Rebecca's Rashness by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Author:Lauren Baratz-Logsted [Rashness, Rebecca's]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

EIGHT

"Have we got any more pulp in the house?" Rebecca said, sweating as she came indoors from outside, where she'd been doing something in the newly fenced-in front yard with Petal. We craned our necks around Rebecca, who was standing in the doorway. There was poor Petal behind her, spread-eagled on the lawn. We wondered what they'd been up to. We wondered if Petal was still alive.

"I said," Rebecca said testily, "have we got any more pulp in the house?"

"How should I know?" Durinda said just as testily. "I'm not your maid. Besides, it's a holiday. Why don't you go see for yourself?"

We assumed Durinda meant for her to go see if there was any more pulp in the house and not for Rebecca to go see if it was a holiday. We already knew it was a holiday, since it was in fact the Fourth of July, which we were only half celebrating since we still hadn't decided where we geographically stood on the issue.

"I'll bet if I were Zinnia and I asked for pulp, you'd get it for me in a second," Rebecca grumbled.

"Yes, I would," Durinda grumbled back, "but that's because Zinnia is sweet while you're..."

"Yes, I do know exactly what I am," Rebecca said, filling the void left by Durinda's unfinished sentence.

"Just for the record," Zinnia piped up, "I'd never ask for a glass of pulp."

"We all know that," Annie said.

"And if I did go crazy and ask for one," Zinnia went on, "I'd still have enough sanity left to also say please and thank you. Those are, after all, the magic words."

"We know that too," Annie said.

"You people make me crazier than I already am," Rebecca said, trudging off to the kitchen.

"I hope Petal's still alive," Jackie said.

"Do you see the way her little chest is heaving up and down?" Marcia observed. "I think that means she must be."

"Phew," Georgia said, "that's a relief."

We all turned to Georgia. When had she ever cared about Petal?

"What?" Georgia stared back at us, surprised and offended. "Where would I be without Petal? Why, without Petal, there'd be no one for me to call 'you little idiot.' I'd be devastated."

Of course.

Rebecca came back from the kitchen, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. A glass of raw eggs, a glass of pulp, a glass of orange-tinted battery acid—really, at this point it was anyone's guess what she'd been drinking in there.

"Well, I'm off again," she announced heartily. Then she paused, considering. "I wonder if Petal's up to continuing now..."

"That's nice of you to worry about Petal for once—" Annie started.

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm worrying about her," Rebecca corrected, "just wondering."

"Whatever the verb," Annie said, "I am curious: just what are you doing with—or perhaps I should say to —Petal out there?"

Rebecca shrugged. "If you're so curious, why don't you come watch? It's a free country, after all. Isn't that what this day is all about?"

***

We all, including the Petes, followed Rebecca out to the front yard.

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