First Time Home Alone

Marlo stood at the front door and watched Mom's car back down the driveway. Mom waved. Marlo waved back. The car turned the corner, and then it was gone.

Marlo closed the door. She locked the bottom lock. She locked the top lock. She put on the chain, just like the plan said.

The plan was taped to the refrigerator in Mom's neat handwriting. Marlo had it memorized, but she walked to the kitchen anyway and looked at it one more time.

Number one: Lock the door — both locks plus chain.

Number two: Do NOT open the door for anyone.

Number three: Emergency means call Grandma — speed dial one.

Number four: Mom will be back at four thirty.

Number five: You've got this, Marlo.

And next to number five, Mom had drawn a little heart.

Marlo read number five twice. Then she looked at the clock on the microwave. It said 4:02.

Twenty-eight minutes. That was nothing. That was shorter than an episode of her favorite show. That was shorter than recess. That was barely anything at all.

She stood in the kitchen and listened.

The house was quiet. Not regular quiet — not the kind of quiet when Mom was reading in the next room or folding laundry upstairs. This was a big quiet. A quiet that filled up every corner and sat on top of every piece of furniture like a large, invisible cat.

The refrigerator hummed.

Marlo had never noticed the refrigerator humming before. It was actually pretty loud when you really listened. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Like it was thinking about something very hard and couldn't figure it out.

"I know how you feel," Marlo told the refrigerator.

She decided to go sit on the couch. She walked through the hallway, and her footsteps sounded enormous. Thump, thump, thump. Had her feet always been this loud? She tried walking on her tiptoes instead. That was quieter, but it made her feel sneaky, and she didn't want to feel sneaky in her own house.

She sat on the couch. She put her hands on her knees. She looked at the living room.

Everything was exactly the same as always. The blue pillows. The bookshelf. Dad's old guitar in the corner that nobody played but nobody wanted to move. The little ceramic owl on the windowsill that Grandma had given them — the one Marlo secretly thought was ugly but also secretly loved.

Same, same, same. Nothing different at all.

Except it felt different. Because usually, if Marlo was sitting on this couch, she could hear Mom somewhere. A drawer opening. A cough. The soft thup thup thup of Mom's slippers on the stairs. Little sounds that you never really noticed until they weren't there.

TICK.

Marlo jumped.

TICK. TICK. TICK.

She looked up. It was just the clock on the wall. The one shaped like a sunflower that had been there since forever. It had always made that sound. Always. She knew that. She absolutely, completely, one hundred percent knew that.

But right now, each tick seemed to bounce off the walls and land right in her ears.

She checked the time. 4:06.

Marlo picked up a pillow and hugged it. Not because she was scared. She was NOT scared. She was just… holding a pillow. People held pillows all the time. It was a perfectly normal activity.

Then she heard something else.

A soft scritch scritch scritch coming from the back door.

Marlo's fingers tightened on the pillow. She held her breath. The scritching came again. Scritch scritch scritch. Then a pause. Then scritch scritch scritch.

Marlo stood up very slowly. She crept toward the back door, holding the pillow in front of her like a shield. She peeked through the glass.

Two round green eyes stared back at her.

"Oh!" Marlo said. "Biscuit!"

It was Mr. Ramirez's orange cat from next door. Biscuit visited their back porch almost every day, hoping someone would be foolish enough to give him a second breakfast. He pressed his flat little face against the glass and meowed — a sad, pitiful meow, as if no one had ever fed him in his entire life, which was absolutely not true because Biscuit was shaped like a basketball.

"I can't let you in," Marlo told him through the glass. "The plan says no opening doors."

Biscuit meowed again, even more tragically.

"You don't count as an emergency," Marlo said. "You count as a con artist."

Biscuit sat down on the porch mat and began licking his paw, deeply unbothered.

Marlo laughed. It came out loud in the quiet house, and the sound of it surprised her. But it was a good surprise. Like the house had been holding its breath too, and now it let some of it go.

She went back to the couch and sat down again. 4:11. She picked up her library book from the side table — The Mouse and the Motorcycle — and opened it to her bookmark. She read two pages. Then three. Then five. The mouse was having a very exciting adventure on a toy motorcycle, and Marlo found herself leaning forward, turning pages faster.

The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, a dog barked and another dog barked back, like they were having an argument about something very important.

Marlo kept reading.

At some point, she pulled her feet up onto the couch and tucked them under the blanket that always lived there. She rested her head against the armrest. The afternoon sun came through the window and made a warm rectangle of light on the carpet. It crept slowly across the floor, the way it always did this time of day, reaching toward the bookshelf like it wanted to read something too.

Marlo turned another page. And another.

The house didn't feel so big-quiet anymore. It felt like a regular house. Her house. With its humming refrigerator and its ticking sunflower clock and its ugly-beautiful owl and Biscuit probably still loafing on the back porch. Everything right where it belonged.

Click. Click. Jingle jingle.

Marlo looked up. That was a key in the front door. The bottom lock turned, then the top lock. Then Mom's voice came through the crack where the chain stopped the door from opening all the way.

"Marlo? It's me! Can you get the chain?"

Marlo put her bookmark in her book and walked to the door. She stood on her tiptoes and slid the chain free. The door swung open, and there was Mom, holding a grocery bag and smiling.

"Hi, honey! How was it?"

Marlo thought about it. She thought about the enormous quiet. The humming refrigerator. The ticking clock that made her jump. Biscuit's tragic performance. The warm patch of sunlight. The mouse on his motorcycle.

"Good," she said.

Mom set the grocery bag down. "Yeah? Not too boring?"

"A little quiet at first," Marlo admitted. "But then it was okay."

Mom knelt down and looked at her very carefully, the way she did when she was checking to see if Marlo really meant what she said or if she was just being brave. Marlo looked right back at her.

"I followed the whole plan," Marlo said.

"I knew you would." Mom kissed the top of her head. "Also, why is Mr. Ramirez's cat asleep on our porch?"

"He's a con artist," Marlo said. "I didn't fall for it."

Mom laughed. They carried the groceries to the kitchen together. Mom started putting things away, and the house filled up with all its usual sounds again — cabinet doors and crinkling bags and Mom humming a song she didn't know the words to.

Marlo took the plan down from the refrigerator, folded it carefully, and put it in her pocket.

She figured she might need it again next time.