Rhymes With Cupid by Anna Humphrey Read Free Book Online

before something goes horribly wrong.” Still no answer. “Hello?” I stuck my head up the stairwell. And that was when I heard it: a faint banging noise. It got louder as I walked toward the kitchen, but there was nobody there. I opened the door to the basement.
    “Elyse?!” The banging resumed. “Elyse?!” My mother’s voice was muffled, but I didn’t miss the hint of panic in it. “Elyse, come help me.” I flew down the stairs, taking them two at a time. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light, but when they did I gasped. The huge, heavy wooden wardrobe my mom had been sanding to keep our extra winter coats in was lying facedown on the cement floor—its doors open. A single hand—my mother’s—was reaching out from underneath a small gap between the floor and the wardrobe, waving frantically for my attention. I knelt down on the ground. “Oh my God. Are you okay? Are you crushed? Do you need an ambulance? Mom, can you breathe? I’m calling 911.” I raced toward the stairs, my knees trembling.
    “Elyse, I’m fine.” Was my mother laughing or crying? I couldn’t tell for sure without seeing her face. She gestured with her single visible hand, telling the story just like she would have if she weren’t underneath a 200-pound wardrobe. “I had a few minutes when I got home, so I thought I’d sand the insides of the doors before making dinner. I stood up on the shelf to reach the top and the whole thing tipped on me. I’ve been trying to bang my way through the back panel, but it’s no use. Can you lift up the wardrobe, sweetie? Just a little? Get the cement block that’s in the corner under the bag of peat moss. Prop it underneath and I should be able to crawl out.”
    I got the cinder block she was talking about and somehow managed to heave the wardrobe up several inches. I pushed the big cement brick under with my foot, fighting back tears the whole time. A second later, my mother shimmied out from underneath, stood up, and brushed the floor dirt and sawdust out of her hair. She crouched down to examine the wardrobe. One of the doors had cracked a bit in the fall and, even with the two of us lifting, there was no way we’d ever be able to get it standing upright again. The thing weighed a ton.
    “Well, maybe we could just store our extra winter coats in plastic bins under the stairs instead,” she said, and that was when my mother noticed the tears streaming down my face. She understood immediately. “Oh, Elyse. Oh, sweetie. I’m all right.” She stood up and held out her arms to show me. “Not a scratch. I’m fine.”
    “But what if you hadn’t been? Mom, that thing could have crushed you.”
    “But it didn’t.” She put her arms around me, then pulled away to wipe the tears off my cheeks with her fingers.
    “And you were all alone down there. What if I hadn’t come right home for some reason?”
    “But you did.”
    “I was supposed to help you sand this last night,” I sniffed, looking at the wardrobe, “when I was done studying. I forgot. If I hadn’t forgotten, you wouldn’t have been doing it all by yourself.”
    “That’s all right, Elyse. It’s my responsibility to get these things done. I’m the adult in this family.” I hated it when she said things like that. Maybe it was true when I was a kid, but now I was seventeen. She shouldn’t have to take care of everything all on her own anymore. It was bad enough that my father had walked out on her with barely a backward glance; she should have at least been able to count on me. “From now on I’ll be more careful when I’m fixing things around the house. I promise,” she said.
    “And ask me for help,” I said, giving her my best “I am so serious right now” look, which she totally ignored.
    “Come on,” she said instead. “Come upstairs. We’ll order a pizza. You’ll feel better after you’ve had something to eat. Then you can help me with my homework assignment.”
    My mom’s