Free Cousins by Virginia Hamilton Page A

won’t get an A this time , her look seemed to say.
    Cammy wanted to close her eyes. But she couldn’t not look. Her mouth opened and she was crying out, she couldn’t help it.
    “Patty Ann! Patty Ann, hurry!”
    Patty Ann gathered Elodie to her. Elodie was on her stomach now, struggling, terrified. She paddled furiously to get to safety. Patty Ann had her hands on Elodie’s lower back. Both girls were going to be pulled into the swirling around the bluety.
    But then, Patty Ann had her special expression again, the kind that made folks say she was the best. That made people not notice that the rest of her was skin and bones. Her face was just perfect, like nothing Cammy had ever seen.
    Patty Ann grabbed hold of Elodie. She was yelling something at Elodie. Then, Elodie surged halfway out of the water. At once helping her, Patty Ann gave her a real strong lift. Patty Ann’s cheeks turned red as fire. Her legs churned furiously. Her face was twisted with the strain. She groaned a huge sound and pitched Elodie as far as she could. Kicked Elodie’s behind straight toward the hillside, as Elodie leaped toward the land. All of it done in this suffering, bursting effort from Patty Ann.
    Cammy saw it all as her eyes closed, opened, she couldn’t tell. But she was seeing, and praying that she wasn’t. Elodie, paddling for dear life. She did reach the hill, but the current carried her way down from where all of them were clinging to the slant. They could see her dig her hands into the hillside. Hands like claws. Cammy thought she could hear Elodie breathing, holding on. Too spent to yell or even cry.
    Safe! Home! Don’t move a muscle, Elodie. Hold tight! That was all Cammy could think about. Fastening the thought to her cousin with imaginary safety pins.
    Hold tight, Elodie! Everything else, out of sight, out of mind.
    When Cammy remembered, or stopped making herself forget about what could happen next, she looked. She couldn’t see it. But it happened. It became part of the spinning wheel of sky and hillside, kids and blinding sunlight in her head, with no luck to it.
    A silence came over everything. It pinned this day to them forever after. And Cammy to Patty Ann.
    Beautiful Patricia Ann. All alone.
    Her cousin.
    The bluety.
    Not a trace.

7
I Get It
    CAMMY WOKE UP , slippery with sweat. She was breathing so hard, her chest ached. Her mama, Maylene, had to come in, comfort her, and that made her feel ashamed. During the night, Cammy could barely swallow. Her throat was raw from her screaming.
    Her mama had to come in most nights. But then Andrew brought a cot and set it there right inside the doorway, about three feet from her bed.
    “You just go to sleep,” he told her. “And when I’m ready for bed, I’ll come in and sleep on the cot awhile, to keep you company, so Mom can get some sleep, too. Okay, Cam?”
    “Okay, Andrew,” she said. Waves of cold came over her, made her voice waver. But she was so hoarse all the time, she could hardly get a sound out.
    So Andrew did come in, to protect her, was the way she saw it. She slept most of the night, too. But somehow, she knew when he got up to go back to his room and his own comfortable bed. She was awake, or thought she was. Andrew wasn’t there. Patty Ann was.
    Sitting on the cot, looking at her. That smooth face so full of beauty. Patty Ann. Not dressed in her day-camp clothes the way she had been that fateful time of no luck anywhere. But wearing something fine. Something that was more than any color, in Cammy’s mind. It was just so rich and beautiful, was all.
    “Oh, Mama. Oh, Mama,” Cammy moaned. She was scared out of her mind and commenced crying as if she’d never stop.
    Patty Ann spoke to her. That made the darkness break into pieces. Cammy screamed. She came out of it when Andrew shook her and her mama put cold, wet dish towels across her forehead. Her brother and her mama talked softly and said kind things to her.
    “Nothing’s going to hurt you. I