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“All right,” she says. “I’ll run back to Room Five to get it. For now, copy the notes on a blank piece of paper. We can staple it into your notebook when I get back. Can you tell me what color it is?”
I think hard again. “Green,” I say. “It’s on my shelf.”
Mrs. Wake leaves. As soon as she’s gone I raise my hand. Ms. Merton sees me and says, “Yes, Ginny?”
“Can I go to the bathroom?” I say.
“Go ahead and sign out,” says Ms. Merton.
So I stand up and go to the doorway and sign out on the sign-out list. I start walking down the hallway toward the library. It is three rooms away. I am almost there when I hear my name. “Ginny?”
I turn around. It is Ms. Merton.
“The eighth-grade bathroom is the other way,” she says. “We’re not supposed to use the one near the library because that one is for teachers.”
I want to say Well dang! Because I’m not going to be able to get on the computer to chat with Gloria. Teachers and Forever Parents have stopped me from using the internet for four whole years. For a while I gave up and tried running away and looking in the phone book but none of those things worked. I have to be a smart cookie and make this work. I’m so mad I want to hiss.
But I don’t. Instead I walk back down the hallway. I pass Ms. Merton and then I pass Mrs. Wake coming out of Room Five.
“Ginny, where are you going?” she asks.
“Ms. Merton said I could go to the bathroom,” I say.
“All right,” she says. “Let’s go fast so we can get back to social studies. Oh, and I found your notebook.” She holds it up so I can see. “It seems to have only your science notes in it, though. Let’s check your backpack to see if the other one is in there.”
8 (#u2655f8b1-f89c-52e2-9201-fd25df3e1507)
9:08 IN THE MORNING, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH (#u2655f8b1-f89c-52e2-9201-fd25df3e1507)
On weekends I get up at nine in the morning. It takes me only two minutes or sometimes three to stretch and put on my glasses and my watch and have a drink of water before I come out to go to the bathroom. Then I walk into the kitchen. I am standing in front of the refrigerator listening. I hear nothing. In the refrigerator there are grapes and milk. There are a lot of other things too but grapes and milk are what I need. I need to have nine grapes to start my breakfast and a glass of human milk but it’s a rule that We do not open the refrigerator. And We ask for food when we’re hungry.
I stand there waiting. If my Forever Parents were here they would say I was hovering which is when I stand really, really close to something. And wait.
My Forever Mom walks in. Her hair is still wet and she is wearing makeup. She never wears makeup in the morning unless she’s going somewhere. “Good morning, Ginny,” she says. “Someone is coming to visit today.”
Or if someone is coming to visit.
So I say, “I don’t like surprises.”
“Oh, it’s not a surprise,” she says. “It’s Patrice.”
Patrice understands mostly everything that I tell her. She even understands some things that I don’t say. I like her a lot but she knows how to see into my brain. I have to be careful around her and keep my mouth closed when I’m not talking.
“When will she be here?” I say.
“In about an hour,” my Forever Mom answers. “Around ten. She’s making a special weekend trip to spend a little time with you.”
Patrice has never been to the Blue House. I always went to her office but I would like to show her my room and all my Michael Jackson things and I want to tell her about Gloria and the tire tracks and the Tic Tacs. I will not tell her about my secret plan to go on Facebook or on Manicoon.com at school because she might tell my Forever Parents.
At ten Patrice’s car pulls into the driveway. Patrice gets out. She has her purple fuzzy sweater and her hair is short again. I run out to her car. I give her a hug and neither of us recoils.
“And how is my adventurous friend?” she says.
She is talking about me. She calls me my adventurous friend because she saw me every time I ran away and after what happened with Gloria at the apartment and after I tried to escape from my other Forever Homes. She says I have a lot of adventures.
So I say, “I am fine, thanks.”
I stand there looking at her.
Then Patrice says, “Why don’t you walk me inside, and we can talk with your Forever Mom for a little? Then you can show me your room. And did I hear that you’ll be going to see the tall ships tomorrow?”
I bring Patrice inside and she says hello to my Forever Mom. They talk about the baby in my Forever Mom’s belly. Patrice says to me, “Ginny, are you going to help your mom take care of Baby Wendy when she arrives?”
