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

But Katy didn’t dare cry. She didn’t want her grandmother to see her tears. Holding them back with the same effort as clenching that can opener tight, her fingers throbbed while she turned the knob.

“Good. Now, can you find the cheese slicer for me?”

Katy passed over the open soup can and then went over the kitchen to the drawers. The cheese slicer was inside the third drawer she opened, hiding under a rubber spatula and a rolling pin with the jumble of other kitchen tools. She handed it to her grandmother and leaned on the table to watch.

Her grandmother sliced the cheese fairly thin, but not too thin. It was just like her mother. The way she held her fingers, the way she carefully pressed down on the wire to make sure it was moving right, all of it was like home. And when her grandmother set the cheese on the bread already spread with butter on the opposite side, and rested both on the skillet, Katy sighed again.

“What is it? You have been sighing like that a lot lately. Is something wrong?” Grandma Schmidt asked.

Katy just shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

“Are you being truthful?” Her grandmother gave her that look.

With a smirk, Katy returned it. “I’m fine.”

She looked away. Her grandmother let out her own sigh and continued to grill the sandwiches, setting another buttered slice of bread with cheese onto the skillet.

The smell of the melting butter and the cheese waft about, intermingling with the increasing tomato aroma as the soup had also begun to simmer. Grandma turned the heat down to warm, stirring occasionally.

But another breeze caught Katy’s attention. She turned her head and glanced at the cupboard door. It was open. Katy could already smell the carpet from the room, mixing with the spices from the cupboard. Staring at the door, Katy also could have sworn she heard Nissa call to her. But perhaps it was her imagination. Nissa had not been there when she was in the room last. Perhaps the entire encounter had really been a dream.

“Oh, Kathleen, before I forget, go into the pantry and get the cake mix. We need to make it for our guest right after lunch,” her grandmother said.

Katy walked to the cupboard, obeying her. She opened the door wider and looked up. She reached in for the only cake mix there. Chocolate. Above, Katy could see the light from the door. Nissa’s voice was clearer, echoing downward. She was calling her name.

“And when Mrs. Tippets arrives, you don’t have to stay. It will be old boring adult talk,” Grandma Schmidt said.

Ignoring the condescending tone, Katy said in a loud voice, “I’ll be right there.”

Nissa’s voice stopped calling. She must have heard her.

Grandma Schmidt set the hand that held the stirring spoon on her hip. “You want to listen to us? Your mother didn’t even like lingering when Mrs. Tippets came by.”

Turning from the cupboard, Katy closed the door. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll just, uh, go play my flute.”

Her grandmother smiled. “Good idea.”

They finished making lunch.

Katy kept glancing to the cupboard door, hoping Nissa had not given up on her and left already. When they cleaned their plates and bowls, and her grandmother had started the cake, Katy peeked in once to see if the upper door had shut. The light was still there, though she could not hear Nissa anymore. Katy frowned and went back to help her grandmother.

Two hours later, the cake was cooled, frosted, and set up on the living room table with the tea set with small plates and a boiling hot brew inside the pot. Mrs. Tippets came on time. She barely noticed Katy except to say how unlike her mother she was. In fact, the woman said with a tone of disdain that Katy took entirely after her Grandfather Schmidt and asked, ‘where in the world did she get such large hands.’ It was the first time Katy had noticed that she had such hands. Though, once someone had remarked that she had piano fingers. It sounded so much more elegant the way that other person had said it. Grandma Schmidt merely smiled and replied that Katy was born to be a musician. They went directly into the other room, and Katy fled straight to the pantry door as soon as they were out of sight. It was already open.

Climbing inside, Katy looked back only once before scrambling up the two-by-fours. The room was the same. Her flute was in the same place on the carpet. And Nissa was singing to herself outside.

“Oh, where, oh where has my little friend gone? Oh, where, oh, where can she be?”

Katy poked out her head and looked down. Nissa sat on the tire swing that hung from the tree just outside. It was as if she were actually a ghost since the yard was entirely the same, though better kept up like when Grandpa Schmidt was alive.

“I’m here!” Katy called out.

Nissa practically hopped from the swing, running to the window. Her grin was wide, though also chiding. “What took you so long? I saw the window, and I heard you say you were coming—”

“Sorry about that,” Katy said with a sheepish grin. “My grandma wanted to make a cake for Mrs. Tippets. I had to help.”

Nissa made a repulsed face at her. “Mrs. Tippets. She’s where you are too?”

Katy blinked her eyes wide and leaned out further. “You know Mrs. Tippets?”

With a firm and disgusted nod, Nissa replied, “Unfortunately.”

Pulling back inside, Katy leaned on the windowsill. “She’s talking with Gran about the Fireman’s raffle for the Founder’s Day celebration this Saturday. We’re supposed to help with that somehow.”

“She’s doing the same thing in your house right now?” Nissa’s jaw dropped again with an incredulous look.

Glancing down, Katy eyed Nissa critically, closing one eye. “Are you in a parallel universe to mine?”

