The Pantry Door by Julie Steimle (top 100 books of all time checklist TXT) 📕

“Rise and shine, sleepy head!”

Katy rolled over, pulling the pillow on top of her head to block out the suddenly blinding light that now shone overhead from the bare light bulb into her eyes. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Out of bed!” Her grandmother’s cheerful voice called down the stairs, as did the aroma of crisping bacon and melting butter. “Breakfast in five minutes, and don’t be late, or I’ll feed it to the pigs.”

Pigs? Katy merely grunted, knowing her grandpa never kept pigs.

“Come on, Kathleen. We have a full day’s work ahead of us.” Her grandmother walked from the door letting it swing slightly shut.

“Work?” Katy sat up. “I’m on vacation. I’m not here to work.”

But her grandmother did not respond. She was already gone.

Katy dropped back to her pillow, averting her eyes from the swinging light on the chain overhead. Pigs. She wondered what her grandmother meant by that. Reaching up for the pull cord, Katy yanked on it and dropped back down again onto her mattress. She closed her eyes. Falling back asleep took no effort at all.

“Gran, where did all the bacon go?” Katy stood in the doorway, staring at the cleared kitchen table. Her grandmother was just washing up at the sink, elbow high in sudsy water.

Blinking back at her, her grandmother just shrugged. “Where else? Back to the pig.”

“Not funny, Grandma. Really, where did you put it?” Katy walked over to the refrigerator. Tugging on the handle, she could see it was already locked.

“The kitchen closed at eight o’clock. You’ll just have to wait until lunch.”

Katy turned and stared at her. “Lunch? I’m hungry now.”

“If you were really hungry, you would have come when called,” said her grandmother as she went back to washing dishes.

Stomping over to her, Katy nearly swore. However, holding it in, she said, “Are you trying to starve me?”

“Of course not,” Grandma Schmidt said with a small smile. “But I am not a short order cook either.”

Katy just stared at her.

“Here you eat when you are called, and you eat what you are served,” Grandma said.

“I’m not an animal,” Katy snapped.

Grandma Schmidt nodded to her. “I can see that. But you ought to behave like a young lady. And young ladies do as they are told.”

“You are so archaic,” Katy said and turned from her, stomping out the door.

“I’ll be needing you in the garden after this.”

But Katy did not listen. No lunch the day before, and now no breakfast? Whether she liked it or not, Katy knew she was going to be very thin by the end of that month. She thought about hitchhiking home. Although she knew which direction to go on the freeway, she did not know how far she would have to travel to get home. So, doing the only thing she thought she could do, Katy trudged along the gravel road and up the hill, away from the house just for some space. If she didn’t, her grandmother was sure to make her work.

Uphill. Katy knew where that would lead her, but by this time, she didn’t care. In fact, she felt like she needed to go there. It was actually up the hill, to the left down a newly paved road with no sidewalks, and past the new church and the old school house. The empty school swimming pool was still there, but there was now a fence around it to keep children from falling in. Katy passed that and went to the far chain link fence where there was a break in it. It was just large enough for one person to squeeze through. A beaten footpath led on from there. People took it because they didn’t like taking the long way around up the road. Katy was gasping when at last she reached the top of the hill: the carefully mowed grass and the swaying trees stood over numerous stone slabs, all with names of people long dead.

Her grandfather used to say there was a lot of history in a graveyard. It wasn’t just a place where dead people were placed to get them out of the way. And in the shining summer sun, it wasn’t even creepy, just peaceful. Her grandfather used to come up there regularly to put flags out for the soldiers that died, even the forgotten ones. Whenever they faded, he’d be up there to replace them. He often said that no one deserved to be forgotten. No one.

Katy’s feet traveled from stone to stone. She looked at each grave marker. Not one was an ancestor of hers. Her grandfather was a stranger to those parts. She often wondered why he wanted to settle in a town hostile to outsiders. She had asked him once. He just smiled and said, “I knew a town like this once in my younger years, and they treated me badly as this one sometimes does now. I left that town, but I am determined to do it right in this one.”

Do it right. That’s what he had said. Katy never really knew what he meant by that.

She stopped at the edge of one grave. The stone was not the usual grave marker but elaborately carved granite in the shape of a boy with a flute, much like Pan would look, except this one didn’t have goat feet. He had a mischievous shape to his eyes, and he held an exact replica of the wooden carved pipe her grandfather loved to play in his spare time. Around him on the stone, crawling up it, were rats all carved too expertly to not believe they weren’t real. Katy peered at the name engraved there: Peter Wilhelm Schmidt. It only had his death date. No birth date. Grandpa was like that. He never said when he was born. He only smiled and said that he was very, very old.

