On the way to the cellar, she stopped to listen one more time. Her instincts were in high gear as she tightened her grip on the stair railing, hoping not to fall again. Too many times her refuge had been one of agonizing scrapes and bruises; too many times she had muffled her tears--this time, she swore, she'd watch her step. But the noise was louder now, and it was coming from the kitchen. All that was between her and the noise was the cracked door without a lock. She was tempted to push on the door just in case the noise wanted to follow her into the darkness. Frozen in the damp hull, holding her breath, straining to hear, the grip faded, and Shelby fainted.

---

'Take out the trash on your way out, dear,'� mom shouted from the top of the stairs.
'Sure thing,'� Shelby yelled as she grabbed the bulging trash bag. 'I'll be home before dinner. Wish me luck on my finals!'� and the screen door bounced twice behind her in reply.

It was the last day of school, 1978. Her last test was today and then she would be free. No more school. Ever. Most of her friends planned on a relaxing summer and a race to the nearby junior college for two years. Shelby could not make up her mind and had procrastinated too long for the SAT deadline, so her college days were not in the fall plan. She would get a job and work a while, perhaps saving up enough money to go to the university rather than community college. All the movies she had seen depicted a crowd of happy-go-lucky freshmen meeting boys, partying, and living in dorms. More than anything Shelby wanted to do better than anyone else. She wanted to go to college in a real college, not some blank classroom with dull-eyed, boring teachers who never made it to the big leagues. She would lose ten pounds, work hard, save her money, and show everyone the way it should be done. She wanted to be one of those happy, carefree college girls, living in a dorm with pranks and laughter, wrapped up in a sweater two sizes too large, and flip-flopping through the dorms with oversized, furry house slippers. Most of all, she wanted the laughter again.

Only there was a problem: her parents. Her father worked at the local mill and had set aside a small savings each paycheck just for Shelby's college. But after her sister died in the accident, all the funds were used for the burial and the memorial headstone. She remembers her mom trying to decide what to put on it, and Shelby winced each time she read it: Our little angel girl. In a way, Shelby was jealous. If Denise was the angel girl, then what was she? That was two years ago. Two years since the laughter died.

The cellar door had been left ajar, and Denise and Shelby were play fighting in the kitchen. Shelby had a dishtowel and had been chasing Denise all over the house popping her with the end of it. Once in the kitchen, Denise backed up to the cellar door to escape the snap, it opened, she fell. Her neck was broken. The door was broken. And now, her family was broken. Strange how one minute there was a cloud of laughter and fun, then the next minute an ambulance is hauling off sisterhood. Like a busy pair of bees in flight, flittering from petal to petal and suddenly, a hand reaches in and whacks one, killing its purpose in life. All the bees fly home wondering what happened. That's Shelby. Wondering all the time what the hell happened. Wondering what's next.

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