Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish by Betsy Byars Page A

person in sight at the moment was Weezie. Warren was hiding in a doorway. He was following his sister, slipping after her like a spy, hiding in shadows, dodging behind buildings.
    After supper Weezie had said, “I’m going out,” and when the door closed behind her, Warren was on his feet instantly, pulling on his own jacket.
    “Me too,” he called to Aunt Pepper. She was in his grandmother’s room, painting the walls white. The room seemed large without his grandmother’s clutter. Her combs and brushes, her collection of perfume bottles, her china señorita doll with the lace mantilla, her pillows, her plastic-flower arrangements were all packed away. Only her coat hangers clicked together in the empty closet.
    It was the first Monday of the month, and all of them knew Weezie was going to the pay telephone in front of the library to wait for a call from their mother.
    “Good luck,” Pepper called as the door closed.
    “Right.”
    Now Warren peered around the doorway of the dry cleaner’s. When he saw that Weezie had turned the corner, he ran to the store on the corner and stopped. He peered around the dingy window.
    Weezie was standing there, hands on her hips, waiting for him. “Why are you playing this ridiculous game?”
    His mouth dropped open. “What?”
    “Why are you pretending that I don’t know you’re back there? You’re about as subtle as a freight train, you know that? I can hear you running and then stopping. When you were hiding behind the mailbox I could hear you breathing.”
    “I didn’t want you to try to make me go home. I’ve got as much right to talk to Mom as you have.”
    “I wasn’t going to make you go home. I should have brought you a long time ago. You’ve built up too many dreams around Mom.”
    He felt the urge to protest rising inside him the way it always did when Weezie accused him of idolizing their mother. This time he swallowed it down and said, “I know.”
    “So come on. We’ll miss the call if we’re not there right at seven. If there is a call. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, you know. I stood in that phone booth in a snowstorm for two hours last January.”
    “Why didn’t you just leave after fifteen minutes? That’s what I’d do.”
    “Because I thought, well, maybe she is on the coast, in another time zone, and she’s forgotten, so she’ll call at seven her time and that will be—oh, never mind. Anyway, phone booths are colder than refrigerators; believe me. I know.”
    Warren walked along beside his sister, feeling a strong bond with her. For the first time he found he was matching her long strides, keeping up with her. This was probably why soldiers kept in step—so they would feel unified.
    “You better plan what you’re going to say, though,” Weezie said, interrupting his thoughts. “Sometimes Mom only has enough money for three minutes.”
    “Oh.” Warren had not thought of this. He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. “What are you planning to say?”
    “Well, first I’m going to tell her about Grandma.”
    “Good.” Warren did not want “Grandma’s dead,” to be the first words he spoke to his mother in three years. “I’ll go last.”
    “All right.”
    As he walked, he imagined Weezie saying, “Mom, Warren’s here. He wants to talk now.” He imagined taking the cold receiver in his warm hand—his palms were already getting sweaty—and leaning close. “Mom?”
    That was as far as his imagination took him. What would he say then? he wondered. What could he say that would be interesting?
    His thoughts raced through the last three years of his life: a broken tooth—he ran his tongue over it—almost getting run over by a school bus, his friend Larry moving to Chicago—she didn’t even know he had had a friend named Larry—getting that miraculous A+ on an English test.
    He shook his head. These were things you told your mother every day when you got home from school, things you told at the kitchen table while you