I don’t know what Baby Wendy will look like but I’m guessing it will wear little overalls. My Baby Doll didn’t have overalls but I wanted to get some for it. Gloria said we couldn’t afford them. Michael Jackson had a chimp named Bubbles who wore overalls just like a real baby. Because when Michael Jackson was little he wanted a chimp so bad that he asked his mother over and over and finally I’m guessing she said yes, okay, fine, Michael Jackson, you can get a chimp. Michael Jackson used to pick Bubbles up just like I used to pick up my Baby Doll. Only Bubbles got so strong that Michael Jackson didn’t have to hold him under his bottom anymore. He tucked Bubbles into bed every night but Bubbles got too big so Michael Jackson had to give him away. Because Bubbles might attack. He gave him away to a zoo and now Bubbles lives in a big cage where he can’t hurt anyone. I saw him on television.
“Ginny?”
“What?”
“Do you think you’d like to help your mom take care of Baby Wendy when she gets home from the hospital?”
“Yes,” I say.
“That’s great!” says Patrice. “You can help pick things up when your mom is holding her. And when the baby is bigger, the two of you can learn how to play together. She’s going to want to be just like you, you know. She’ll want to do all the things her big sister does. Won’t it be fun to be a big sister?”
“Mostly,” I say.
“Good,” says Patrice. “Now, do you know why I’m here, Ginny?”
“Because you want to look at my room?” I say.
“Not quite. I’m here because I want to talk with you about some things. I understand that Gloria came here to the Blue House a few days ago.”
And I say, “She came on Thursday, September 9th, while I was at school. She is completely unreliable.”
I stop talking and make sure my mouth is shut tight. There’s a lot in my brain that I don’t want Patrice to see.
Patrice looks at me in a funny way. “That’s an interesting way to put it,” she says. “Did you see her?”
I shake my head no.
“I wonder how she managed to find you,” Patrice says. “Do you know?”
I shake my head once more but then my mouth opens and I say, “She left tire tracks in the yard and wrecked our mailbox which means she was either really pissed or really loaded. Plus she made quite a scene. I didn’t see her when I got off the bus but my Forever Dad said she didn’t bring my Baby Doll.”
Patrice laughs but it is a friendly laugh. Sometimes people laugh in a way that is mean. Mostly it’s like teasing. I can’t always tell which is which. “Wow,” says Patrice. “It sounds like you’ve had an exciting time.”
I nod my head yes but she didn’t ask a question so I don’t say anything.
My Forever Mom makes a breathing sound. “Why don’t you bring Patrice to your room and show her around?” she says.
So I bring Patrice to my room and show her all my things. She looks at the pictures on my dresser and all the birthdates and holidays I wrote on my calendar. Then she says, “Did your Forever Parents tell you that Gloria isn’t coming back to the Blue House?”
“Yes,” I say. “They said the police told her she can’t.”
Patrice turns around and around in the middle of my room looking at all my things. I am in the doorway. “That’s right,” she says. “Gloria got in a lot of trouble when she came here. She tried to get in the house and really scared your Forever Mom. So your mom called your dad and the police, and when the police arrived, they had to force Gloria to leave. Your Forever Dad came right from school. And then the two of them called Social Services, and the judge got involved, and—well, let’s just say Gloria isn’t allowed to visit again. That’s why I came to talk with you. How do you feel about all this?”
I remember the judge. The judge is a lady who wears a big black cape like the teachers wear in Harry Potter. The movies, not the books. I like movies better than books because in movies the pictures move. I met the judge on June 21st at the adoption. It’s a rule that you have to do what the judge says. The judge said I couldn’t go back to Gloria’s apartment and that Gloria isn’t allowed to come find me. But the judge doesn’t know how sneaky Gloria can be. Neither does Patrice.
“Ginny?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I should have asked a clearer question. How do you feel about Gloria coming here the other day?”
Patrice talks about feelings all the time. She taught me how to do it too. So I say, “I feel really bad. My Baby Doll is all alone.” Then I look at Patrice over my glasses to see if she understands.
“I know your Baby Doll was important to you,” says Patrice. “Do you remember what we said last time we met? We said that you were a little like a baby doll when you were in the apartment, getting left by yourself all the time. But you’re safe now. Don’t you feel safe?”
“Yes,” I say but I don’t care about being safe. I don’t care if Gloria hurts me or Donald gets his gun. I have to find out what happened to my Baby Doll after the police took me away. I need to know if anyone found it in the suitcase or if I’m too late.
“Good. And the best way to stay safe is to make sure you never, ever get in the car with Gloria if you happen to see her. No matter what she says. Can you make me that promise?”
I make sure my mouth is shut tight and then I nod my head yes.
“I know I’ve said it before, but you’re lucky you got out of that apartment alive. But if she were to come here and then get you to get in the car with her, it would be considered kidnapping. Do you know what that means?”
I don’t so I shake my head no.
“Kidnapping is when someone steals a kid. If you go with Gloria, Gloria will be stealing you. And stealing is against the law. Does that make sense?”
