Secrets Of A Good Girl

“Want some Kool-Aid, Eric?” Cassidy’s mother asked, returning to the screen door. Eric nodded. “What color?”

Eric was grateful for the question. At his house, there was no Kool-Aid because his mother only bought—yuck—real juice. At the Maxwells’, a kid not only got Kool-Aid but got a choice of colors. “Purple,” he requested.

Mrs. Maxwell disappeared and Cassidy did three more shaky cartwheels before her mother came back to Eric with two glasses. “Give one to Cassidy, will you? I keep telling her to get in here and drink something because it’s too hot for that nonsense, but she won’t listen. You’re the only one she listens to.”

Even though it sounded like Mrs. Maxwell was complaining, Eric felt good. “Okay,” he said. He took both glasses.

“Cassidy saw another little girl doing cartwheels at the playground this morning when we were on the way to the supermarket,” Mrs. Maxwell explained. “Now she’s dead set on being able to do them herself, as soon as possible. I don’t know whether that kind of ambition is healthy or what.”

Eric had a feeling Mrs. Maxwell was talking more to herself than him, mostly because he didn’t get what she was talking about, but he kept standing there anyway because it would be rude to leave, and you weren’t rude to anyone’s mother.

She gazed over his head at her daughter. “Seven years old,” she continued, “and already she never does anything halfway. God knows what her father and I are in for when she gets older. Oh, sorry, Eric. I’m just babbling. The heat’s frying my brain. Go on.”

Eric followed a path of slate-blue stones to the yard. Cassidy picked herself up from where she’d just landed and bounded over to him, smiling, smiling. She hugged him around the waist, squeezing.

“Look out,” Eric said, “or I’ll spill. Drink this.”

She took a glass and drained the whole thing in one swallow. When she smiled again, her lips and few front teeth were the color of violets.

“I’ll be back later,” Eric said. “I told Sam and Brian I’d play with them before lunch.”

Cassidy’s face fell.

“I’m coming over for lunch,” Eric reminded her. “Me and my mom and dad.”

Cassidy nodded, but slowly, and her shoulders began to droop. Eric could feel her disappointment. She didn’t need to say it. But then, Cassidy never said much, to him or to anyone. Her mother had said she’d grow out of it. Eric hoped so. He’d rather hear her call him a big poopy-head for going off to play without her than to see her look so sad.

“They’re bigger,” he tried to explain. “I have to play with my other friends sometimes or else when I get to seventh grade next year, I’ll have no one to hang around with. You know what I mean?”

Cassidy just stood there, holding her empty glass.

“You wouldn’t like anything we do anyway. What you’re doing now is more fun. Keep practicing, and show me when I come back.”

Seemingly satisfied, Cassidy placed her glass carefully on the ground, pressing it into the dirt so it wouldn’t knock over. Then she ran and leaped into another cartwheel, her worst one yet. She landed on her butt and laughed. Eric laughed, too.

A short time later Eric learned that a bunch of Sam’s younger cousins were visiting, and when they began to organize a mega-hide-and-seek, Eric came back for Cassidy. Her mother waved as they hurried two houses up the street, hand in hand.

Eric would never admit it to his friends, but being with Cassidy was fun. Neither had brothers or sisters, and the summer before, when the Maxwells moved in, their parents had gotten together and instructed their kids to play. Mrs. Maxwell had seemed surprised at how well Eric coaxed shy, serious Cassidy out from her shell, and Eric was kind of surprised himself. Now, he often pretended Cassidy was his younger sister, and he reveled in the way she worshipfully tailed him everywhere he went. It was disloyal, but sometimes hanging out with his “real” friends was too much work—the way he had to act like them, wear the same kinds of clothes, make the same kinds of jokes and be careful not to say or to do anything uncool. He was usually successful, but popularity was difficult. Playing with easily impressed Cassidy was less work, and more fun.

Though he’d never admit it to anyone but Cassidy herself. If the guys asked, he was babysitting. Under duress.

The hide-and-seek game was fast and frenetic, despite the worsening heat of the afternoon. Rules were disputed, elbows were scraped, feelings were trampled upon. When mothers began to shout their lunchtime calls, the game was enthusiastically abandoned.

As the last few children scrambled their way from Sam’s yard, and Sam’s mother began to set their picnic table, Eric turned in a slow circle, searching for Cassidy.

“She’s still hiding,” he said under his breath. “She’s still hiding,” he said, louder. “Cassidy! Cassidy!”

“She must have already run home,” Sam’s mother said, opening hot dog buns.

“No,” Eric said, shaking his head. The game hadn’t officially ended. Cassidy hadn’t been found by the “It” person. And Eric knew Cassidy. He knew she’d stay right where she was until she was found. She’d stay until it was Christmas and it snowed on her head.

“Cassidy!” he called again. “Come on out! Game’s over! Time for lunch!”

No flash of red-brown hair. No breeze rustling the dandelions in the grass. Nothing.

Big-brother concern filled Eric as he continued the game, alone. He peeked around trees, looked in between the house’s corners. “Cassidy! Olly, olly, oxen free! That means come out!”

“She’s still hiding?” Sam asked around a mouth of potato chips. “What a dummy.”

“Shut up,” Eric said. He wandered into the garage, where a car underneath a huge canvas cover was parked among the clutter. Eric kicked and shoved rakes and tool-boxes. Then he looked at the car. He peeled back a corner of the cover. “Cassidy?” He pulled it all the way back to reveal a red sports car. In the back of his head, he knew it would be cool and grown-up to admire the car, but he was concentrating on the lump in the back seat.

The car windows were open, and she must have clambered in through one. Now she was balled up in the corner with her little hands covering her face. Eric opened the back door and slid in next to her. She dropped her hands and looked at him.

There was only a sliver of light coming into the garage from a narrow window near the ceiling, but it was enough to glimmer off the wetness spilling from her eyes onto her cheeks.

“You thought I forgot about you?” Eric asked.

Cassidy nodded mutely.

“See, I didn’t, did I?”

Cassidy snuffled. She wiped her nose with her bare, dirty forearm.

“If you want to be found, you have to not hide so good. You’re the best hider of everyone. I looked all over.”

Cassidy allowed a crack of a smile.

Eric wondered, What would a big brother do?

He grabbed her and tickled her. Cassidy laughed and kicked. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her from the car. He walked them back to her yard, dangling first her head, then her legs, then her head again. Cassidy squirmed and laughed more.

“There you are,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “Cassidy, say hi to Mr. and Mrs. Barnes.”

Cassidy, still upside-down under Eric’s arm, grinned at his parents and they smiled back. “Eric, be careful,” his mother said. “Don’t drop her.”

“Maybe I will,” Eric said, shifting his weight to give Cassidy a dropping feeling. She shrieked with happiness.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Maxwell said to his mother. “She’s fallen on her head about fifty-eight times today already.”

Eric set Cassidy down, right side up, on the grass. “From now on,” he said quietly, so only she could hear, “remember that even if it takes a long time, all you have to do is wait. I’ll figure out where you are and I’ll always come to get you.”

Cassidy tugged on his hands until he brought his face near hers. Then she bumped her forehead onto his, once, twice.

Then she leaped away from him, launched herself into the air and turned a perfect cartwheel, her toes pointing straight up to the sky.

Chapter One

October 2005