Chapter 7 Jill
Jill
Jill didn’t realize her mom was in the laundry room until her fingers curled around the cool metal of the refrigerator handle.
The laundry room was steps away from the fridge, and Jill snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned.
Her mother slammed the dryer door closed, straightened, and pinned Jill with a glare.
“Where’s your brother?” It was just past nine in the morning and Natalie’s voice was already edged with anger. “There isn’t
a drop of water in the dog dish. Why do we pay you kids an allowance when you never do your jobs?”
“He’s downstairs,” said Jill.
“Listening to music, with his door closed, I suppose?”
Jill nodded.
Her mother released one of her weighted sighs and picked up the water bowl. “I have to do everything around here. Absolutely
everything. But not today. Today, you and J.J. are helping me with yard work. Go get dressed.”
Jill let out a moan of complaint, but it was half-hearted. There was no use arguing when her mom got that Cruella de Vil look
in her eye, so she trudged down the hall to her room and pulled on shorts and a striped T-shirt that used to be J.J.’s.
In the bathroom she shared with Justin, she gazed at herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth.
She saw a girl in a seriously ugly shirt.
Not only were the colors hideous—brown, yellow, and orange—but it was too short for her.
The bottom hem sat just above the waistline of her shorts, which meant her skin would be exposed every time she moved.
I’m going to ruin you, Jill thought, testing the thickness of the fabric with her fingernail.
Yard work meant sharp tools. Clippers, hand rakes, weeders. All she had to do was make a big enough hole, and her mom would
finally let her throw it out.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she heard raised voices from downstairs. Her mom was yelling at J.J., and he was yelling right
back.
Jill stood at the top of the spiral staircase, listening. She was relieved that her brother was in trouble instead of her.
Jill felt like she was always in trouble. Always disappointing her mom.
The list of Jill’s faults was long. Her hair was always tangled. She didn’t chew with her mouth closed, use good posture,
or wait her turn to talk. She didn’t sit like a lady, speak like a lady, or eat like a lady. She had a terrible sweet tooth,
which was why she was on the chubby side. She ate unhealthy snacks in her room in between meals. She pouted when she didn’t
get her way. She wasn’t good at math. When cornered, she lied.
Downstairs, her brother shouted, “I’m not going!” and slammed his bedroom door.
“Wait until your father hears about this!” her mother threatened before screeching, “Jill! What’s taking you so long?”
Jill hurried down the winding stairs and followed her mother into the garage.
“We need gloves, clippers, a rake, a shovel, and garbage bags.”
Jill began gathering the tools, but stopped when her mom lowered the tailgate of the station wagon. The rear cargo area was completely stuffed with flats of colorful flowers. “Where are we going?”
“To the house I’m selling.”
Jill shot a sideways glance at her mom. There’d been something unfamiliar about her tone. There was a lightness to it. She
sounded almost . . . happy.
“Mr. and Mrs. McCreedy’s house?”
“That’s right. Put the tools on the floor behind your seat,” she said, slamming the tailgate. “There isn’t any room back here.”
As they drove up Tidewater Terrace and rounded the first of three bends in the road, Jill glanced at Heather Anderson’s house,
hoping to catch sight of her best friend, but guessing she wouldn’t.
There was no reason for Heather to be outside this early on a Saturday morning. Heather was probably still in her pajamas,
eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries on the sofa while watching cartoons.
The last time Jill slept over, she’d filled her cereal bowl to the brim with the sugary cereal. She’d picked out all the red
spherical Crunch Berries first, crushing each one between her molars, the sweet flavor flowing over her tongue and coating
her gums. Next, she’d eaten the rectangular cereal pieces. They scratched the roof of her mouth like sandpaper, but she didn’t
care. The only cereal her mother bought was Raisin Bran or Grape-Nuts. Raisin Bran was okay because of the raisins, but the
flakes got so soggy by the end that Jill didn’t want to put them in her mouth. And Grape-Nuts was totally disgusting. It was
like eating twigs and acorn caps.
“It’s good for you,” her mother always said when she caught Jill grimacing.
Heather wasn’t forced to eat Grape-Nuts.
Her pantry was always stocked with tasty cereals like Cap’n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, or Apple Jacks.
Heather’s mom let her have soda with dinner and ice cream for dessert.
She never told Heather she needed to watch what she ate or that boys didn’t ask fat girls out for dates.
