Annie LIV: Foster Sister

(Chronological index: Carla in High School)

Carla tried to ignore the pittering feet of her sister's sylph. Denny suffered from what was probably the flu and Dad had taken her to the doctor's office.

Buttercup had similar symptoms, so Mom had taken her to the vet's. No one knew if it was a coincidence or contagion, so both the sick were quarantined.

Which meant that she was sylph-sitting. Pet was going crazy with worry, running from the phone that didn't ring to the window that didn't show anyone pulling into the driveway.

Carla just read her magazine and tried to imagine that she was alone. That the pitter patter was her friend Cyndi's cat doing 'crazy-time.'

"Carla?" came a plaintive wail from the back of the sofa. She groaned. Puss'n Toots glared and whined, but never actually spoke. "Carla?"

"What is it, Pet?" She didn't look up from the magazine or the article on Shaun Cassidy, the cuter, if dumber, Hardy Boy.

"When are they coming back?"

"I don't know, Pet. What time did they leave?"

"I don't know?" Pet asked.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Carla replied. She heard a whine and finally looked up. The little girl was on her side, curled in a fetal position, sucking her thumb. "Oh, Pet, don't do that. Only babies do that."

"Okay," Pet mumbled.

"Oh, Lord," Carla muttered. She put the magazine down as she reached over.

"Don't say that," Pet said in a suddenly firm voice. "Don't call on the Lord in vain!"

One eyebrow went up as Carla cupped her hands under the sylph and lifted her off the sofa. "Do not lecture me, kidlet!" Pet sat on her fingers, lower lip out in a pout, face firm in anger.

At least she wasn't whining.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay," Carla said. "I won't tell Dad you sucked your thumb like a baby, you don't tell Mom I blasphemed. Okay?"

"I dunno," Pet said.

"How about, we keep each other's secrets AND I play with you?" Pet clapped, the deal sealed.

------

"Drink some juice and get to bed," Dad was saying as they came in the door.

"I know!" Denny whined. "Man, I was right there when the doctor told you!"

"Then you're wasting time commenting," Dad said. "Carla! Any word on Buttercup?" He stepped through the kitchen towards the living room.

Carla's voice came from her bedroom in the back of the house. "She has the flu! She'll be fine! Rest and fluids and leave Pet alone."

She stepped into view. Denise was sipping apple juice, wondering how Pet was going to take the news. She couldn't stay with her mom or her owner. She'd be devastated.

Then she saw Pet in Carla's hand. The sylph was painted up like a clown. Lipstick stretched from ear to ear, mascara made her blonde hair dark, sticking up in unnatural curves, something white was on her forehead with some black dots...

"DENNY!" the little girl shouted. "We played MAKEUP!"

"CARLA!" Denise protested. "You made her look like a CLOWN!"

"Well, yeah," Carla drawled.

"I asked to be a clown!" Pet announced. "I wanted to cheer you up for being sick."

"Oh," Denise said as the wind went out of her sails. She started to reach over.

Dad appeared, a living barricade. "Don't breathe on her, you'll make her sick."

"OKAY!" Pet shouted, then drew in a big breath, cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog. She held up both hands and waved Denise closer.

"No, Pet," Dad said. The sylph tilted her head quizzically, still holding her breath. "We just don't want you catching what Denise has."

He looked to his older daughter. "Go get Buttercup's dollhouse and move it into Denise's room. That'll be the sick room. Then move Pet's dollhouse into your room and-"

"DAD!" Denise protested.

"Until everyone's well, it's for the best," Dad said.

"No, no!" Denise pointed. Pet was turning a kind of red-purple. Her hands were in fist as she tried to force herself to keep her breath in. Dad gently pinched her two cheeks. Air whooshed out in a deep sigh, then got sucked back in with a deeper gasp.

"YOU can breathe, Pet," Carla said. "It's the sicko that can't breathe on you." The sylph was panting too deeply to reply, but she nodded understanding.

