One warm afternoon when her parents were away at marriage camp, Paula enlisted me to help teach her youngest sister about heaven and hell. Miranda liked to play in a little overgrown yard at the side of the house, posing her Barbie dolls among the tiny headstones of the various family pets buried there. Paula selected this as the staging area for her lesson. While I waited inside, she climbed quietly up and over a second-floor windowsill, paused briefly, then leapt down into the little yard, holding a large stainless-steel spoon. She crumpled when she hit the ground and lay there motionless, her fist clutching the spoon pressed under her chest, a small dribble of ketchup oozing from the exploded McDonald's packet in her hand.
I knew what to do: Paula had trained me. I leaned out the window and called to the surprised Miranda, "Don't touch her!," then ran down to my wounded friend's side. I admonished Miranda to stay calm, while doing my best to act hysterical. I ran breathlessly through my lines, which included many repetitions of "Paula! Can you hear me? Speak to me! Paula?" More curious than concerned at first, Miranda used the pointy feet of her Barbie doll to give her sister a few tentative pokes. But Paula went on lying impressively still, a peaceful smile gently curling the corners of her lips. I finally ceased my dramatic attempts to revive her, and pronounced solemnly, "I think she's dead."
Then, her eyes still shut, spoon and ketchup still in hand, Paula slowly rose to her feet. She explained to us in a calm, stately voice that she hadn't wanted to die, but that she couldn't go on living in such a terrible world with such a terrible, terrible sister. Yes, she was dead, and her soul would be going up to heaven soon. "But first I have something to show you," she said, beckoning mysteriously to Miranda.
Holding her arms straight out in front of her like a zombie and looking squintingly from under her eyelids, Paula walked slowly up the driveway. Her sister stumbled reluctantly after, with me taking up the rear. Paula headed toward the corner, where she sometimes liked to play "hitchhiker," a game that involved lifting her skirt to display her thighs and yelling "Going my way, baby?" at passing cars. She crossed the street and clambered through the bushes of wild licorice. A few feet back from the road there was a culvert where a dingy little creek surfaced briefly before passing under the pavement and into Paula's back yard.
The three of us climbed down between the rocks where the tiny creek trickled. Here Paula began her sermon. She told her sister we were standing at an entrance to Hell. The devil lived down under the creek, waiting to take people like Miranda. "That's where you're going if you're not careful! Go down and see what it's like!" She shoved Miranda, squirming and whining, down into the creekbed. The little sister scrambled back up again, slipping in the mud. "Quit it!" she squealed. "I'm telling!"
Paula had been calm, but now she was quick and angry. "I told the devil not to take you this time. But if you don't shut up, he's going to grab you by the ankles and take you. So be quiet and listen!" She pushed her sister back down against the rocks. Miranda was quiet.
"When he drags you down to hell, you'll have to go underwater, under the river," I chimed in. The notion of hell had captured my imagination too. "But the river will be like fire, because--"
"Shut up, Juliet!" Paula admonished me. "I'm not finished. Miranda, I'm about to go up to heaven. When I go, Juliet will be your new sister. You can never say anything about this to Mom. Just do everything like before, except instead of me Juliet will be Paula. You have to do what she says. She knows what I want you to do."
"But she's not my sister!"
"Well you just have to act like she is, all right," Paula snapped, "because if you don't she's going to take you and throw you down in here, where the devil can get you. So you can't say anything to anyone, just play like normal." And suddenly Paula's eyes rolled back in her head, and her bare arms reached up toward the trees. Climbing on top of the neighbors' trash can, still straining upward, she started to shiver and sway. "I hear God calling me," Paula sighed.
I could see Miranda's sulky, bemused fascination with her sister's performance merging into genuine alarm. She pleaded with Paula to wait, not to leave her. But Paula was determined to carry her plan through to the end.
"I'm leaving now. God is calling," she repeated. "Juliet is Paula now. Goodbye." And then Paula grabbed a branch and swung up into the neighbors' oak tree, disappearing into the leaves.
Miranda crouched on the ground. She looked tired and small. I thought about trying to console her, but instead I just grabbed her arm and announced, "We're going home now. Come on." Trying to act businesslike, I started back across the street, dragging Miranda, who was too stunned and exhausted to resist. I was excited by my new status, but I wasn't sure what I should do next. How would I keep Miranda occupied for the rest of the afternoon until her parents got home? What if Paula didn't come back? I couldn't just leave this kid at alone in the house. Maybe I wasn't up to the responsibility of being an older sister. Especially one like Paula.
Then the familiar shape of a white station wagon appeared at the crest of the hill. I loosened my grip on Miranda's arm. Watching her parents' car turning into their driveway, Miranda slowly straightened her narrow body. "I know you're not my sister," she hissed. As I turned and jogged back around the corner, behind me I heard faint cries of "MAOMMM!" and "Mandy, what the heck is going on here? Paula? Paula JEAN!!"
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