The Pantry Door - Julie Steimle (reading strategies book txt) 📗

scowl, ducked her head sulkily at her grandmother, and said, “Good bye.”

“I’ll miss you, Kathleen,” her mother said as she turned to go once more.

“No, you won’t,” Katy muttered under her breath, not quite sure she wanted her grandmother to hear. “You’re going to Orlando to play with Daddy and leaving me behind.”

Her mother leaned in past Grandma who stood back in appalled silence. “If you had behaved better, I wouldn’t have to leave you.”

“You don’t have to do any of it!” Katy suddenly shouted.

But her mother stood straight and shook her head. She said in a low voice, “No. This I have to do.”

And with that, her mother turned and left, walking directly back to the car on the grassy curb.

“I hate you!” Katy yelled, following her out the door.

But her mother did not stop. She opened the door, climbed in, closed it, and started the car with barely a look back. And when she was on the freeway, Katy felt the full impact of her abandonment crush against her chest. It was difficult to breathe.

“Well, now,” her grandmother said as if reminding her that she was there. “That is enough of the dramatics. I’ll prepare some lunch. You must be hungry.”

With her arms limp at her side, Katy stared down the empty farming town road. That was it. She was stuck in nowhere land now.

“Come in, Katy. You are letting in the flies.”

Drawing in a sigh, Katy obeyed. Somehow it did not seem right to argue with an old lady.

“So,” her grandmother said as she put away the food Katy had just taken out. “After lunch, you can unpack, and then you can help me in the garden.”

She took out two plates from the cupboards and set them on the table, and then grabbed the silverware from the creaky drawers, gazing over what would be her prison for the next three months. The house had an old painted look to everything. The paint was sometimes quite thick over certain parts of the house; the cupboards were white with little enamel doorknobs, and the windows had wooden frames with yellowed, melting glass. The sink was very old and so large one could bathe a small child in it, and Katy knew, based on several embarrassing photos her mother had of her, that she had been bathed in this old sink. The piping had ancient porcelain fixtures on the top—parts would be very hard to find these days. When her grandfather had built it, he fixed every piece, so it would last for generations. So far, it was holding up.

“I don’t garden,” Katy said, dropping into a chair.

Her grandmother raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Well, now you do.”

“No, I don’t,” Katy replied, clenching her arms across her chest.

Pausing before taking out the prepared lunch of leftover meatloaf and scalloped potatoes from the refrigerator to reheat, her grandmother replied, “If you want to eat, you help. That is the rule in this house.”

Katy glared at her, but said nothing. It certainly hadn’t been the rule before. She wondered when her grandmother had made it up.

Going back to work, her grandmother said, “You are now eleven, Kathleen dear. That means you take share in the responsibility of the household. Besides, your mother said you fancy yourself an adult. Well, I am here to tell you that being adult does not just mean you get your own way. There are responsibilities, burdens, and a great deal of work—”

“Spare me the lecture,” Katy said.

Her grandmother raised her eyebrows at her and paused once more. “What for? You certainly don’t seem to be doing well enough on your own.”

“I’m doing fine!” Katy snapped back.

But her grandmother frowned. “Fine? Ending up in the police station for shoplifting?”

“It was just a game.”

“It was stealing.”

“We were going to sneak it back in.”

“Really?” Her grandmother’s skepticism was clear though.

Katy only glared.

“It doesn’t matter what you think you were doing. What you were doing was stealing. And I don’t care if your friends made you do it, or whatever excuse you have next. You are old enough to know your own mind and—”

“And I don’t want meatloaf for lunch!” Katy immediately shouted at her, standing up.

Her grandmother, hearing the microwave bell ring, took the plate out and placed it on the table. “Pity. Since that is all you are going to get.”

Katy stomped to the fridge to take out the sandwich ingredients again. But her grandmother, a spry woman, stepped right in front of the refrigerator and shook her head.

“No, no. You are going to eat what is served like a good girl.”

Kicking the table leg, Katy shouted, “Gimmie a break. I’ll starve eating that crap!”

Her grandmother’s face went white. She seized a hold of Katy’s arm and pulled her to the sink. Katy could see her take a hold of the bar of soap at the head of the sink and bring it over.

“Abuse! Abuse!” Katy shrieked, trying to kick back.

“And you are disrespectful! That is much worse. Such language will not be allowed in this house! If Grandpa Schmidt were to hear you—”

“Grandpa’s dead, you old biddy! He’s dea—”

But her grandmother lodged the soap in Katy’s mouth and proceeded to clean it out. Katy choked and spat, struggling with all her might as she kicked out with the heel of her foot. Her grandmother yelped and dropped the soap.

