Free Ten Ways to Make My Sister Disappear by Norma Fox Mazer

not?” Sprig takes a can of dog food from the cupboard. At the sound of the can opener, Cora comes over, sits down expectantly, and grins at Sprig.
    â€œGotcha,” Sprig says. She fills the food bowls and the water bowls, and calls Plucky, who slinks into sight from behind a chest of drawers. While the animals are eating, Sprig punches in Mom’s cell number. What she gets is Mom’s mailbox. “Please leave a message….”
    â€œMom, Miss Ruthie’s sick. She has a virus or something,” Sprig says. “She really doesn’t feel good, I mean she looks terrible, Mom, and she’s in bed now, and I’m taking care of Cora and Plucky and —” She pauses for breath. “The thing is, she doesn’t want me to call the doctor, but do you think I should call anyway? Who is her doctor, Mom? Do you know? Call me back when you get this message. Miss Ruthie is sleeping, and I don’t want to wake her up. Call me! Okay?”
    Cora has eaten all her food and is sitting down near Plucky, who’s still picking at his food. “Go ahead, it’s okay,” Sprig says to the cat. “Cora’s not going to eat your food, even if she is looking at it like that.”
    Sprig sits down at the table and tries to think what to do next. She’s sure she shouldn’t leave Miss Ruthie alone, but shouldn’t she do something else? Why isn’t Dad here! He would know what to do. She goes to the bedroom and tiptoes over to the bed. Miss Ruthie is lying there, her mouth open. Her skin is damp and she looks really, really pale.
    When Sprig is sick, Mom brings her magazines to read, and lets her lie on the couch and watch TV and eat special food, like baby pear sauce. None of that is any good for Miss Ruthie, so Sprig straightens the newspaper on the table next to her bed, centers the little lamp with its bluebird lampshade, and checks to make sure the window is tightly closed. Miss Ruthie’s black lace-up shoes are in the middle of the floor next to a crumpled pair of slacks, as if she tried to get dressed and couldn’t. Sprig hangs up the slacks and puts the shoes in the closet. Then she tiptoes out.
    In the kitchen, she watches Cora and Plucky, who both watch her. Cora plants herself directly in front of Sprig and gazes at her with half-blind eyes. “What?” Sprig says. “You want me to do something else? What, Cora? You want me to wash the dishes? Okay, I’ll do them.”
    She runs hot water in the sink and thinks about how she’ll tell Dad this whole story when he calls later. He will call later, won’t he? “He will, he will, he will, he will call,” she says out loud, but quietly. “Yes, he will,” she tells herself again, placing another clean dish carefully in the rack. After she finishes washing the pots, she tiptoes back into the bedroom. Miss Ruthie hasn’t moved. Her breathing is thick and rapid, as if she’s gasping for each breath.
    Sprig dials her mother’s cell again, punching the numbers in hard.
    â€œPlease leave a message….”
    â€œMom! Why don’t you have the cell phone on? Why aren’t you answering? Call me!” Nearly an hour has passed since she called the first time. “Mom, hurry up and call me. Please!”
    Who else could she ask for advice? Bliss? No. What about Mr. Julius? “That’s a good idea,” she says out loud. She finds the phone book on the bottom shelf of one of the cupboards. She peels away the thin pages, looking for his name. She finds M. Jukes and Patryk July, but no Thomas Julius.
    â€œWhat do I do now? What do I do now?” She paces back and forth, peeks into the bedroom again, then looks out the kitchen window and across the field, where she saw Thomas Buckthorn skiing away on that other Saturday. If he were here now, she would even ask him what to do.
    She cartwheels across the kitchen, just to do something . When she stands