The Stepsister (3 page)

“How about a toast?” she said, pouring some Coke into her glass, trying to forget about the unpleasantness upstairs and get into a party mood. She passed the big Coke bottle to Jessie.

“Do you have any diet soda?” Jessie asked Mrs. Wallner. “This is just too fattening.”

Mrs. Wallner gave Jessie a look of surprise. “Don't tell me you worry about your weight, Jessie. If you got any skinnier, we wouldn't be able to see you!”

Mr. Wallner laughed loudly. “Jessie worries about
everything,” he said, shaking his head. He turned to Rich at the end of the table. Rich hadn't said a word. “How ya doin', pal?” Mr. Wallner called down to him.

“Okay,” Rich said with a shrug.

“Why don't you put that book down and have some cake,” Mr. Wallner suggested.

“Okay,” Rich said, closing his book.

“Do you want ice cream with your cake?” Emily's mom asked.

Rich muttered something.

“Speak up, Rich. Your words are falling right into your lap,” Mr. Wallner said.

“Yes. Ice cream, please,” Rich replied, louder. His voice cracked on the word
please.

Mr. Wallner laughed at him. “You sound like a boy soprano!” he said.

Rich turned bright red and lowered his eyes.

“Stop picking on him, Daddy,” Jessie said sharply.

“I'm not picking on him. I just made a joke,” Mr. Wallner said, stuffing a big forkful of the vanilla cake into his mouth and washing it down with a long swallow of coffee from his cup.

“Some joke,” Rich muttered, still not raising his eyes.

“What did you say? Are you muttering again?”

“Give him a break, Daddy,” Jessie insisted shrilly.

Rich pushed his chair back with a loud squeal and stood up awkwardly. “Can I just go upstairs and read?” He didn't wait for an answer. He picked up the Stephen King book and, without looking at any of them, hurried out of the room.

“Hey—what did
I
do?” Mr. Wallner asked, throwing up his hands, suddenly sounding very childish.

“You're always embarrassing him, Daddy,” Jessie said, frowning.

“I didn't mean to,” he replied with a mouthful of cake. “I'll go upstairs and apologize after I finish my cake. This
is
supposed to be a party, after all.”

“Should he be reading a book like that?” Emily's mom asked, sounding concerned.
“Pet Sematary
is supposed to be pretty gruesome, isn't it?”

“He loves Stephen King,” Jessie told her.

“He's a real bookworm,” Mr. Wallner said, pouring more coffee into his cup. “Not like his old dad. I don't think I've picked up a book since high school.”

Emily glanced over at Nancy, who returned her look. Both girls were thinking the same thing: That's nothing to brag about. Both girls were also thinking how different Mr. Wallner was from their father.

Emily looked at him, sitting at the table in his oversize, yellow sleeveless T-shirt and baggy, brown slacks with their attached elastic belt, and thought of how well dressed her father had always been. Dan Casey had been a pediatrician. He had always worn dark, serious suits with starched white shirts and conservative ties. He had been very young-looking—he had barely looked older than his twenties—and dressed to make himself look older so that the parents who brought their children to him would feel more confident.

Her father, Emily remembered, had read two or three books a week, books of all kinds, which he liked to discuss with his two daughters. He would never
have bragged about not having picked up a book in years.

How could Mom have married someone so different from Daddy? Emily asked herself. Mr. Wallner was a manager in a furniture factory. He didn't even wear a tie to work!

Mom had been so lonely, Emily thought. Maybe she just settled.

She tried not to think about that terrible day on the lake. But she couldn't keep the memories away. It was as if they had a life of their own. Emily could be in school, taking an exam, or at a movie, or on a date, or sitting at the dining-room table as she was now, and the memories would flood back to her, forcing her to relive the horror again . . . and again.

Her dad had loved to camp out. The whole family did. Sometimes they wouldn't even wait for the warm weather to come. They'd load the station wagon with equipment and drive off to a state park or a nearby forest area and spend the weekend roughing it in the bright blue canvas tents Mr. Casey kept in the garage.

That weekend they'd been camping on Fear Island, the small, uninhabited, wooded island in the center of the lake across from the Fear Street woods. The weather was exhilaratingly brisk, to say the least. A strong gusting wind made the normally calm lake waters toss and tumble into white, frothy waves.

The tents flapped noisily in the wind. It was hard to get the campfire lit, and once lit the flames darted out in all directions, pushed by the shifting winds.

The air smelled so piney and fresh. Even Nancy, who had to be dragged along because she had to cancel
a date with Josh, was cheered by the beauty of the woods, the excitement of being the only people for miles around.

Why had Emily and her father been in the powerboat?

Her memories of that terrible day were so vivid. But for some reason she couldn't remember getting into the boat, couldn't remember where they were headed, why they had decided to battle the choppy, wind-tossed waters.

Maybe that was the reason. Maybe Emily and her dad had just wanted to challenge the wind, challenge the rolling, dark waves. Maybe they had done it for the excitement. It wouldn't have been the first time.

She remembered Nancy and her mom waving to them from the wooded shore. She remembered them as tiny, light figures against the dark, bending trees. She remembered the roar of the small outboard motor, the bobbing of the boat, the funny weak feeling in her knees. And she remembered how cold it was, the wet spray on her face, her dark hair so wet, flying back against her shoulders, flying in the wind.

She turned to see her father, who smiled at her, his hand on the control. Drops of water trickled down the front of his blue down vest. She could see them so clearly. The outboard motor roared. The little boat seemed to fly over the tumultuous waters. It was such a wonderful feeling. The two of them were enjoying it so much.

