two and then repeating the process.
    But Emma doesn’t come out of the room for a long time and when she does she doesn’t come looking for me like I come looking for her after it’s my turn for a whipping. I hear her tiny footsteps heading up to the Nest so I scoot out from behind-the-couch and go up after her.

    1 1,1 ZA B ETH F I. OC K

    Richard’s door is closed so the