Free Cousins by Virginia Hamilton Page B

love you,” Maylene told her, “Please, baby, don’t take on so,” holding her against the dark.
    “Cam, you’re not to blame for anything. It’s not your fault, none of it,” her big brother said. He squeezed her hand tight. Leaning toward her, Andrew sat on the cot right where Patty Ann had been.
    But none of the night terrors happened right after that last, awful, Little River day. Right after was a week when there were church prayers and sadness in the town. But still, she got ready for school. New clothes and school supplies purchased at the Mall. And then, she went to school like everybody else. The day campers were happy to have been part of the “tragic event of late August,” as the principal, Mr. Hardell, said. Cammy and her camp mates were stared at and talked about. At first, even Elodie was sought out by other children.
    “I bet I told about it twenty times today,” Cammy said to Andrew when she got home. “I’ll see somebody coming my way, and it all just comes out, too.”
    “Don’t upset yourself, Cam,” he said. He had looked so serious.
    “I don’t feel anything about it, one way or the other,” she said, airily.
    Andrew had seemed worried about her, she didn’t know why.
    But things built up and fell down on her. The worst of anything was having to sit and see that desk. Each kid in homeroom had to bring a streamer of crepe paper. The teacher said it could be any color, as long as it was pastel. Soft colors, like pink or baby blue, even yellow. If a kid had a mind to bring in purple, well, it had to be a real pale purple. Cammy wouldn’t know where to get a pale purple, anyway. Ms. Wells, the teacher, said she’d contribute the black crepe streamers to make the border.
    So the way it was, Cammy got a roll of white crepe paper from the variety store. That had been all they had. She had most of the roll left over because she only needed one long strip. She wondered what she would do with it all.
    I’ll wind it around my neck and pin myself to the donkey with it, she thought, and then wondered why she’d thought that. She didn’t feel right, though, somehow, inside.
    But she had to admit Patty Ann’s desk did look well decorated when they had finished it. Patricia Ann! When they’d all done it just as Ms. Wells directed them, it looked out of this world, Cammy thought.
    “Just like Jesus might sit there,” Elodie said. Cammy wished she’d thought to say that, even though kids snickered and looked mean at Elodie. Because all the kids agreed even if they wouldn’t say so. Cammy could tell they did. The desk was now a sacred place. It scared them a little because they knew nothing on earth was good enough to sit in the seat with its black, black border.
    The desk looked heavenly. It was like a prayer— if I should die before I wake —from all the children. None in Patty Ann’s class had attended the real memorial service.
    Yet, having to see the empty, decorated space all the time made Cammy’s head start to hurt. After a couple of days, lots of kids got sick to their stomachs. Maybe it was the flu flitting from one to the next one of them. Maybe it wasn’t.
    Cammy stayed home sometimes. “I can’t take school,” she told her mama. “My tummy just turns over and up and down.”
    Andrew and her mama gave one another long looks, it seemed to Cammy. But she had to keep her eyes closed a lot of the time. Her head wouldn’t stop aching. It felt like it was going to float off by itself. And it seemed as if she looked through a cloud when she tried watching TV.
    Her mama took off from work half days to be at home with her. One time, Maylene also made a trip to school. She came home and told Andrew about it. Cammy had been lying on the couch with her bedspread over her and heard the whole thing.
    “Why, the idea of it!” her mama said. “I told them, Patricia Ann’s desk shouldn’t be made into a centerpiece for a costume party, like some carved Halloween pumpkin. And the