"One good thing about this room, we don't have to visit dentists twice a year." He gave me a funny look. "And another nice thing is to have so much time! We'll complete our Monopoly tournament. The champion player has to wash everyone's underwear in the bathtub."
Boy, he was all for that. He hated bending over the tub, kneeling on the hard tile, doing his wash and Cory's.
We set up the game, and counted out the money, and looked around for the twins. Both had
disappeared! Where was there to go but up in the attic? They'd never go there without us, and the bathroom was empty. Then we heard some small twittering noises behind the TV set.
There they were, crouched in the corner in back of the set, sitting and waiting for the tiny people inside to come out. "We thought maybe Momma was in there," explained Carrie.
"I think I'll go up in the attic and dance," I said, getting up from the bed and moving toward the closet.
"Cathy! What about our tournament Monopoly game?" Pausing, I half-turned. "Oh, you'd only win. Forget the tournament."
"Coward!" he taunted now, the same as he used to. "Come on, let's play." He looked long and hard at the twins, who always acted as our bankers. "And no cheating this time," he warned sternly, "if I catch one of you slipping Cathy money when you think I'm not looking--then I'll eat every one of those four doughnuts myself!"
I'll be darned if he would! The doughnuts were the best part of our meals, and saved for nighttime dessert. I threw myself down on the floor, crossed my legs, and busied my brain with clever ways in which I could get to buy the best property first, and the railroads, and the utilities, and I'd get my red houses up first, then the hotels. He'd see who was good at doing something better than him
For hours and hours we pla
yed, stopping only to eat meals or go to the bathroom. When the twins grew tired of playing bankers, we counted out the money ourselves, closely watching each other to see if any cheating was going on. And Chris kept landing up in jail, and had to miss out on passing Go and collecting two hundred dollars, and the Community Chest made him give, and he had to pay inheritance tax . . . and still he won!
Late in August Chris came to me one night and whispered in my ear, "The twins are sound asleep. And it's so hot in here. Wouldn't it be just great if we could go for a swim?"
"Go away--leave me alone--you know we can't go swimming" I was, of course, still sulky from always losing at Monopoly.
Swimming, what an idiotic idea. Even if we could, I didn't want to do anything in which he excelled, like swimming "And just where are we going to swim? In the bathtub?"
"In the lake Momma told us about. It's not far from here," he whispered. "We ought to practice reaching the ground with that rope we made, anyway, just in case there's a fire. We're stronger now. We can reach the ground easily, and we won't be gone long." On and on he pleaded, as if his very existence depended on escaping this house just once--just to prove that we could.
"The twins might wake up and find us gone."
"We'll leave a note on the bathroom door, telling them we're up in the attic. And besides, they never wake up until morning, not even to go to the bathroom."
He argued, and pleaded until I was won over. Up into the attic we went, and out onto the roof where he fastened the sheet- ladder securely to the chimney closest to the back side of the house. There were eight chimneys on the roof.
Testing the knots one by one, Chris gave me instructions: "Use the large knots as a ladder rung. Keep your hands just above the higher knot. Go down slowly, feeling with your feet for the next knot--and be sure to keep the rope twisted between your legs, so you can't slip and fall."
Smiling with confidence, he held to the rope and inched his way to the very edge of the roof. We were going down to the ground for the first time in more than two years.
A Taste of Heaven
.
Slowly, carefully, hand under hand, and foot under foot, Chris descended to the ground while I lay flat on my stomach near the roof's edge watching his
descent. The moon was out and shining brightly as he lifted his hand and waved: his signal to send me on my way. I had watched the way he handled himself, so I could duplicate his method. I told myself it was no different from swinging on the ropes tied to the attic rafters. The knots were big and strong, and we had judiciously made them about four and a half feet apart. He had told me not to look down once I left the roof, just to concentrate on notching one foot securely on a lower knot before I reached with my other foot to find an even lower knot. In less than ten minutes, I was standing on the ground next to Chris.
"Wow!" he whispered, hugging me close. "You did that better than me!"
We were in the back gardens of Foxworth Hall, where all the rooms were dark, though in the servants' quarters over the huge garage every window was brightly yellow. "Lead on, MacDuff, to the swimming hole," I said in a low voice, "if you know the way."
Sure, he knew the way. Momma had told us how she and her brothers used to steal away and go swimming with their friends.
He caught my hand as we tiptoed away from the huge house. It felt so strange to be outside, on the ground, on a warm summer night. Leaving our small brother and sister alone in a locked room. When we crossed over a small footbridge, and knew we were now outside the realm of Foxworth property, we felt happy, almost free. Still we had to be cautious and not let anyone see us. We ran toward the woods, and the lake Momma had told us about.
It was ten o'clock when we went out on the roof; it was ten- thirty when we found the small body of water surrounded by trees. We were fearful others would be there to spoil it for us, and send us back unsatisfied, but the lake water was smooth, unruffled by winds, or bathers, or sailboats.
In the moonlight, under a bright and starry sky, I looked on that lake and thought I'd never beheld such beautiful water, or felt a night that filled me with such rapture.