It all turned to horror so quickly.

Emily was handing the thermos to her dad. The hot
coffee had tasted delicious. Her hand was wet. The thermos slid away from her, into the water.

Without thinking, her dad reached for it.

The wind came up, such a strong, sudden wind.

It felt as if the world were turning upside down.

It took a few seconds for Emily to realize that the boat was capsizing.

The frozen water didn't make it any more real. It was all like a dream, a strange, frightening dream.

She remembered thinking, This can't really be happening.

She went under. Forcing herself back up to the surface gave her time to realize what was happening.

“Daddy! Daddy—where are you?”

A wave slapped her hard. She started to choke.

The overturned boat bobbed a few yards away. She swam for it, was pushed back, swam harder, still sputtering.

“Daddy—where are you?”

She grabbed the boat. It was so slippery, but somehow she managed to hold on. Another gust of wind sent the waters high. She gripped the boat bottom with both hands.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Where was he?

She turned and looked behind her. She looked all around.

Was he swimming back toward the island?

It was a low, dark line against the gray sky.

“Daddy? Where are you, Daddy?”

He wouldn't swim away and leave her.

The island was too far to swim to, especially against the current.

Where was he?

She remembered the panic. It filled her chest, made it hard to breathe.

The panic spread over her entire body, froze her there, clinging hard to the overturned boat.

It seemed like hours.

It must have been only seconds.

And then she saw him.

He floated slowly past her, face down, his light brown hair floating on the surface of the water like seaweed.

Gone Forever

“I
've got to get off the phone, Josh. Mom's calling me down for dinner.” Emily twisted her fingers in the white phone cord. She had been lying on her back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, but now she pulled herself up and prepared to hang up the phone.

“Yeah. Okay. Come over later,” she said, hearing water running in the bathroom and figuring it must be Jessie. “But give me time to finish writing my report. I've got about another hour to go on it.”

Josh had already finished the paper he was working on, of course. Mister Super-Speed. If he didn't finish an assignment two or three days early, he thought he was slipping. It drove Emily crazy. She was a hard worker, but she always had to work right down to the last minute.

“Yeah, it's going pretty well with Jessie,” she said, lowering her voice. “I really can't talk now. She's right across the hall in the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. We
haven't really talked much. She's been so busy getting used to a new school and everything. She's still real tense. I don't know if it's me or what.”

“It's definitely you,” Josh said, and then laughed, his silly, high-pitched laugh.

“Maybe she's just a tense person,” Emily said, ignoring his joke. “Well, see you later. Come after nine, okay?”

She stood up and replaced the receiver, tried to straighten her hair, frowning into the full-length mirror on the closet door, and then hurried downstairs to the dining room. Jessie has barely said five words to me in the three days she's been here, she thought. Emily couldn't help but feel disappointed. She had looked forward to having a new sister. But so far she and Jessie were just two strangers who happened to share a room.

“Sorry, I'm late,” she said, scooting into her place. Mr. Wallner was already half finished with his plate of macaroni. He always sat down and started to eat whether anyone was at the table or not.

Across from him Nancy yawned loudly. “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I was up studying till nearly two last night.”

“You really are working hard this year,” Mrs. Wallner said, passing the bowl of macaroni to Emily.

“You should get your beauty sleep,” Mr. Wallner said. It must have been meant as a joke, because he stopped chewing for a moment to laugh. He looked disappointed that no one else at the table saw the humor of it. “Pass the salt and pepper,” he muttered.

“Is it too bland?” Mrs. Wallner asked.

“No. It's fine,” he replied, using both hands to cover his food with salt and pepper at the same time.

Rich, silent as usual, sat staring into his plate, occasionally lifting a macaroni noodle or two to his mouth.

“Where's Jessie?” Nancy asked.

“I think she's upstairs in the bathroom,” Emily said, reaching for the salad bowl.

“Did you brush your hair today?” Mrs. Wallner asked, making a disapproving face at Emily.

“I have to wash it tonight,” Emily said, annoyed. Her mother knew she didn't like to talk about her hair.

“Come on, Rich. Dig into that macaroni,” Mr. Wallner said, pouring more pepper on his. “It's delicious.”

“I'm not very hungry,” Rich said sullenly.

“You're never hungry,” Mr. Wallner grumbled. “That's why you
look
like a macaroni noodle.”

“Hey, why are you always putting me down?” Rich shouted, immediately angry.

“I wasn't putting you down. That was a compliment,” Mr. Wallner said, smiling at Rich.

“You can shove your compliments!” Rich cried, angrily tossing his fork down onto his plate and storming out of the room.

“Hey, come back here,” Mr. Wallner called after him, startled and obviously upset. “I was just teasing you!” He turned to Emily's mother. “What's with that kid?”

“Thirteen is a really hard age,” Mrs. Wallner said, suddenly looking very tired.

“I'll make it a lot
harder
for him,” Mr. Wallner said. But it wasn't a threat. Everyone could see that he was very upset by Rich's angry reaction. He reached for the salad bowl and piled a heap of lettuce on his plate. “I'm getting sick and tired of him running away anytime anybody says anything to him.”

“He's very sensitive,” Mrs. Wallner said softly.

“Don't defend him.”

“I wasn't defending him. I was just explaining—”

“Well, don't explain either.” Mr. Wallner angrily forked lettuce into his mouth.

“Sorry I'm late. I got hung up,” Jessie said, hurrying into the room. Her blond hair sparkled under the dining-room lights. She was wearing gray wool slacks and a long, pale green sweater.