The Glaring - Middle of Chapter 1

 

At lunchtime, Becca came out of the line and scanned the bustling cafeteria.  Chris, Andi and I were at our usual table by the windows, and Ellen was there, too.  We know Ellen from fifth grade Girl Scouts, and she usually eats with us even though she isn’t part of The Glaring.  

“Should we invite her to sit at our table?” I whispered.

Chris forked a bite of salad.  “Who?”

Even though she works full time, Chris’s mom makes these amazing salads with cheese and dried cranberries and dressing in a separate, tiny container.  I have peanut butter and jelly on wheat and a baggie of chips every single day.  I like knowing what to expect when I open my lunch bag.  “The new girl.”

Andi sipped lentil soup from a Barney thermos.  Most of Andi’s possessions exist purely for irony.  “Her backpack’s cool.  I’m game.”

Ellen waved so hard I thought her arm might fly off her shoulder.  

Becca’s face lit up.  A tray containing a lump of gravy smothered meat and boiled potatoes came in for a landing between Ellen’s lunch and mine.  As she sat, Becca swung her hair over one shoulder, and it wafted a fruity shampoo smell.

Chris made a face.  “You’re gonna want to pack your lunch.”

Becca draped her backpack over the chair.  “Looks better than the food at my old school.”

Her voice was soft and twangy.  

Ellen plonked her elbows on the table and nibbled a chocolate chip cookie.  “In New Orleans?”

The way she said “New Orleans” she might have been talking about Oz. 

Becca shook her head.  “Houston.  We were there for a couple weeks before we came here.  After Katrina we stayed with my granddaddy until Mama found the house.  Then we just packed Mama’s tools in the truck and high tailed up North.”

Chris shot me a look that screamed, “Is this chick for real?” 

I twitched my right shoulder in the world’s smallest shrug. 

Becca yanked open her chocolate milk on both ends so the carton made a cube instead of the regular triangular spout.  “The moving van with our stuff just came yesterday. The things we could salvage from the flood, anyway.”

“What kind of tools?” Andi asked.  

“Power tools.  Mama flips houses.  She buys old places cheap, fixes them up, and sells them.  Then eventually we move.  We’ve lived in six houses in six years.  She always wanted to do one up north.  Now seemed as good a time as any.”  She washed down a forkful of mystery meat with a glug of chocolate milk.

“Cool.” Andi peeled a long strip from a stick of string cheese.  “Where’s your house?”

“The old Jesse House.  Over yonder on Water Street.” Becca said.

Chris giggled.  

“Yonder” stretched credibility.  I barely held back a smile.  

But Becca faced Christine without even the tiniest trace of embarrassment.  “Oh, I know.  I talk like a hick.  ‘Curse of the South,’ Mama always says.”

“Does everyone in New Orleans talk like you?” Ellen scootched close enough to Becca that their shoulders bumped, but Becca didn’t seem to mind.

“Not in New Orleans, but in Texas.  I was born there.”

“The Jesse House is really pretty,” I said.  “My mom’s been hoping someone would fix it up for years.”

Becca’s grin cracked her face in two.  “If you want, y’all can come over after school and check it out.  I think Mama’s knocking down walls today.”

I noticed the pointy tooth right next to Becca’s left front tooth was twisted just a little.  In most people that imperfection might be ugly.  In Becca it was sort of mesmerizing.

Ellen grimaced like she was stricken with a sudden bout of dysentery.  “Shoot! I have to babysit my annoying little brothers.  Next time?” 

“Sure.”  Becca dropped a napkin over the remains of her lunch. 

“I’m game. My French horn lesson got cancelled because Mrs. Danvers is having a hysterectomy,” Andi said.

Chris snapped the lid on her Tupperware and snugged it in her bag.  “Why do you even know that?”

“She told me.  She seemed kind of excited about it.”

“I can come by quick,” I said.  “My house is only a couple of streets from yours.”  I really had to practice my oboe after school.  Orchestra auditions were the next week, and everyone expected me to get first chair.  I was pretty sure I would, but I still had to learn the music and actually practice.  That’s the thing about being good at school and music and stuff.  Even though everyone expects you to succeed, and you know inside that you will, you still have to do the work to get there.  First chairs and straight A’s don’t come magically.  But I was super curious about Becca and her drill-wielding mama and the inside of that old house.  

The Jesse House is notorious in our town.  It has a historical plaque, which in and of itself is no big deal.  Half the buildings in Beet’s Cove have historical plaques, and people pretty much ignore them.  Still, the one on the Jesse House is different.  It’s worn down so the bronze actually shows through the tarnish because for decades, kids have dared each other to touch the Jesse House plaque in the middle of the night on a full moon.  I don’t know why.  The Jesse House is no creepier than any of the other super old houses around here. But Dad said that even when he was in school, touching the plaque on the Jesse House was a rite of passage. 

For years a grumpy old lady lived there.  Nobody thought she was a witch or anything stupid like that.  She was just a garden variety old lady who was maybe a little cantankerous about kids hopping her fence and trampling the flowers to touch her plaque.  Kind of rightly so for my money.  But then she died, and her kids all live down in Boston and didn’t want the house, I guess, so it was empty for years.  As the paint peeled and turned gray and some of the windows got broken, the place took on a creepier vibe.  

By the time we got to the house that afternoon the rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking out between thick clouds.  We stood in a row just outside the front gate and stared, waiting for Becca to escort us into the yard.  Light bounced off the clapboards and made the rose bushes along the fence look all sparkly. The big maples on either side of the driveway were just barely tipped with red like they were trying out autumn but hadn’t decided if they were going to commit.  A breeze blew the faint scent of smoke from someone burning brush, and pooled drops rained from the leaves, spattering a powder blue pick-up truck.

Christine slipped off her scrunchie and redid the ponytail high on her head.  “I don’t get what the big deal is with this place.  It doesn’t feel haunted at all.  It’s kind of puny.”

Next to the maples, the house really was small.   Unlike the grand houses on Main Street with their cupolas and pillars and fancy woodwork spiraling all over, the Jesse house looked like it was trying not to be noticed—like the girls who line the walls of the gymnasium during middle school dances while kids like Tracy Urban spin around the floor in sparkly tank tops.  But if you really stop and consider it, it’s super pretty just the same.

“Mama always wanted to flip a genuine Cape Cod house from the seventeen hundreds.” 

Becca made “genuine” a solid three syllable word that rhymed with turpentine.  I noticed the broken panes in the front windows had been fixed.  Already the house looked happier. “I think the haunted stuff is just urban legend,” I said.

Chris snorted.  “Podunk legend, more like.”

Becca swung open the gate.  “Oh, it’s not haunted.  I’ve lived in, like, three haunted houses.  This one’s clean.”

Andi jogged a few steps, her loaded backpack jangling when it thunked against her butt.  “Really?  How can you tell?”

Andi was relentlessly interested in any kind of life.  Even life beyond the grave.

Becca paused with her hand on the doorknob and turned.  The sun glinted off her hair in a halo of frizzy, broken strands, and her eyes were so light blue I could almost see right through them.  “Just a feeling, I guess.”  She shrugged and opened the door.