Fine, white powder filled the air. It seemed to hang there a moment, so thick Karen and Ronnie couldn’t even see each other. It drifted down slowly, covering the carpet, the dirty clothes, Karen, Ronnie, everything.
By the time the blizzard was over, Ronnie was crying.
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” he said, tears gumming up in the white dust covering his cheeks. “We’re in so much trouble.”
Karen knew the truth of it. She wasn’t sure what the white stuff was — Coke Cane? Heroine? Mary Wanda? — but she’d seen enough Rockford Files and Starsky and Hutch to know it was something bad people fought over. Killed over.
She and her brother weren’t just in trouble. They were in danger.
Karen felt her lower lip start to tremble. Moisture pooled in her eyes.
And then someone said, “Don’t worry. Everything’ll be all right.” And Karen was shocked and relieved to realize it had been her.
Her knees trembled as she pushed herself to her feet, but she willed them to stop.
She and Ronnie had been looking after themselves for a while now. Washing their own clothes, getting themselves up for school, packing their own lunches. How was this any different? It just made their To Do list a little longer.
Clean up drugs
Fix package
Stay alive
“Don’t move,” she said, heading for the door. “And don’t get any of that white junk in your nose or mouth.”
“Where are you going?” Ronnie wailed. “Don’t leave me!”
“Geez, don’t freak out,” Karen said with all the cool, big-sister condescension she could muster. “I know what to do.”
Less than a minute later, she was back — with the vacuum cleaner.
After hooking up the long, tube-like sucky thingy, Karen used it on her brother. He whimpered and wriggled as the vacuum snorked the powder from his clothes and hair, but soon he was clean enough to go out to the front window and act as a lookout. The second he saw Cousin Rick’s dented-up Dodge Dart pull into the parking lot, he was to run and tell her. At which point, she would...
She had no idea. She just had to hope she wouldn’t need one.
It took her ten minutes to suck up all the powder. She meant to scoop it out and stuff it back in the package, but one look inside the vacuum bag told her that wouldn’t work. The whatever-it-was, once pure white, was now mixed together with gray dust bunnies and strands of long black hair.
So Karen went to the kitchen and got out the Bisquick.
As she was pressing down the last strip of tape, Ronnie called out, “He’s home! He’s home!”
Cousin Rick came through the front door two minutes later. He found Karen and Ronnie on the couch watching The Brady Bunch. On the screen, Mrs. Brady was singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
Her laryngitis was gone. It was a Christmas miracle.
Rick shrugged off his parka and let it drop to the floor. Then he walked to the TV and changed the channel to Bowling for Dollars.
“Go outside and play,” he said, plopping down between the kids. “The Big Call might come tonight, and I don’t want you two hangin’ around gettin’ me all jittery.”
“But it’s cold out,” said Karen.
“And dark,” said Ronnie.
“So?” Rick threw a glance toward Karen’s end of the couch. “Build a bonfire or something, I don’t c—... What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That. Under your eye.”
Karen brought her fingers up to her face. There was something dry and chalky caked high on her left cheek.
“Oh... that must be flour. We made Christmas cookies at school today.”
“Yeah?”
And then Cousin Rick did something he almost never did — he actually looked her in the eye.
“You bring any home?”
Karen shook her head.
“Sorry. We ate ’em all.”
Rick turned back to the TV. One of the contestants had just thrown a gutter ball.
“Well, go on, then,” he grumbled, pulling out his BIC and a pack of cigarettes. “Get outta here. I got business to take care of.”
Karen and Ronnie hopped down from the couch and went to get their coats. They didn’t complain this time.
“Karen?” Ronnie said as they roamed aimlessly around the parking lot. “What’s gonna happen?”
Karen shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You think he’ll ever find out what we did?”
Probably. Yes. Sooner or later. That’s what Karen assumed.
She looked up. It was a perfectly clear night, and the stars were bright and still. None of them shimmered or twinkled. They just hung there like holes in the big, black blanket smothering the sky.
Once upon a time, when she was a little kid like Ronnie, she used to wish on stars. She believed in Santa Claus, too. Same thing, really. Useless.
But it couldn’t hurt, could it?
She picked a star.
“He won’t notice,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay”
A door creaked open and slammed shut, and the kids turned to see Rick coming toward them with quick, purposeful strides.
He stopped beside his car.
“Finally got the call — the big one,” he said, sounding nervous but excited. “I’ll be gone for a while. Tell your mom to wait up for me. She and I are gonna go out and celebrate when I get back.”
As he ducked into the Dart, Karen noticed something tucked under his left arm.
The shoebox.
“Bye, Cousin Rick!” Karen called out. “Bye-bye!”
She and Ronnie walked out to the sidewalk to watch him drive away, waving until the taillights shrank to mere pinpricks in the distance, then faded to nothingness altogether.
Poor Mom had a terrible Christmas. Fretting. Pacing. Going downtown to fill out the missing-person report. But Karen knew she’d feel better soon. Be better soon. They all would be — Mom and Ronnie and her.
For the first time in a long time, Karen wasn’t just hoping for that. She believed.
(c)2007 by Steve Hockensmith