Wrenching out of her grip, Katy ran to the door and jerked it open. She was out the house before her grandmother could call to her. Still gagging on the nasty taste in her mouth, Katy tried to spit out the soap. Her mother never dared to wash her mouth out, though she threatened to several times. If her father hadn’t been so against physical punishment, she might have. Searching for the outside faucet, Katy caught sight of the garden hose. She followed it back to the source, quickly twisted the knob and held the nozzle to her mouth.

It squirted out too much water, spraying her in the face and all over her front. Recovering from the shock, Katy hastily sucked in water, spitting it out again on the grass. Soapy bubbles blew from her lips a few times, but mostly she felt the coating remain with that strong taste in her mouth. It took a good long suck from the hose before the majority of the soapy taste was gone. By that time, she sensed her grandmother standing over her.

“I think you have learned not to talk like that again,” her grandmother said.

Katy felt like swearing more and spraying her grandmother with the hose.

“If your grandfather had heard you, he would have tanned your hide.”

Those shivers ran down Katy’s arms again suggesting maybe he would have. Though her grandfather was a kind, softhearted man, he was also stern. Katy had not missed the stories her mother told her about when Grandfather Schmidt had spanked her for snitching a piece of birthday cake before the event. Or when he spanked her, made her give a humiliating apology to her teacher, and put her on gum-cleaning duty for cheating at school. Though the worst, Katy thought, was when they sent her off to a boarding school because she had fallen in with the wrong crowd. Her mother had threatened Katy with that one as a last resort if this trip did not reform her. At the time, Katy had said she didn’t care—but she really did. Being sent away was the worst, even if it was to her grandmother’s. It was like her mom didn’t love her anymore.

“You can come in for lunch now.”

Katy did not remove her glare. “I won’t eat that…stuff.”

With a shrug, her grandmother turned with a sigh. “Suit yourself, though I think you will get awfully hungry before dinner. In this house, there is no snitching food.”

What? Katy thought. Did she count every last pickle? Were they all numbered?

But Katy could see she would get no sympathy, and no lunch.

First kicking the wall, Katy stomped away from the house across the gravelly drive to the high weeds that now edged the yard since her grandfather died. The corral was full of these tare-like stalks, all swaying in the wind in waves. The logs of the corral were threatening to fall over as the wires holding them together were rusted and breaking. It was as if everything was falling apart now that he was gone, including her life.

What went wrong? He wasn’t that old. It was true he was much older than Grandma, but he didn’t look old enough to die yet.

However, she remembered her father had said, “Age had nothing to do with it.” Some people just die. It still seemed unfair, though. Grandpa hadn’t yet seen her in a concert, and she had practiced so hard. Nothing seemed to matter now that he wasn’t there.

Katy found that she had walked all the way around the corral past the granary and the chicken coops to where he kept grapevines. The grapes were never that sweet, but he was the only one that tended them as if they were his pride and joy. The gate was closed and locked. Katy didn’t want to go through there anyway. It only reminded her of her grandfather more, and she wanted to forget. She wanted to forget that someone loved her so much that his eyes lit up every time he saw her; that his smile spread across his face wider than even when he saw her mother come to visit; that he always rubbed her head and said, “Clever girl. Clever girl.”

Passing the grapevines, Katy went to the far fence and looked over at the distant mountains beyond the miles and miles of flat fields. They were high enough that snow still topped the caps. She drew in a breath and sighed. Though the fence was not high, she felt trapped. There was no way to escape the farm, and no way to escape the memory of her grandfather.

Katy wandered about the farmland and then the country road until her stomach growled. Luckily, she still had some change in her pocket, and Katy wandered down to the small Ma and Pa supermarket, one of the few remaining businesses in the area. It was just opposite the post office and the tiny fire station, and in sight of her grandma’s place. Those three business buildings made up the center of the town. They didn’t even have a stoplight.

Within the shop, she picked up a small package of Fig Newtons, which cost all of her remaining change. Paying the grocer, Katy scuffed her shoes against the beat up tile floor and walked back outside. She sat on the curb. Looking over at her grandmother’s place, Katy frowned. She knew she would have to go back eventually.

“No loitering, kid.” The shopkeeper leaned out the doorway, looking disapprovingly at her.

Getting up, Katy frowned. However, she walked the opposite direction to her grandmother’s farm, opening up her Fig Newtons and taking a bite to show him she didn’t care. The sidewalk ended and started in front of his shop, so she walked along the old paved highway, passing the worn highway marker with the gut desire to hitchhike her way back home if necessary. Only one beat up truck rumbled by, popping over the potholes with two cowboy hatted hicks riding inside laughing as their country music song blared from their radio. If it were the city, they would have been the jerks in the low-rider with the hip-hop song booming with thunderous beats that shook the windows around them. But then all kinds of noise seemed foreign to that sleepy little farm town, and even Katy glared at these two boys for disturbing the peace.

The shopkeeper waved at them though as they pulled up to his store, and he even smiled with a gesture for them to come inside for some motor oil or a beverage. They were probably family. Her father used to joke that the entire town was related to each