At Home in the Land of Oz Autism My Sister and Me by Anne Clinard Barnhill

Author:Anne Clinard Barnhill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

I found him quickly near the African Queen room.

“Becky’s in the Gone with the Wind exhibit,” I told him quietly. “She won’t come out.” I led him to where I’d been calling her. He bent down.

“Is she still there?” I whispered.

“Yep. Flipping Rhett Butler like there’s no tomorrow,” he said. He squatted down low and so did I. I could see Becky’s feet dancing around the dummy.

“Becky! Come out of there!” my father said in a steely voice.

Becky looked around the room as if she didn’t know where that voice was coming from. Maybe something about the way my father spoke sounded different from his usual voice. Becky looked as if she thought God or something, was calling her. She froze for a minute, then resumed flipping.

“Becky, if you don’t come out of there right this minute, you aren’t getting any ice cream for dessert. We’re going out for cones and you won’t get any if you don’t come out right now!” he said. Becky had finally learned to like ice cream at Amos Cottage, thanks to Mama Clark. It had become one of her favorite foods.

I could hear her inside, mulling over what he’d said.

“Can the Becky have ice cream? Will her father give her some ice cream?

Does she like chocolate?” Soon, the tap, tap, tap of her feet grew closer and she ducked under the wall right next to us. My father grabbed her wrist real fast while I turned to find Mom.

“That’s a good girl. You came right out when I told you to. Now, you can have some ice cream,” my father said. He tried to cuddle her for a minute, but she squirmed out of his embrace.

We stopped at one of the zillion Dairy Queens along the way back to the trailer and slurped chocolate cones, like thousands of other visitors to Expo.

The four of us, worn out, were ready to grill hotdogs and flop into our beds so we could hit the Fair again early the next day.

By Wednesday, we were exhausted from the dawn to dusk sightseeing.

That morning, I awoke to the sounds of rain hitting the tin roof. Inside, the trailer was unusually dark and when I peeked out the small window slat, clouds hid the sun and everything looked gray. Instead of my father’s usual wakeup call, I heard gentle snores from both my parents behind the curtains that separated their double bed from the rest of the trailer. Becky was sprawled on her mattress situated directly beneath my bunk. Her bed served double duty; at night, the table and seats spread out to make a single cot; during the day, we reconstructed the table for eating our meals. On nice days, we ate outside at the picnic table centered in our campsite, but on days like this one, the indoor table was a luxury we weren’t used to having. Back in our tenting days, we’d learned to eat, cook, and live in the rain.

I looked down at Becky, her small arms and legs flung in every direction.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.