My life was in a horrible mess and it was all Sir’s fault—so why did I still miss him so much it made me ache inside?
One night, about two weeks after the Commercians had sent me back, I was crying myself to sleep when Taylor came in. She had her long blonde hair tied up in a bun and an elaborate cucumber and avocado mask peel covered her face. Still, I could see the sympathy in her eyes when she sat at the foot of the couch and put her hand on my leg.
“What is it, Elli?” she asked, looking at me. “You haven’t been the same since you came back. Do you want to talk about it? Did the kidnappers…” She hesitated, as though uncertain how to proceed and then her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Did theydothings to you?”
Did theydothings to me? I nearly laughed in the middle of my tears. Did Sir do things to me? Only put me in a collar and make me walk on a leash and feed me human chow and train me to be his Sex Pet and make me fall in love with him and then abandon me!
But I knew I couldn’t say all that to Taylor. She was a good older sister, but she was also eminently practical, just like my mom. Neither one of them had much of an imagination and if I tried to tell my older sister what had really happened to me, she would have thought I was going crazy. So I was going to have to choose my words really carefully.
“It wasn’t so much what he did,” I said at last, swiping tears from my eyes. “It was…how he made mefeel. I…started caring for him—for the main kidnapper, I mean.”
Taylor’s eyes went wide.
“You had Stockholm Syndrome!” she exclaimed.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “At first, maybe, but it went way beyond that. We…we had a real relationship. Well, Ithoughtwe did until he decided to send me back.”
“Oh, honey…come here.” Taylor held out her arms and I found myself hugging her and crying.
“I’m so messed up—my whole life is a wreck!” I sobbed. “I hate it here—I want to go back!”
“You don’t mean that,” Taylor said, stroking my hair. “Youcan’tmean that!”
“Yes, I do!” I pulled back from her embrace and looked at her fiercely. “Let me tell you, if I disappear again—not that I’m going to, because he doesn’t love me anymore—but if I do,don’tcome looking for me. Because if I get out of here again, I amnevercoming back to this shitty town and this shitty life and the horrible job at Great Aunt Maizy’s!”
“Is it really that bad?” Taylor asked sympathetically.
“Getting seven yappy little dogs in and out of their costumes and taking them on ‘walkies’ and back and forth to the vet and the groomer every day and picking up all their nasty little shit bombs, while they all bark so loudly I feel like I’m going deaf? What doyouthink?” I said darkly.
“Didn’t Princess Prissy finally have her puppies?” Taylor asked, trying to see the good side of thing. “Thatmust be nice at least. Puppies are always so adorable.”
“Not these ones,” I told her. “Remember the father was a Bulldog and Prissy is a Pomeranian. These are hands down theugliestpuppies you’ve ever seen in your life. I mean, they’re sweet—don’t get me wrong, they’re still puppies, after all. But I don’t think anyone is going to be lining up to buy a Pom-Bull or a Bulleranian or whatever you want to call them anytime soon.” I sighed. “Which means that Aunt Maizy is just going to keep them, so she’s going to havefourteendogs to take care of instead of just seven.”
“Oh, my!” Taylor’s eyes got wide. “That’s alotof dogs.”
“You’re telling me,” I said grimly. “It’s a freakingpack. And who do you think is going to be responsible for potty training all of them? Aunt Maizy has already said it’s going to be my ‘special job.’Notthat she’s going to pay me any more for doing it.”
“Oh, Elli…” Taylor sighed and put an arm around my shoulders for a sisterly squeeze. “I know that things seem awful right now, but please don’t give up. Things are going to change for you soon—in abigway—I’m sure of it!”
As a matter of fact, my big sister was more right than she knew. But please remember, she didn’t say things would change for thebetter.
I gave her a hug and promised I wouldn’t give up and thanked her for being there for me. And that was the last time I saw her because the very next day is when that big thing she’d been predicting happened…
FIFTY-FIVE
ELLI
It happened on the golf course behind Great Aunt Maizy’s house, around the ninth hole, which was the one closest to her home.
Aunt Maizy had a big wooden privacy fence which separated her backyard from the golf course and also, incidentally, saved her back windows from being shattered by golf balls. She had told me often enough that before the fence had gone up, she was constantly hearing “Fore!”and then the tinkling of glass as yet another window was burst to smithereens. The fence had solved that problem and also given her “babies” a place to run and play and do other things, like poop.
Anyway, I often took her dogs out in the back yard to let them “make their presents” which was Aunt Maizy’s cutesy euphemism for pooping. Only, unbeknownst to me, it turned out that they had been digging under the fence. So while I was out there, trying to keep count of the “presents” so I could pick them up and get rid of them later, I just happened to see the back end of Mr. Piddlesworth as he wiggled under the fence and out into the golf course.
I knew I had to go get him at once. He was terrible about wanting to dig holes everywhere and if he ruined the beautiful smooth turf of the course with his increscent digging, Aunt Maizy would get complaints andIwould get into big trouble.
Since I didn’t have anything else at hand, I took off my sneakers and stuffed them into the hole so none of the other dogs would escape before running around to the gate and going to find Mr. Piddlesworth.
Running barefoot over the smooth turf was no problem but catching the naughty little dogwas.Mr. Piddlesworth had a head start on me and he was determined to use it to his best advantage. He kept dodging around sand traps and running past the carefully landscaped bushes and trees that were artfully displayed to beautify the golf course. And, of course, every once in a while he would stop and dig a little hole until I shouted at him and he stopped and ran on.