Three Sisters by Norma Fox Mazer Page A

know your hormones are churning,” she said, trying to be amusing. “It’s typical of teenage males.”
    David didn’t look amused. No wonder. She didn’t think it was very funny, either. “You know, Davey—David!—I want to say something. It really makes me feel punky to be always putting on the brakes.”
    “So give it the gas.” He threw himself down on the floor.
    She stepped over him. ““What makes me feel punky is to always be the cop.”
    “So, stop,” he said, staring up at her.
    “You look like a dead person.” She picked up a little statue Tobi had given her years ago, something she got by sending in boxtops. A little pink and green plaster shepherdess with an innocent look on her sweet, dopey little face. “I guess I’m not making myself clear,” Karen said.
    “You know, Karen, I want to say something to you, too.” He closed his eyes, put his hands over his chest like a corpse. “Did it ever occur to you,” he said in a deep voice, “that maybe you are too young for me?”
    “That’s very suave of you, Davey.”
    “Now don’t get mad, I just want to talk about this.”
    Karen stared at the cover of a fashion magazine. Liz must have left it in her room. Who was this fabulous creature on the cover, her hair flowing out behind her, smiling at her as if to say, You see how easy it is to be a woman!
    “Talk about what, Davey? We’re exactly the same age; in fact, I’m a month older than you.”
    “I didn’t mean literally, age-wise.”
    “Oh, God,” she said, sounding like Tobi. “What are we talking about here?”
    “Don’t you know?”
    “Would I ask if I did?”
    He rolled over, kicked his feet. “Oh, well …” he said in a muffled voice. He sat up. “Forget I said anything.”
    “No, come on. If you want to talk about something, let’s talk.”
    “Forget it, forget it, forget it,” he said rapidly.
    They went downstairs to the kitchen, sat down across from each other, and went to work on a carton of peach ice cream. “Did we just fight?” she said.
    He shrugged. The hum of the refrigerator. The scrape of spoons in the ice-cream carton.
    Finally, she said, “Do you want to come over to my grandmother’s with me?”
    “Why?”
    “I promised I’d visit her this week, bring you along.”
    “How’d I get into this?”
    “She wants to meet you.”
    “Look me over, see if I’m okay for her Karen?”
    “Something like that, I guess. Come on, be a pal. My grandma’s liable to send me to Siberia if I disappoint her. Or strangle Gladys Goldfish.”
    “I’m always your pal,” he muttered. “Aren’t I always a gooood boy?”
    “God, Davey.”
     
    They took the bus over to her grandmother’s. Karen toted Gladys in her plastic bag and David had Eggbert in a sling he’d made out of an old sock. Some people stared at them. She poked Davey and wriggled her eyebrows. He wriggled his in return, but half-heartedly.
    Her grandmother lived in the Sudbury Towers,
    a semi-fancy apartment building. They took the elevator to the fourth floor. “Creaky old thing,” Davey said, and gave the wall a hard kick.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t go, after all,” Karen said. “You really are in a foul mood.”
    “Uh-uh. You didn’t drag me all the way over here just to call it off. We’re visiting Grandma.”
    She rang the bell. “Karen?” her grandmother said, then opened the door. “To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?”
    Kiss her cheek. Introduce Davey. Go inside.
    Her grandmother’s apartment was small, but elegant. Lots of shining, polished wood, brocaded chair seats, and velvet curtains. She had on a turban that matched her curtains, deep green with a sparkling jeweled pin set in the middle.
     
    “That is a great turban,” Davey said.
    “Why, thank you, David.” She passed him a plate of little frosted cookies. “Take plenty.”
    “I hope we didn’t come at a bad time for you, Grandma.”
    “What could be a bad time for me, Karen? An old lady like me has