My sister Julie, however, was always Susie s champion, and Julie, Lisa, and Susie often played together at our house. Our house was a favored spot since it had so many toys. In fact, it was accepted knowledge in our neighborhood that the children in my family were the most spoiled and had more stuff than anyone else. Kids often congregated at our place, spilling KoolAid on the rugs, losing the GI Joes and Barbies behind the furniture, and spinning the revolving rocking chair in circles until our feet flew up and left scuff marks on the wall. But even when we went over to other houses, the Johnsons house didn t often come into the rotation.
Children just didn t hang around there.
When I occasionally joined Julie at the Johnsons , I found it a place both lived-in and neglected. The girls rooms were typical kid squalor, with clothes strewn over all surfaces. The kitchen was narrow and didn t seem to have much food in it, the front drapes were usually pulled closed, and the house lacked both decoration and the profusion of kids pictures and craft projects that spilled through the other houses in the neighborhood. Even the backyard was scraggly, and worrisome to me as it contained Chug Chug, the fierce dachshund who barked in circles while Susie teased him, and who was eventually sent away for biting one child too many. But it was the living room that I remember most, because it was empty except for Mrs. Johnson s piano.