Free Seeing Red by Kathryn Erskine Page A

okay?”
    “I thought I heard something outside.”
    “Well, it wasn’t me. I–I’m in here. See?”
    “Are you sure you’re all right?” 
    I was scrubbing my face now. “I’m fine.”
    “You sound a little funny.”
    “Well…that’s because you don’t usually talk to me when I’m trying to use the bathroom.”
    “Okay,” she said slowly, like she wasn’t quite convinced. “If you need anything, you just let me know.”
    “I won’t.” I could feel her still standing there on the other side of the door. “I mean, I won’t need anything.”
    It took me a while to get myself cleaned up, and a while longer to feel safe enough to come out of the bathroom. I finally shut the light off and could see around the cracks of the door that the hallway outside was dark. When I opened the door, I saw that Mama’s light was off, too.
    I crept softly across the hall but not quietly enough.
    “Good night, Red,” Mama called from her room.
    “Yeah, good night,” I said, and made a beeline for my bed so I could scramble under the covers before she saw I was still in my clothes.

CHAPTER TEN
    What Would Daddy Say?
    The next morning, I woke up to the screen door slapping and the sound of footsteps across the gravel. I was out of bed in a flash and jumped to the window, even though I knew I couldn’t see the front of the shop from my bedroom.
    I couldn’t see Mama, either, but I heard her. “What in the world is that?”
    I ran to the kitchen, where J looked up from eating his bananas in orange juice. “What?”
    I remembered to play it cool and did a fake yawn. “Oh…sounds like Mama found something strange outside,” I said, and shrugged.
    J was out of the screen door like a bolt of lightning. I wanted to fly out of there faster than J, but I managed to walk. I stared at the ground to keep from running. When I looked up, I saw Mama and J staring at the front of the shop, Mama with her head cocked and J with his nose all scrunched up like he was trying to smell the word. I was torn between laughing and cheering, but I knew I couldn’t do either one.
    I took a deep breath before looking at the shop myself. When I saw it, my mouth fell open and I felt like someone punched the breath right out of my stomach.
    J read the letters out loud. “S-h-i-p. Why does it say ship ? Somebody don’t know how to spell. Shop is s-h- o -p.”
    I couldn’t believe it. I never was any good at cursive, but how could it have gone so wrong? I stared at the p that wasn’t supposed to be, and I realized that I should’ve taken my finger off the trigger before I tried to cross the t , because I’d ended up making a loop. Then I figured out my other mistake. I held the trigger too long at the end and all the extra paint had run down to make a long drip that turned into the bottom of the p . Ship .
    Mama picked up the black plastic cap of the spray can that I forgot about. Shoot . “Spray paint,” she said, “like we have in the shop.”
    J pointed at my jeans. “What’s that black stuff?”
    I looked down and saw what that snakish spray-paint can had done to me. Even though I’d stashed the blackened shirt under my bed, my jeans were giving me away. I lost my voice for a second, but then managed to say, “It’s just dirt.”
    “You’re gonna get in trouble for making such a mess of yourself,” J said.
    I knew J was just mad because I didn’t take him with me yesterday. I was more worried about Mama. I could feel her staring at me even though I was looking at the ground. I knew she was going to have a fit, I just didn’t know exactly what she’d do.
    “Well,” she said, her voice calm, “I’m sure it won’t happen again. Will it, Red?”
    I looked up, and she was squeezing the cap of the spray can between her fingers.
    “No, ma’am,” I mumbled.
    She was staring at me, her eyes narrowed down to real tough. “I think I’ll let you paint the shop, Red. And while you’re at it, why don’t you start cleaning it