------

Carla was surprised to find that she enjoyed taking care of Pet. It was a lot like having a little sister had been, before Courtney had learned to say, 'nuh UH!'

Pet always listened to whatever Carla had to say with grave intensity. That drew the older sister to reveal things that little Denise didn't know. 'Little' being the five year gap in maturity between the two girls.

The sylph accepted the difference as an order of magnitude. At bedtime, Carla was just finishing her list of why boys were stupid and Pet seemed to be taking it as gospel.

"But... Do they NEVER realize that girls tell other girls about who did what to who and who said what did who went with and who went outside to and out back with and then back again?"

Carla blinked a couple of times trying to parse Pet's question. "No," she finally said. "They're just stupid that way."

"Huh," Pet said with a thoughtful expression. "So.... Girls really do run the world."

"Exactly," Carla said. She opened the dollhouse and placed Pet in her bedroom. "Now, you get some sleep, because tomorrow I have to take you with me to the library. I don't want you all fractious while I'm doing my research."

Pet nodded obediently as Carla spoke, but started to look anxious as the front wall of her home started to swing shut.

"What is it, Pet?"

"Denny doesn't shut the wall when I'm in here."

"I'm not Denny," Carla said. A very private person, she had only been able to tolerate the idea of a roommate because the walls would be shut. Pet bit her lip. "It'll be fine," she promised the pet. "I'll be right out here if you need me."

"But you won't be... You can't see if I need you," Pet protested.

"You won't need me, and if you do, you can call out my name and I'll be there, yes I will." She caught herself speaking the last little bit in sing-song and shook her head. Mom was the James Taylor fan.

"But, but, but, but, what if' I'm too scared to speak?"

"Pet, my hand to God, I don't believe it'll ever be possible for you to be that scared." She instantly regretted insulting the poor little chatterbox, but Pet just looked hopeful.

"You really mean that?"

"I do," she admitted. "I said, my hand to God."

"That's a good hand," Pet said with a nod. "Okay." She took a big deep breath, stiffening her courage, and waved to the wall. Carla shut it, relieved to have at least that sop to privacy. The last thing she saw was Pet's brave, stiff face.

She paused, one hand on the wall. Then she relented, leaving it open a bit. "How about that, Pet? Half-closed for me, half open for you?"

"Which half is my half?" Pet asked.

"The OPEN half, idi-" Carl started to reply. Then she knelt down to look in through a window. Pet had both hands clapped to her mouth to keep from laughing at her own joke. "My dad has spoiled you, you know that?"

Pet nodded. "One more joke," Carla warned, "and I might have to tickle you, young lady."

The tiny eyes widened. Pet ran to the edge of the dollhouse floor and shouted, "KNOCK KNOCK!"

Carla regarded the pest with a critical eye. "Can you even think of a knock-knock joke? Or should I just tickle you now?" She reached for the sylph with ominously slow speed. Pet squealed and ran, but there weren't as many rooms in this house as the one Buttercup lived in.

Two fingers pinched her ankle and dragged her slowly across the carpet remnant. The tiny pajamas rolled up over the belly and the shoulders and off.

Carla scooped her up with both hands and gently tickled the exposed skin. Pet kicked and giggled and threatened to puke and giggled and slapped the fingertips and laughed.

She lay across her bed and cupped the sylph under her face as she gasped and whooped until she could breathe easily.

"Thanks, Carla," Pet finally said.

"Yeah, I know you and whats-her-face always touch each other. Mom says you're tactile oriented." She leaned over and snagged the pajama top. "Put this back on, we'll go say goodnights."

"Mom said we couldn't kiss goodnight!" Pet protested. "They're quarter-teened!"

"Well, I figure Buttercup's heard you screaming," Carla said. "So to calm them down, we'll just wave from the doorway."

Pet scurried into her top, hardly noticing that it was inside out and backwards. "Can we blow kisses?"

"It'll be risky, but we'll try it," Carla promised. She rose and headed for the hall.