Katy sat down on the grass and stared at the face of the boy and sighed. She gazed up at the carved grapevines also etched near his name. “Grandpa?”

There was only a breeze. She had wished he were there so she could talk to him, but it really had been a silly notion. Still, she spoke aloud anyway.

“Grandpa. I’ve missed you.”

She noticed a bird land in the tree near by and started its call, which was echoed from another tree by another bird.

“The kids at school won’t leave me alone. They say I’m a goody-two-shoes geek if I keep going to band practice like you want me to.”

She knew how he would answer: It was not important what others thought about her, only if she loved music. Katy started to cry.

“I miss playing the flute, but Robert Brinsky keeps taking it from me away at recess. He and Penny Appleby won’t leave me alone unless I go with them and do those things that make Mom so mad.”

She knew his answer also. Did she like making her mother mad? Did she like being with Robert and Penny? What happened to her other friends?

Katy frowned. Her other friends had not been there for her when her grandfather had died. They said she had changed, but they had never stood by her either. They also could not stand up to Robert and Penny. Her friends had also started to want to be ‘cool’ even if it meant getting into trouble. Staring at the grass at her feet, she whispered, “What do I do?”

A gust of wind blew by her face, brushing the hair from the back of her head into her eyes. She heard laughs coming from down the hill. Katy stood up with a jerk.

“Ha, so you are here.”

It wasn’t her grandmother, which would have been nice if she had come to find her. Katy secretly wanted someone to search for her, someone to care that she was gone. It was Carly Hillerman with Trent and Mark Gibson. They were a couple years older than she was, and just as troublesome as Robert Brinsky.

Katy dusted off her pants and turned to walk away. That’s what Grandpa always said to do when bullies came at you. Just walk away.

“Hey, Schmidt! Where’re you going?”

She quickened her pace, but they caught up with her. Trent grabbed her arm, and Carley reached out for the other one.

“What’s your rush? Don’t you want to come grave hopping with us?” Carley said.

She had a playful sound to her voice. Katy knew better. Carley was trouble. One time when Katy had gone visiting her grandpa, Carley had stolen watermelons from their garden and jumped the fence, trying to sneak through the grapevines to get away. Grandpa had been there in a flash, snatched her arm and yanked her back from his prize grapes. He had given her such a scolding that even Katy never forgot it. And neither had Carley. Carley had been spiteful towards Grandpa Schmidt ever since.

“Come on, Schmidt. What are you doing here? Communing with the dead?” Mark said.

Katy lifted her chin and squared it, glaring into his eyes. “It’s Nielsen. And let me go.”

“Ooh!” Both Carley and Trent chorused. They were cackling like they were planning some real mischief.

“Smart mouth,” Mark snapped back and shook her hard. “I oughta beat you up for that.”

But Katy refused to be intimidated. Having dealt with Robert Brinsky, she knew that showing any amount of fear only made it worse. She had to keep cool to win this fight.

“We were gonna bring you along,” Carley said, “But if you are going to keep acting all goody-two-shoes on us—”

“I’m not a goody-goody,” Katy bit back, glaring at her.

That made all three grin.

“Good.” Mark quickly wrapped his arm around her, making sure she wasn’t going to run away. “Then come with us.”

“I don’t waste my time either,” Katy said, slipping out from under his arm.

But Carley still had a firm hold on her. She jerked Katy back, shaking her head to make it clear Katy could not get away. Mark was ready to put her in a chokehold.

Trent pointed across the lawn to a gravestone. “Let’s take her over there.”

Immediately they dragged Katy across the grass where Trent already skipped over. Katy kicked out, striking Carley first in the shins and then Mark, aiming for his groin. Both let go. Katy ran for it.

“Get her!” Carley shouted to Trent, rubbing her legs as Mark rolled over on the ground.

Dodging gravestones, Katy darted straight to the tall, chain-linked fence. On the other side of the fence, there was nothing but tangled, undeveloped land covered in underbrush. Travis grabbed at her heel just as she was about to pull herself over, latching his fingers onto her shoe.

“Let go!” Katy kicked out, flopping over the wire top headfirst.

Her legs swung over, but her shoe loosened and flipped off, dropping straight into the bramble on the other side. She flipped over and fell to the ground. Trent glared at her, not quite ready to follow her into the shrubbery that was too much like a forest rather than an unused yard. Carley was running to join him, swearing at him and her.

“We’ll get you, Schmidt!”

But Katy did not stop. She dashed into the bushes to find her shoe. Carley was already climbing the fence when Katy finally found it. She ducked under the low branches as soon as she saw Carley and Trent on her side of the fence.

Without even trying to put on her shoe, Katy scrambled down