Page 21 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

She’d also never seen Chrissie in such a state of worry—which was saying a lot, because Chrissie worried abouteverything.

At the ripe old age of ten, Scarlett’s worries revolved mostly around how to score an audition to become a cast member ofEven Stevens(she’d already written Shia LaBeouf eighteen letters, but he never answered), whether or not she could continue using her now-in-remission cancer as an excuse to get out of math class (outlook not so good), and what monstrosity her grandmother was making for dinner (she’d recently decided that going full vegan was the best way to keep Scarlett living until the even riper old age of eleven).

Chrissie, however, worried about Real Life. It wasn’t enough for her to practice the piano for eleventy billion hours every day or to always eat everything Scarlett’s grandma put in front of her, as if fish cakes made of seaweed and tofu were real food. Somewhere along the way, she’d decided that breaking into your own house in the full light of day would send them both to jail until they were grown-ups.

“All you have to do is give me a boost, and I know I can make it inside that window,” Scarlett said as she stood peering up at the exterior bathroom wall. The small, square window was the only open one they could see, and since they’d already checked all the rocks in hopes of finding a fake key, it was also the only way inside. “Just make a little table with your hands. It’ll be super easy.”

Chrissie didn’t make a little table. She didn’t even try.

“We should go back to your apartment,” Chrissie said. “I changed my mind. We’re not supposed to be here.”

She moved toward the bikes they’d parked on the side of the house. They hadn’t even had to hide them. Chrissie’s house was in Dunthorpe, one of those neighborhoods with houses so big you couldn’t see who lived next door. There were tall bushes and fences and even a working fountain that kept trickling so loud it was making Scarlett have to pee.

Her own apartment, where the only fountain was the kitchen sink that drip-dripped all night long, was in Sellwood—close enough to bike, but only if they did part of it on the highway, which was why this trip was secret.

Andimportant.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Scarlett pushed up her sleeves and looked around until she landed on a pretty white garden bench made of scrolling bits of metal. “And neither are you. We came here to get Mr. Bunny, and we’re not leaving without him. Help me push that bench over.”

“But I’m supposed to be too old for stuffed animals,” Chrissie protested. She tried grabbing Scarlett by the hand and dragging her away, but Scarlett was too strong for her. It was funny, when you thought about it. At ten years of age, Chrissie was six inches taller than she was and had never had any illnesses except for normal colds, but she was the most fragile person Scarlett had ever met. A strong wind could blow her over.

That, or a mean word. Those seemed to knock her down all the time.

“My mom’s right,” Chrissie said, almost tearful now. “I have to learn to live without him. Only babies need a crutch to fall asleep.”

Scarlett pulled a gagging face. That was her usual reaction whenever Chrissie repeated one of the ten bazillion rules her mom and dad made. Grandma always reacted that way, too. Her face didn’t gag, but it did get all pinched and mad. The only time Scarletteversaw Grandma get angry was when Chrissie talked about her parents.

Not that Grandma said anything to Chrissie about it, of course. She just gave Chrissie extra hugs and cookies—the secret, nonvegan ones she kept hidden in her bedroom—before taking her mad, pinched face to church-basement bingo to blow off some steam.

“Your mom isn’t here, so she doesn’t get to tell you what to do,” Scarlett said as she stomped over to the bench and tried pushing. The metal weighed a ton, so she didn’t get very far. “C’mon, Chrissie. You can’t go two whole weeks without Mr. Bunny. He’ll get lonely in that big, empty house all by himself.”

That seemed to do the trick—just like Scarlett knew it would, even though she’d never been inside Chrissie’s house before. Chrissie never said exactlywhyshe wasn’t allowed to have friends over, but she did say that she could sometimes hear ghosts in the walls, begging to be let out.

That might not have sounded like much to anyone else, but Scarlett had lived almost her entire life in the apartment with Grandma, and she’d never heard anything even a little bit like a ghost. She heard toilets and cars and sirens. She heard babies crying and people shouting and the lady next door singing her kids to sleep. Even in the hospital, there’d always been beeps and squeaks and the hushed voices of nurses as they went about their business.

In order for it to be quiet enough to hear a ghost, well…it would have to beveryquiet.

“Okay, but we’re only popping in to grab Mr. Bunny. You can’t snoop around or anything.” Chrissie lifted her side of the bench and started to drag it over the decorative rocks. “I’m serious, Scarlett. I know you. You’re gonna want to touch everything.”

“I’m not!” Scarlett protested, but Chrissie was right, as usual.

The moment Scarlett slid through the bathroom window, her feet landing on the softest, whitest bath mat she’d ever seen, her fingers itched to skim over every available surface. The marble tiles, the shiny gold faucets, the way the little hand soap in the dish was shaped like a seashell—it was like something out of a magazine.

Since Scarlett’s job was to slip to the back door and let Chrissie in that way, she got a chance to see the rest of the house just as up close and personal. Mindful of Chrissie’s warning, she didn’t snoop, but she did let her fingers trail over the wispy cream-colored curtains and the heavy-hanging paintings of things like old houses and even older castles. It wasn’t until she opened the door and let Chrissie in that she realized she hadn’t seen a single picture that didn’t look like it belonged in a museum. Her own apartment had nothing but plastic-framed photographs and the silly macaroni art she’d made in the hospital years ago, which Grandma refused to throw away no matter how much Scarlett begged.

“Did you touch anything?” Chrissie asked, her face white with worry. “Because I know it seems like no one will notice, but—”

“I didn’t,” Scarlett promised, her fingers crossed behind her back. “Not really.”

Chrissie narrowed her eyes as if able to see right through Scarlett’s skin and bones. “If my parents know we broke in, they’ll never let me stay at your house when they go on vacation again,” she warned.

This was too much for Scarlett. She might have been terrible at math (it is decidedly so), and her grades at school were “understandable considering her developmental years,” but she was no fool. She was also the kind of person who said the first thing that came to her mind.

Aspitfire, they’d called her at the hospital. Amenace, they called her at school.The most daring girl I know, Chrissie said—and that was the one Scarlett liked best.

“Yes, they will,” Scarlett said. “They have to. They don’t have anyone else to watch you, and we both know they’d never go on a vacation where they have to take you with them. That would mean they’d have to think about someone other than themselves for once.”

She turned on her heel and started to walk through the house, this time letting her fingers land anywhere she wanted. She almost knocked over a huge blue-and-white vase holding a bunch of pussy willow branches, but she managed to catch it just in time. When she looked back to see if Chrissie had noticed, her friend was still standing by the back door, her face screwed up as if trying not to cry.