-------

Carla was halfway through the kitchen door when Mom stopped her. "Where are you going?"

The teen waved her Trapper Keeper. "Library, research, Jenny's."

"Don't forget the candy store!" Pet shouted from a jacket pocket. "If the stars allow!"

"Stars?" Mom asked.

"I may have promised the kidlet," Carla explained, "that, if signs and portents were right, we might meet Jenny at work, and bike home with her, rather than meet her at home."

"Signs and portents," Pet agreed. "That's astronogy."

"Astrology," Mom corrected. "And it's not something good girls should concern themselves with."

"It's in Genesis," Carla shrugged, "why the stars were made in the first place." She turned to go.

"Wait," Mom said. She tossed her car keys over when her daughter turned around. "Take the car. It'll be...quicker."

"Thanks," Carla said. She skipped down the steps to the driveway.

"C-c-c-care-full-ll-ll!" Pet cautioned.

"Sorry, not in passenger habit," Carla apologized. She slid into the car, put Pet in the cupholder and spent several moments making the seat, the mirrors and the wheel just right.

"Ready for adventure, Pet?" she asked.

"Dad says you don't know it's an adventure until after you've gotten away with something."

"Is that a yes, or a no?"

"I’m ready!" Pet promised. Then she grabbed tight to the cup holder and braced her feet. Carla took to the road.

------

The first thing Carla located at the library was the Time-Life book on the seas. She opened that on the table and placed the sylph on top of a full-page picture of an angel fish.

"Oooooooooh," Pet cooed, moving around on the page.

"That should keep you for a while," Carla smiled. Then she went looking for Civil War references.

An hour later, she had a stack of books that looked like a fort next to Pet. But no idea about what to write. "It's all so...dull," she said out loud.

"War is dull?" Pet asked. She walked over to look at Carla's notes. Carla knew that Denise enjoyed reading to her pet, so Pet hadn't ever needed to learn.

Still, she liked looking like she was involved so as she walked back and forth, Carla didn't point out that she was apparently reading upside down and backwards.

"Maybe not," Carla said. "But Civil War reports sure are. I think half the class is writing about how slavery caused the war. The other half is writing about how families took different sides, so brother fought brother and cousin against cousin and so on."

"Which one are you writing?" Pet asked.

"NONE!" Carla snapped.

"HSST!" the Librarian warned. Carla nodded her head in apology. She looked down to find her sister's pet crouched on the page, hands over her head.

"Oh, gosh, Pet, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. You didn't know better." She reached out with two fingers to lift Pet's shoulders. The sylph was slow to come out of her crouch. Her feet actually got lifted off the book.

Carla stroked the tiny back and made calming noises.

"I just wanted to help," Pet whined.

"I know, I know, I'm not mad at you. Never at you, Pet."

"Really?" The face looked up from under her bangs, hopeful and fearful. What sort of a monster did Pet think she was?

"Really," Carla said. "I just... It's frustrating. They never teach us anything useful. So I guess I'm going to end up with a report just like one or the other half of the class." She sighed and sank down in her seat.

Pet rose to her knees and started to pat Carla's wrist. "You'll think of something. You're one of the smart ones."

"Really?" Carla asked. "Okay. Well, let me get on with this." She eased Pet back down on the sea creatures book. It was turned to show an octopus on a sandy ocean floor.

Carla flipped through some pages on her own book, but her eyes were on the sylph as Pet laboriously turned the page. That showed a satellite image of some ocean area.

"Carla?" Pet asked.

"What is it, Pet?" Carla replied. She noticed that she used her usual, impatient, 'you're interrupting me' tone but the fact was that there was nothing but white noise in her head. She was about to apologize when Pet spoke again.

"What did they invent in the Civil War?"

"Huh?"

"Well..." She stood and waved at the photo. "Dad's always seeing stuff like this on TV and saying what it was invented for, like for the moon landings or the cold war or the satellites of doom or the pictures that developed in ordbit or how Teflon for cooking was for spaceships and superglue was to hold stuff for spaceships and-"

"I know, Pet. I'm usually there."