It does so I nod my head yes. Three times because I think getting kidnapped is a great idea. That way I can go straight back to the apartment and run into my room to check the suitcase.
“And I need to ask you about what happened with the baby doll from school.”
“You mean the plastic electronic baby,” I say.
“Yes, that’s the one,” says Patrice. “I understand that you hit it, and then you put it in a suitcase. Why would you do that?”
“Because it wouldn’t stop crying.”
“But there are other ways to calm a baby down, aren’t there?”
“Oh yes,” I say. “You can give it some milk or pick it up and rock it. And if there’s no milk or food you can give it your finger to suck on. You can sing it ‘The Eensy-Weensy Spider.’ You can change its diaper or give it a bath. Or just let it rest on you.”
Patrice is looking at me funny. “You sure seem to know a lot about babies,” she says. “Where did you learn all those things?”
So I close my eyes and yell, “From taking care of my Baby Doll!”
Then I look at her to see if she understands.
“You don’t have to shout,” she says. “But remember, your Baby Doll wasn’t a real baby. You had to have learned those things somewhere else. From television, maybe?”
I shake my head no. “My Baby Doll was a real baby,” I say.
“Ginny, that’s not true,” says Patrice. “Gloria didn’t have any other children. I’ve been over your case file a thousand times, and you were the only one in the apartment. Did you have a baby cousin, maybe? I remember your aunt used to come visit you sometimes.”
“Crystal with a C,” I say.
“Right, Crystal with a C. Did Crystal with a C have a baby?”
I shake my head no. I am too mad to say anything else with my mouth now.
“At any rate,” says Patrice, “I need you to know that your parents and I have come up with a new rule. It’s the most important rule we’ve ever given you. When Baby Wendy is born, you’re not allowed to touch her. We have to make sure you learn the right way to act around babies first. It’s a scary thing when someone hits a doll and puts it in a suitcase, even if the doll isn’t real. Suitcases aren’t good places for putting babies at all, right?”
I pick hard at my fingers. So hard a dark drop of blood comes out. I watch the drop get bigger and bigger until it breaks and drips down my thumb.
“Ginny?”
I look up and at the same time put my hands behind my back. Where neither of us can see them.
9 (#u2655f8b1-f89c-52e2-9201-fd25df3e1507)
11:03 AT NIGHT, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH (#u2655f8b1-f89c-52e2-9201-fd25df3e1507)
I am in bed now breathing fast and trying to calm down. We went to Portland today to see the tall ships. Plus the fireworks. It’s the last fun thing we’ll do before my Forever Mom starts getting ready to have the baby, she told me. I left my watch at home because I got poison ivy on my hands and wrists yesterday. I thought it was okay to leave my watch at home because there’s usually a clock nearby to tell me what time it is but I got distracted because the fireworks were loud and made lots of smoke and everyone kept saying “Ooooh!” when they saw them. It was like they were all ghosts. And the smoke was like the ghost of the fireworks. Then I learned that you can keep fireworks and smoke in your brain if you just close your eyes afterward. The pictures stay there with you.
Which was what I was doing when we got back to the car. That was why I didn’t see what time it was right away. I sat in my seat with my eyes closed and leaned my head against the window and kept looking at the blue and green and red and white sprays of fireworks in my brain. Only the music was different. At the fireworks there were big speakers playing music with flutes and drums. In the car my Forever Parents had the radio on instead. Someone was singing about a girl whose name wasn’t even Billie Jean or Dirty Diana. It was Caroline or something. So I opened my eyes and said, “Can’t we get some flutes and drums? I’m trying to watch the fireworks.”
And then my Forever Mom said, “Honey, the fireworks are over.”
Which was when I saw it was 10:43. It was way past nine o’clock.
I started picking at my fingers. “Do you see what time it is?” I said.
“It’s 10:44,” said my Forever Mom.
I looked and she was right. The clock had changed. It wasn’t 10:43 anymore. It was 10:44 so I said, “Well dang!”
I started biting the skin on my lips. “It’s past my bedtime,” I said and in my head I wrote,
Bedtime = 9:00 at Night
“That’s okay,” my Forever Dad said. “It’s okay to stay up late once in a while, isn’t it?”
“But it’s past nine o’clock,” I said.
“That’s right,” said my Forever Mom. It sounded like she wanted to say something else but then she didn’t. She just sat there quietly in the front seat while someone on the radio sang about the numbers twenty-five and six-two-four. And now the numbers on the clock said 10:45. None of those numbers were like the numbers in my head which were still nine and zero and zero.
