Change Places with Me(23)

“Never. Snow-white is good.” Still, it worried Clara. What was Snow-white like deep down, where nobody could see?

“Phil,” her stepmother said, “if she doesn’t get enough sleep, she’ll be a wreck tomorrow.”

Clara hated those little comments, which were supposed to be helpful and were anything but. Clara knew her stepmother thought she was spoiled, always reminding her to say “please” and “thank you.” And there was that time, in Belle Heights Park, when Clara wanted her dad to hold her up over the spraying turtle fountain, even if that meant his special-occasion suit got ruined. Or the time when Clara begged for a stuffed unicorn that was way overpriced and then left it on the bus on the trip home. That was an accident! The worst was when Clara needed special markers for a school project, creating a cover for a made-up book, and she’d forgotten to get them on the way home; she went into a panic that night and sent her dad out, and he had to go to three different places before finding exactly the right ones (not too thick, not too thin). Her stepmother had wanted Clara to tell the teacher she needed an extra day, but Clara couldn’t stand to be late, especially knowing that Kim had gotten hers done the day before. Kim’s book was called The Birds of Belle Heights, which was mostly pigeons, but she’d drawn them beautifully. Not that Clara was jealous of her best friend; they’d been inseparable since preschool; but she wanted her own book, Colorful Cupcakes, to be beautiful, too.

“We’re almost at the end,” her dad said now.

Her stepmother sighed and left the doorway.

Her dad read the rest of the story, and Snow-white was happy for the rest of her days. That was the ending Clara liked, when people were happy for the rest of their days. It never said how many days, but Clara assumed it was a great big number, not like what her mother had had.

“You’ll read again tomorrow?” Clara said.

“If you’re game.”

“I’m not a game!”

“Just an expression. It means if you’re willing.” He grinned and his eyes crinkled.

“I don’t like it when I can’t see your eyes.”

He opened them really wide. “Better?”

She didn’t much like that, either.

He clicked off the lamp on the little table next to her bed.

Clara hugged the elephant. “Leave it on.”

He clicked it back on. “If the story scares you—”

“I’m not scared.” But maybe she was. Her dad always said “Snow-white” was only a make-believe story and could never happen in real life, but Clara wasn’t so sure. Snow-white’s mother was dead. So was Clara’s. Snow-white’s father remarried, as had Clara’s. The Queen gazed in the enchanted mirror and wanted to know who was the fairest in the land. Clara’s stepmother—she looked in the mirror too, pushing back her hair to study her forehead, her arms and legs, even in between her fingers and toes. For hours, it seemed to Clara, who watched from behind the big blue armchair in the living room.

“I think you’re frightened,” her dad said quietly.

“I don’t like it when Snow-white gets lost in the woods. What if she gets eaten by animals?” She didn’t want to admit to the other stuff.

“Are you afraid of getting lost?”

“Maybe.”

“You’ll never be lost as long as I’m here,” he promised her. “I will keep you safe and sound.”

Clara didn’t know what it meant to be “sound,” but if it was anything like “safe,” it was fine with her. “Go on,” she said.

“We’re done for tonight, love.”

“No, I mean you can leave now.”

Clara lay in a pool of light surrounded by dark edges.





CHAPTER 13


Only a couple of months later, on a cold but brilliantly sunny November morning, her stepmother came into her room and gently shook her awake. “I have terrible, terrible news,” she said. “I can’t think of any way to say it except to say it.”

But Clara already knew her dad was dead. What other news could be so terrible, terrible? The smell of lavender—her stepmother’s soap, so sticky sweet—made Clara sick to her stomach. The sun’s glare off the heart-shaped pendant hurt her eyes.

“Phil was in the kitchen last night. He had what’s called a heart attack,” her stepmother said. “An ambulance came. I went to the hospital with them while Mrs. Moore from upstairs sat here in case you woke up.”

Clara hadn’t heard a thing, or even stirred in her bed. She would never again sleep so heavily, or through the night, or without her bedside lamp on.

“I’m so sorry,” her stepmother said. “There was nothing the doctors could do.”

Clara shut her eyes tight, put her hands over her ears, and pressed hard. Oh, her stepmother was evil. Evil Lynn, Clara would call her from now on; Evil Lynn—bearer of terrible, terrible news. Clara vowed on the spot never to talk to Evil Lynn again, or only when she absolutely had to, and never about her dad, not one word.

There was a crowded service. Kim and her parents came, and lots of other kids from school and their parents. Kim had long hair that glowed with light. She put her arms around Clara, and Clara gave her a big hug. But then Kim said, “Good thing your dad remarried.” Clara couldn’t believe she’d said that—Kim knew how Clara felt about Evil Lynn. Come to think of it, Clara realized, every time she had said something mean about her stepmother, Kim had said, “She’s not so bad,” or “Your dad seems really happy with her.” Clara had always thought it was just Kim trying to seem grown-up by saying things that sounded mature, nothing to pay much attention to. But now those remarks made Clara question her choice of best friend.