Nissa merely shrugged and sat down on the grass. “Who knows? You have Mrs. Tippets in your universe. I have her in mine. You talked about the Gibson jerks. I have those too. Maybe that magic window is a door between worlds. Dad says that there are many doorways to many different places, and we ought to be careful about which doors we open.”

“Like Alice in Wonderland, I suppose,” Katy said.

Nodding briskly, Nissa then rested her arms against her legs and her head on her knees. “But who fell down the rabbit hole? You or me?”

Katy did not reply, knowing she had climbed up into one. She gazed down at Nissa and wondered a moment on another thought. Despite her own banishment, Nissa looked severely more depressed than she felt. The words of her Grandfather came back to her, and Katy picked up her flute. She said them aloud, taking the flute out of its case. “Well, music is the remedy for trouble.”

Nissa lifted her head and blinked at her as Katy fixed the pieces together. Testing the sound, Katy adjusted them to fit and then played a song. It was one of her grandfather’s old melodies, one with a light, bumpy tune. He called it his “don’t get depressed” tunes. Nissa closed her eyes and smiled.

“I like that tune.”

Katy played it. Her own heart expanded as the music continued from her flute and into the air above the house. Then she played a short piece from her grandfather’s collection, one that was just as happy. When she lowered her flute, Nissa looked relaxed, grinning up at her. At peace.

“I wish you could go to school with me when I leave,” Nissa said, getting to her feet. “I hate that I have to make friends all over again.”

Setting her flute down on the carpet, Katy sighed, leaning over the windowsill. “I wish I had a ladder so I could climb out of this window, but I’m afraid you’d vanish if I did.”

Tilting her head to the side, Nissa gave a shrug. “If I had a ladder, I could climb up.” Then she blinked and chuckled. Her grin cracked across her face as she giggled with a sudden burst, slapping her forehead with her hand.

“I’m so stupid! There’s an old wood ladder in the barn,” Nissa said, turning from the house. “I’ll go get it!”

Katy watched her run across the yard over the trimmed grasses that were getting high and shaggy in her grandpa’s yard. Nissa was gone for several minutes, longer than Katy wanted to wait, but soon she saw Nissa dragging back a worn, yet tall homemade ladder of aged wood that she had never seen around her grandfather’s lot. He had some shorter ones like it, but this one could possibly reach the window. Nissa rushed to the wall as she dragged the ladder, glancing first to the right then the left to make sure no one saw her as she hefted it up to lean against the house. It was difficult for Nissa to prop up, and several times, it threatened to tip over into the tree behind her.

Yet Nissa at last jabbed the wide bottom end into the grass and looked up toward the window high over her head. “Ok! I’m coming up! Don’t vanish on me!”

Having no intention of disappearing, Katy waited, reaching out to hold the top of the ladder while Nissa climbed up. By the time Nissa made it to the top. They looked at one another face to face. Nissa was shaking with fright, obviously terrified at being up so high. She looked down at the ground, but clasped Katy’s outstretched hand, climbing inside the room with the eagerness of a rabbit escaping a fox. With one yank, Nissa toppled over the highest rung and dropped to the carpet. She let out a nervous giggle, glancing back at the window and the ladder.

“I’m sorry! That was so scary! I thought I was going to fall.” Nissa turned around and smiled at Katy. “You’re real.”

Katy nodded, her smile broadening. “So are you.”

Close up, Katy could see that Nissa had a sweet, genuine smile that reminded her of her grandmother, though the keen look in her eye was much like Grandpa Schmidt’s. Katy was so taken aback that she blinked at her new friend for a full minute. Then she smiled.

“So, what do you want to do?” Katy gestured around at the empty room. “There isn’t anything up here but me and my flute.”

Her mysterious new friend relaxed against the window edge, still smiling. “That’s enough. Play something else on your flute.”

Giving a shrug, Katy lifted her flute to her lips and played out one of the pieces she learned from Peter and the Wolf. After that, she played some parts she memorized from The Magic Flute. When she finished, Katy set her flute to the side as the length of the day abruptly weighed on her, making her tired, and she started to ask Nissa about herself—the first subject leading to music.

“So you don’t play anything at all?” Katy eventually said after hearing Nissa praise her playing with a yearning look at the flute, growing surprised at the idea.

Nissa just shrugged. “I took piano once, but all that practicing was so boring. Mom said I could quit, but Dad didn’t seem too happy about it. My brother cheered, though. He says I play like an elephant. He calls me fat-fingers. I hate him.”

Katy made a face. It was like Mrs. Tippets saying she had large hands.

“Do you have a brother?” Nissa asked still grimacing as if thinking about her own brother made her sick.

“Nope. I’m an only child.” Katy shook her head, thinking of all the reasons her parents gave for not having more kids, most of them meant to flatter her, but at times, she wondered if they were the real reasons. “My dad says that they didn’t want any more than me because I was perfect—but you know how sappy some dads get. I’m sure the real reason is that Mom was tired with just one. I think she likes it better with just her