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Down the Zombie Hole

Six o

“Please, Alice Please”

I lay sprawled on a blanket ina daisy chain for htly as puffy white clouds ghosted across an endless expanse of baby blue As I breathed in the thick honeysuckle and lavender perfume of the Alabay caterpillar A butterfly with one of its wings shredded A fat white rabbit, racing toward a tree

Eight-year-old Elittery pink ballerina costu with her every movement She was a miniature version of our mother and the complete opposite of me

Both possessed a slick fall of dark hair and beautifully uptilted golden eyes Mom was short, barely over five-three, and I wasn’t sure Em would evenblue eyes and legs that stretched for miles At five-ten, I was taller than most of the boys at o anywhere without getting a fehat-are-you-a-giraffe? stares

Boys had never shown an interest in ht one drooling over —heard one whistle as she bent over to pick so up

“Al-less” At my side now, Em stomped her slippered foot in a bid forto me?”

“Sweetie, we’ve gone over this, like, a thousand tiht start while it’s sunny out, but it’ll end at dark You know Dad will never let us leave the house And Mo as you swore never to throw a tantrum when you couldn’t make a practice or a, what? Recital”

She stepped over me and planted those dainty pink slippers at h shadow to shield lare She beca down at ot this …and this afternoon…but last week I reup—you reain, so doesn’t that count for so? ’Course it does,” she added before I could say anything “Daddy has to do whatever you ask So, if you ask hi in her tone “…and ask if he’ll come and watch me, too, then he will”

My birthday Yeah My parents had forgotten, too Again Unlike Em, they hadn’t remembered—and wouldn’t Last year, leabout monsters only he could see andup his mess As always

This year, Mom had hidden notes in drawers to remind herself (I’d found them), and as Em had clai, “Hey, Alice’s birthday is co up and I think she deserves a party!” but I’d woken up this ed

Whatever I was a year older, finally sweet sixteen, butdeal I’d stopped caring a long tio

Eh, she cared She wanted what I’d never had: their undivided attention

“Since today’sforabout her first ballet performance and the princess role she liked to say she “had been born to perform”

She fisted her hands on her hips, all innocence and indignation and, well,you do this for ift to you”