The Zebra Wall by Kevin Henkes

Author:Kevin Henkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

9

The Blouse

When Aunt Irene’s presence wasn’t commanding all of Adine’s attention, thinking of a name for Baby and deciding how to decorate the nursery consumed her thoughts. Everyone else’s, too. If they weren’t going to keep the F wall, Adine thought that all the walls in the nursery would look best painted one solid, peaceful color. Light peach or yellowish. Soft and creamy like butter, as if the walls would melt if you happened to bump into them. But Adine was especially determined to come up with a suitable name for her brother. Mrs. Vorlob still hadn’t decided what letter Baby’s name should begin with, so Adine just tried to think of nice-sounding names, regardless of how they were spelled. She searched everywhere—in books, the telephone directory, the newspaper, even in the pantry (where she discovered two distinct possibilities: Campbell—from the cans of soup, and Duncan—from a cake mix), and under the bathroom sink (where she momentarily considered Lysol as a name, before dismissing the idea as being ridiculous).

Holding Baby, Adine whispered name after name in his ear, hoping he’d somehow respond favorably to one of them—with a turn of the head, a flutter of his thin lilac eyelids, a pucker of agreement on his lips. But time after time he gave no sign to indicate a preference.

When she was alone with Baby, Adine pretended that she was his mother. She imagined herself in a smart red dress (like the picture in the Sears catalogue she had torn out and kept folded in her underwear drawer), strolling with Baby in the outlet mall near the interstate. People would stop her to steal a look at her child, saying: “What a gorgeous baby!” and “I’ve never seen a more beautiful child.” Adine would blush. “Thank you,” she’d say, covering her baby and hurrying on.

Denise Gackstetter and her mother came to visit. The Gackstetters lived down the block and around the corner. Denise and Adine were in the same class. Whenever anyone asked Adine, she would say that Denise was her best friend. Last year, in school, they sat side by side in the back of the room because their teacher, Mr. Pavilonis, said that they were well behaved and didn’t act up like Gary Wilker and Mary Rose Wampole, who sat in the front. They both were bashful—sometimes with each other—and their time spent together was often quiet. Reading books on the porch, doing homework at each other’s houses during the school year, riding bikes, drawing.

Aunt Irene said that Denise and her parents were “artsy-fartsy.” Denise was good in art, but Adine knew that that wasn’t what Aunt Irene was referring to. Adine couldn’t quite pinpoint what “artsy-fartsy” meant, but Adine guessed it had something to do with the fact that Denise’s mother had a colored streak in her hair, which she periodically changed from orange to pink to blue, and that Denise’s father wore a small gold earring in one of his ears. Denise had pierced ears, too. Three holes in one ear, two in the other, always filled by tiny silver hoops.

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.