Whatever by Ann Walsh

Author:Ann Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ronsdale Press
Published: 2013-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

I SPENT MONDAY worrying about what I was going to say to Mrs. Johnson when I saw her after school. Or if I was going to say anything. Should I pretend I hadn’t found her cache of glasses? What was the point in telling her I knew? I still had to spend more than thirty hours helping her before I’d finished my sanctions, and she could make those hours miserable. Sure, the potatoes had been dug up, so I wouldn’t be freezing my fingers in the garden, but what if she decided I had to scrub the toilet or wash the kitchen floor? So far I’d escaped doing any housework except washing up the cooking dishes, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I took the bus. Mom had decided it was cheaper for me to use my student bus pass than for her to drive me to Mrs. J.’s twice a week. She’d whined about the price of gas, then hopped in the car to drive a few blocks to her gym! Typical Mom action.

I was on the bus when I came to a conclusion: I wouldn’t mention the hidden glasses, or that I knew that Mrs. Johnson was going blind. There was no point.

So it was a bit of a shock when the first thing out of my mouth after “Hi, I’m here,” was “I figured it out.”

She didn’t even ask me what I’d figured out. “I thought you might have,” she said. “Looking for the tea strainer, you opened the wrong drawer, right?” She gestured at the teapot. “Help yourself, it’s blueberry.”

“Blueberries are supposed to be good for macular degeneration.” I’d read that yesterday.

“Oh, you’ve even decided what’s wrong with my eyes. How’d you do that?”

I poured myself some tea and slid onto the bench beside the table. “I asked Doctor Google.”

“Of course. The computer.”

I nodded, and didn’t say anything for a while. “Why’d you lie about losing your glasses?” I finally blurted out.

She reached for the teapot and refilled her cup. This time I noticed how she looped a finger over the brim of her mug so she knew when the tea had reached the top, and she could stop pouring before it overflowed. We both sipped in silence. “Glasses aren’t doing me any good anymore,” she said at last. “My eyes are getting worse.”

“But I don’t understand why you lied instead of just telling people you are going . . .” I caught myself before I finished the sentence.

She sighed. “I’ve lived in this house for nearly fifty years. My husband and I bought it before our children came, fixed it up, got the garden going. The house wasn’t finished when we moved in; it needed a lot of work. We had tarpaper siding and windows made of plastic for the first while. But we finally got everything done and paid for.” She ran a hand over the counter beside her. “My husband installed this new counter-top just before he got sick. One of the last things he did.

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