4

For them, those three days off were sunshine, sand, and all the seafood they could eat.

For me, they were three days of my body swelling, reeking, and rotting a little more with every hour in a stifling room.

Of all the times for it, the central air had broken down too.

The early summer heat turned that sealed room into an oven.

Dark blotches crawled over my skin, and the blood dried into hard black crusts that stuck fast to the expensive rug.

On the evening of the third day, the front door finally opened.

"I got so tan. I must look terrible now!" Chloe whined.

Dad came in loaded with bags of local treats, smiling at her with pure indulgence.

"As long as you had fun. In a few days I'll have your mother take you for a spa day."

Mom was about to change out of her shoes when she suddenly covered her nose.

"What is that smell?"

A heavy stench of rot hung in the air.

Dad frowned too.

"Did nobody take out the kitchen trash?"

"That damn girl," Mom said. "Three days, and she couldn't even take out the garbage?"

Mom stormed up to the second floor.

The closer she got to my room, the worse it was.

She held her nose with one hand and hammered on the door with the other.

"Amelia Reed! Did you leave food in there on purpose so it would rot?

"You want to disgust us with a filthy little trick like this?

"Get out here right now!"

She twisted the handle hard, but the door was still locked.

The panel didn't shift at all.

That only fed her anger, and she drove her foot into the door.

"If you don't open this door, I'll stop paying your high-school tuition. You think I won't?

"I'll send you to the worst public school there is!"

The impact rocked the body behind the door, and the rotting wound on my forehead squeezed out one more thread of dark red fluid.

It ran along the floor to the door and joined the blood that had been there for three days.

But Mom was staring at the handle. She never looked down.

"You still have the nerve to throw a tantrum at me?

"You think giving me the silent treatment will get you out of your punishment?"

Dad stood behind her and said quietly, "Let it go. When she's hungry enough she'll open it.

"We spoiled her, that's all this is."

When I heard that, a great tiredness came over me.

They hadn't spoiled me.

I only wanted one steak.

All I had wanted that day was to hear Mom say, "Millie, you did well."

But in their eyes, those wishes were greed and scheming.

Susan, the cleaner who came every week, let herself in with her key.

She had barely stepped inside when the color drained out of her face.

Her toolbox hit the floor with a clatter.

"Ma'am..."

Mom shot her an impatient look.

"What is it if it isn't garbage? A rat dead inside a wall?"

Susan didn't answer.

She climbed the stairs slowly, her eyes fixed on the dried brownish-black stain under the door.

Sunlight slanted through the upstairs window, illuminating the fine dust at the edge of the stain and the handful of blowflies circling the doorway.

Susan's lips started to tremble.

She lifted her hand and pointed at the door.

"That isn't the smell of garbage.

"Under that door... there's blood."

The words seemed to sting Mom, and she shot back, "She did that herself. She's trying to scare us."

But Susan took a step back, and her voice shook.

"Ma'am, I've cleaned houses for over twenty years.

"I know that smell.

"That's the smell of a dead body."

My parents froze at the same instant.

Their eyes traveled slowly to the stain they had walked past for three whole days.

Dad took a step backward without meaning to.

"That's not possible..." Dad said. "She's just sulking. How could she..."

Mom's face went white.

She threw herself at the door and beat on it wildly.

"Millie!

"Amelia Reed, say something!

"Don't scare Mommy. Open the door, right now!

"Just open the door and I'll never make you toss that coin again!"

There was nothing but dead silence inside.

The only sound was a few blowflies buzzing at the gap under the door.

Mom's hand slid slowly down the wood.

She remembered, all at once, what she had said before she left.

She shook her head again and again, muttering, "No. No. She's just ignoring me on purpose."

Dad snapped out of it and ran downstairs for the toolbox.

His hands shook so badly he could barely keep hold of the hammer.

"Move!

"I'm breaking the lock!"

One blow.

Two.

Three.

Splinters flew everywhere.

Every impact sent a small tremor through the body behind the door.

Mom stared at the gap under it, as if I would still be alive as long as the door stayed shut.

With a sharp crack, the brass lock finally gave.

Dad raised his foot and kicked the door open.