Jill’s mother always asked what Heather’s mom had given her to eat, and Jill always lied. If her mother knew she’d had a TV
dinner followed by an ice cream sundae on Friday night and sugar cereal for breakfast the next morning, she’d never let Jill
sleep over at Heather’s again.
As if reading her mind, her mother frowned at the Andersons’ crooked mailbox. “Why don’t you ever ask Heather to stay over
at our house? She owns a sleeping bag, doesn’t she?”
Jill tightened her jaw. She couldn’t let her mother see how important it was to have Heather’s house as a refuge. Spending
the night there was like going on vacation. She could eat whatever she wanted. She and Heather could watch whatever they wanted
on TV. No one told them when to go to bed or when to get up in the morning. No one told them to brush their teeth or put their
plates in the dishwasher.
Jill was a different person at Heather’s house. She was more relaxed. She laughed all the time. She didn’t have to worry about
being loud. She could say she was hungry without feeling like a pig.
She couldn’t let her mother take the Andersons away from her, which meant she had to pretend that she didn’t cherish every
minute she spent with them.
Shrugging one shoulder, she said, “It’s easier for me to go to her house because she has two beds in her room.”
Her mother arched her brows. “Is that the only reason?”
Jill knew she had to throw her mom a bone. She had to tell her something to make their family seem better than the Andersons.
“Heather and I get to pick the movie we want to watch,” she admitted. “Erik doesn’t have to agree because he has a TV in his
room now.”
“That explains why he barely passed the tenth grade,” her mother muttered. “Kids shouldn’t have TVs in their bedrooms. It’s
ridiculous.”
Knowing she had to let her mom have the last word, Jill stayed silent for the rest of the short car ride.
Her mother pulled into the driveway of a lettuce-green ranch house Jill had ridden past on her bike a hundred times. All the
kids took the dirt path connecting Tidewater Terrace to Idle Day Drive on their way to the hobby shop or pizza place. The
McCreedys’ dogs always barked at them, their lips curling back into nasty snarls as they pushed their snotty muzzles through
the fence rails.
Sometimes, Mr. McCreedy would whip his door open to see what had set his dogs off. He’d stand on the stoop in a pair of velour
sweatpants and a dingy white undershirt that never covered the full mound of his hairy stomach, and he’d glare at the kids.
Mrs. McCreedy hardly ever went outside. She was a droopy-faced woman who wore shapeless housedresses and a head full of pink
rollers. She never said a word to the kids. She just flicked the ash from her cigarette in their direction, watching them
through slitted eyes.
Jill had written a story in which Mrs. McCreedy was really Medusa in disguise. It had been a huge hit on the school bus.
“We’re going to improve the curb appeal of this place,” Jill’s mom said as she turned off the engine. “I’ll plant flowers
in front, and you’ll weed in the back.”
“Where are the McCreedys?”
“In Florida for the summer, thank God. Their miserable dogs are gone, too, so there’s nothing to stop us from getting some real work done today. Put all the petunias next to the mailbox. I’ll get the other flowers.”
While Jill lined up pots of pink and violet petunias on the grass near the mailbox post, her mom unloaded two terra-cotta
planters. After carrying the planters to the front door, she went back to the car to collect the flat of red geraniums, white
lobelias, and asparagus ferns. She was humming to herself as she pulled on her garden gloves. Jill paused to listen, wondering
if she recognized the tune.
Her mom made a shooing motion. “Get a move on. We have a lot to do.”
Jill walked around the side of the house to the scraggly backyard and looked around. There wasn’t much of a lawn. The grass
was green in a few places, but for the most part, large patches of brown bordered garden beds overrun by weeds.
Directly behind the house was a dirty brick patio surrounded by sickly looking bushes. A wooden fence marched along the entire
length of the property. It bulged in places where the trees from Mrs. Smith’s woods leaned heavily against its rails. Vines
streamed down from the trees and poured over the fence. Jill could see dozens of thin tendrils stretching across the McCreedys’
sparse grass.
She recognized the vines. Her parents had taught her everything they knew about plants. She knew how to sow, water, and feed
vegetables and flowers. She also knew how to prune bushes and kill weeds.
There was a ton of killing to do in the McCreedys’ yard.
Jill gazed at the trees behind the fence. The ropes of oriental bittersweet coiling around the trunks were python thick. Their
foliage was so dense that she couldn’t see any farther into the woods. There was nothing but green leaves and shadow.