The Hole in the Wall by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

wasn’t your own grandmother kicked out of her home. But Grum was embarrassed when she rode by and saw Jed and his signs on her way to the church coffee klatch one day. “I wasn’t booted, I was bought out,” she said and made Pa stop the truck.

    It wasn’t pretty what Pa did to Jed right out on the street at the edge of town. Jed stayed to himself for a couple of days afterward, like always after Pa got after him. But then he up and disappeared.

    It upset me terribly to see those signs again. I hadn’t forgiven Pa yet for driving my brother off. I didn’t know if I ever could.

    “Hey, Seb, I can’t see anything back here. Will you come back from Pluto and get me the flashlight?” Oh yeah, I was supposed to be helping the Shish look for the chickens.

    “I’ll get us a flashlight. Have to take the mail inside anyway.”

    “Well, hurry up. I still have my own chores, you know.” She poked her head out of the closet. There were cobwebs all over her hair. It made me feel kind of affectionate toward her.

    “Thanks, Barbie. Really,” I said. I meant it, too. And then she had to go and say, “Don’t tell Ma yet about having no eggs. We might find some when we find the chickens.”

    “Well, duh.” Now Miss Smartypants was ticking me off. I already knew that. After all, I was just as gifted and talented as she was.

    “And don’t tell her about the missing chickens yet, either.” She pointed her perfect fingernail at me. Made me wish I’d broken it off when we wrestled yesterday. Anyway, instead of all the insults I was thinking, which would make her quit doing all the work, I just said, “Yes, your majesty.”

    The first thing Ma said when I kicked my way in was, “Seb, you have to stop giving milk to the cat. We can’t afford it, and milk isn’t good for cats anyway.”

    As usual on Saturday mornings, she was going through the cupboards and the coupons, making her weekly grocery shopping list. Pa was still jackhammering upstairs louder than the washing machine spinning in the basement.

    “I didn’t feed the cat anything,” I said. “Must have been Barbie dumping her milk to get out of—”

    Whoops, if Grum heard that, Barbie would be hearing from her, and then I’d be hearing from Barbie. I looked around and saw Grum on the couch grinning at the TV. It was quite a sight since she hadn’t yet put her teeth in for the day. I had to find out what had made her gums so happy, so I headed for the couch to join her.

    “Hold on, no TV for you yet,” said Ma, grabbing me by the belt loop as I passed her. “Where are the eggs? And where’s your sister? If she doesn’t get her chores done pretty soon, there won’t be any roller skating for you two this afternoon.”

    Oh, right. “She’s actually helping me clean out the feed closet,” I said. “We emptied it all out and we’re going to reorganize everything. I came in to get a flashlight.”

    “Really!” Ma looked surprised and pleased. “Good idea! That closet does need a good reaming out. You can help Barbie clean the bathroom later, since she’s helping you now.”

    “And I brought in the mail,” I said, pointing to the pile I’d left on the table.

    “Why, thanks, Sebby,” Ma said with her sudden bright smile that always made me smile back, no matter how crummy I felt. Then her smile fell as she leafed through the envelopes. My heart stopped for a beat. Was she expecting the letter from school?

    I cleared my throat. “Everything okay, Ma?”

    She tried to bring back that bright smile, but this time it looked more like a wince. “Nothing for you to worry about, hon. It’s just the property tax bill. We’ll figure out how to get it paid, somehow. We always have.”

    Our property went from the Zensylvania border down along one side of the gore, and then it crossed the road and wrapped around the narrow end of the triangle. The taxes on all that land were pretty high. Pa’d been after Ma to sell it and buy something