Once Upon a List Read Free Page B

planted on her hip, Libby demanded, “Doesn’t your sister look emaciated?”
    â€œUh . . . I—I don’t know.” He shrugged, clearly not appreciating being thrust into the spotlight. “I . . . reckon she might be a little on the skinny side.”
    â€œA little?” Libby parroted at the same exact time that Clara, equally surprised by her brother’s choice of words, repeated, “You reckon ?” Leo had a puzzling habit of only “reckoning” things when tangled in the process of whipping up a big, fat lie. Curiously, he never seemed to “reckon” diddly-squat when telling the truth.
    â€œHuh.” Clara blinked at his choice of words. “You really . . . reckon ?” She wondered if perhaps it might be true. Clara glanced in the bathroom mirror on most mornings after she got out of the shower when she was combing her wet hair, but she rarely, if ever, bothered to really look at her reflection. It made no difference to her anymore.
    Exasperated, Leo sighed. “What do I know?”
    Tilting her head to the side, Libby raised an index finger to her chin, examining Clara. “A buck fifteen. A buck twenty, tops ,” she announced after several contemplative seconds. “You don’t weigh a pound over. Believe me.” Libby Black had always considered herself to have two special, God-given gifts in life: one was perfect pitch, and the other was the ability to accurately assess an object’s weight without the aid of an outside instrument. The latter had earned her the nickname “The Human Scale” at the Libertyville County Fair, where she had worked for three consecutive summers during her teenage years as the Guess-Your-Weight-or-What-Month-You-Were-Born Girl. This unique skill also came in handy at the supermarket. Libby knew exactly what a pound of cherries looked and felt like, and when her children were younger, she often turned grocery shopping into a fun game, challenging them to try to stump her. If they succeeded, for their prize they could each choose any box of sugar cereal that they fancied (a stellar reward in the mind of a freeze-dried-marshmallow-obsessed girl whose personal heroes at the time included Cap’n Crunch and the monstrously dreamy Count Chocula). Clara and Leo would hand Libby what they estimated to be a one-pound bag of snap peas, she’d raise it in the air, pause, add or remove however many snap peas were necessary—one-by-one, making a theatrical show of it—and then let them race to the scale in the center of the citrus section to weigh the bag and see if she was right. She was always right. On Clara’s ninth birthday she had a sleepover party, and though Merv the Magician had been hired to enchant her guests, The Human Scale was a much bigger hit with the kids, who giggled with glee when Libby lifted them up and correctly guessed each and every one of their weights.
    Clara recognized that old, focused gleam in her mother’s big, chocolate brown eyes and, knowing exactly what was coming next, slowly started inching away from her. “No . . .” she warned, staving Libby off with both hands. “I just got home. I’m in no mood for games.”
    Tucking her chin-length, black-and-white-streaked hair behind her ear, Libby took a small step toward her daughter.
    â€œSeriously . . . I’m not joking,” pleaded Clara.
    Libby took another determined step forward.
    â€œI said don’t !”
    Suddenly, Clara darted off toward Leo.
    She had intended to use her brother’s sturdy, six-foot-two-inch frame as a shield, but her agile mother, having broken into a full gallop, was too close on her heels for her to reach her destination, forcing her to twirl around and hurry in the opposite direction.
    â€œStop running! The floor was just waxed! You’ll fall, dammit!” Libby chased Clara around the elegant foyer.
    â€œAnd you