See You at Harry's(5)

Charlie makes Doll dance.

“I think it’s time for all of you to shut up now,” I say.

“Bad word!” Charlie says, hitting me with Doll’s head.

“Ow! Knock it off.” I push Doll away and look out the window.

The truth is, I don’t really know how I feel about Ran. When he smiles at me as if I am more than his childhood best friend, sometimes it makes me happy. Sometimes it makes me scared.

“If you don’t snatch him up, someone else will,” Holden says.

“Like you, Mr. Faggypants?” Sara reaches over to pinch Holden’s cheek. “Better watch out, Fern.”

Holden hits Sara’s hand away. But she just laughs. “Chill out — I’m only joking.”

“I can’t believe you,” he says, turning away from her to glare out the window.

“You people need to lighten up,” Sara says.

At the stop sign just before the turn to our house, Holden jumps out of the car, slams the door, and starts walking.

“Oh, please,” Sara says. “No one can take a joke.”

“Your jokes aren’t funny,” I say. “You hurt his feelings.”

“Well, he better grow a thicker skin soon if he’s going to survive high school.”

“Why?”

“Because he wears who he is on his impeccably ironed J.Crew sleeve — that’s why. I mean, he’s like the quintessential fag.”

“What’s a fag?” Charlie asks.

“A boy who likes boys instead of girls,” Sara says.

“And it has nothing to do with how someone dresses!” I yell.

“Except in Holden’s case,” Sara says calmly.

“I know you think you’re funny, but you’re not. And stop saying that word!”

“Just telling it like it is, Ferny.”

I wish Sara could be more like the Sara she was named after from A Little Princess. That Sara is nice to everyone. Even the mice in the attic. This Sara seems to find it necessary to look for everyone’s weak spot. And then stomp on it.

When we get home, Charlie runs around the yard with Doll, throwing her in the air, then catching her and kissing her.

An hour or so later, my dad drops my mom off. He’s all excited about taking the delivery truck someplace for another surprise. My mom gives me and Sara a look that tells us to zip it, but even she seems pretty wary.

“Holden ran away!” Charlie says as my dad pulls back out of the driveway.

“What?” my mom asks, dropping a bag of groceries. “Where did he go?”

“Faggypants, faggypants,” Charlie sings, walking around my mom in a circle as he traces his finger across her legs.

“Stop it, Charlie. That’s not nice.” She looks at me and Sara accusingly. “And who taught him that lovely word?”

I can’t believe she has to ask.

“I was only joking around,” Sara says.

“Which way did he go?”

“He got out at the stop sign on the corner,” I say.

“Sara, take Charlie inside and give him a snack. Fern, go find your brother, would you, hon? You’re the only one who seems to be able to bring him back.”


Holden is always running off in a huff, and I am always the one searching for him and bringing him home. Holden’s named after the main character in The Catcher in the Rye. I wasn’t supposed to read it until I’m older, but I snuck my mom’s paperback copy out of her room last year. The pages were all soft from her reading it so many times. The book is about this boy who’s depressed because he thinks everyone he knows is a phony, so he runs away. I understand why my mom likes the book and all, but I personally think it was a big mistake to name your kid after a boy who tries to kill himself, even if he is thoughtful and brilliant. My favorite parts in the book are when the main character talks about his little sister, Phoebe. Sometimes I think I’m a little like Phoebe to our Holden. Because in the book she’s the one he goes back for. And that’s sort of like me. Only I have to go looking for him first.

I find Holden sitting under the huge pine tree in our next-door neighbor’s yard. They’re never home, so it’s a good hideout. He showed it to me when Charlie was born and I used to get upset and jealous. I felt like I went from being a shadow to being completely invisible. Holden told me the tree cave would always be our special place that no one else in our family would know about.

“Knock, knock,” I say, standing just outside.

“Who’s there?” Holden asks.

“Boo.”

“Boo who?”

“Don’t cry.” I bend low under the bottom boughs and crawl under. It’s cool and smells like Christmas.

“I don’t know why you bother coming after me,” he says, picking at the rubber on the sole of his sneakers the way he always does.

“I’m your sister. That’s my job.”

“And Mom sent you.”

“I would’ve come anyway.”

He buries a piece of shoe rubber under some brown dried-up needles.

“So, you coming home soon?” I ask.

“I dunno. I kind of like it under here. It needs some decorating, but . . .”

“Holden? Is it true, what Sara said?”