"Well. Well. Um." Carla just managed to avoid grinding her teeth. Pet took time to get her thoughts straight enough to share them, then she spoke real fast like talking was rationed. And like sylphs got 1/12th the time because they were 1/12th as tall.

But rather than snap at her again, Carla rode through it. Maybe there was an idea in there.

Pet glanced up. Her eyes widened as she realized she still had Carla's attention. "It's just that maybe there was something that was invented in the civil war that no one realizes today, not like astronaut food that was in the store with a big sign, just like the astronauts eat, everyone knows that's a space program thing, maybe there was something one side or the other invented so they could fight the war, you know? Like, I don't know, cavalry?"

"Cavalry's older than America, Pet," Carla said gently. But her mind was sorting through things she'd read about...

"Oh. Sorry," Pet apologized. "I was just-"

"Oh, no, Pet! You were right. In general, just not in... Hang on. Where was that...?" She started back into the stack of books.

Pet retreated as hardbacks slid by.

--------

Jenny raised an eyebrow as her project partner entered the store. Carla smiled and put Pet on a shelf full of jars with hard candies.

"Pick anything you want, Pet," she said magnanimously. "You earned it."

The sylph giggled and ran to the nearest jar. She pushed her nose up against it and stared at the contents.

The teen scooped up a few items and moved to the register.

"So?" Jenny asked in a slightly mocking tone. "Did you find the research topic that'll knock everyone's socks off? That no one else'll even think of, much less do better than us?"

"Did you know," Carla replied, "that the civil war had patrol boats fighting up and down rivers like the Mississippi? And tributaries to the Mississippi? Rivers that crossed the boundaries of the North and South in places?"

"Mmmmmm, no. But it makes sense..."

"And did you know that the Army saved the lessons learned in those patrols, and dusted them off for the Viet Nam war?"

"Oh?"

"OH!"

"Oh, wow." Jenny looked thoughtful. "So, our one-of-a-kind paper will be written about..."

"Technologies developed in the War, concentrating on stuff that affects modern day."

"That'll be cool..." Jenny judged. "How the hell did you come up with that?"

"The kidlet," Carla admitted with a nod of her head.

-----

Buttercup was fully restored by the next day, though Denise was still fragile. Mom moved Buttercup's dollhouse back where it belonged, but not Pet's. Denise had another day home from school.

She was allowed to have breakfast with the family, though. Pet crouched at her wrist, happily nuzzling her owner's skin. "I was worried about you, Denny," she said.

"I missed you, Pet," Denise replied. She coughed and the sylph flinched. "But yeah, maybe it was better you weren't near me while I was upchucking."

"Well, everything should be back to normal tomorrow," Carla said. She finished her milk and grabbed her book bag. "Well, Pet, let's go."

"Huh? What?" Pet asked.

"Go where?" Denise asked.

"Jenny and I are giving a report today." She held out a hand and Pet stepped up into it. "It was Pet's idea, so she gets to come see us give it."

"I do?" Pet glanced over at Denise.

"Your idea?" Denise asked.

"Well.... I just asked..."

"That's great!" She sneezed. And sneezed. And sneezed. Pet tried to bless her each time. Carla finally placed a fingertip on the little lips.

"Let her finish, Pet. Save the Blessing, God has a lot to do these days."

"Okay," Pet asked, staring at her owner. She missed Mom slapping the back of Carla's head for blaspheming.

Four sneezes later, Denise had her hand up in a 'just a moment' gesture. And sneezed again.

"Oh, heck with that," Mom growled. "You're not kissing Pet goodbye. Out, you two. Shoo! Blow Denny a kiss from the door, Pet."

"But-!" she protested.

"Can't miss the bus, Pet," Carla said. "Say bye-bye."

"Bye!"

"Goo-STHNITH!!!"

"BLESS YOU!"

And they were gone....



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