EXCERPT
:
The first of August . . . in May
I am not coming to school tomorrow. There is absolutely no point in
it. There’s only three days left before summer vacation and half
the kids in my class aren’t even here. The stupid half that is,
including me today, have been sitting around, doing absolutely nothing.
Of course the popular ones have been talking, like they always do.
A little while ago Brooke was asking everyone what they were going to
do this summer. She looked at me like she was going to ask, then she
looked around and asked someone else. Like I was invisible. No, she
actually did look at me, so it was like I was almost invisible, worthy
of being invisible. I can’t stand Brooke.
I don’t know why I don’t have a best friend. Even losers
and geeks have best friends and I’m not that. I’m smart
and I’m not ugly. But if I were a color, it would be gray. Soft
gray. It’s not fair, though. It’s like someone draped soft
gray all over me. Like they cloaked me in it. Underneath, I’m
bright cherry-red and sun-yellow and sky blue, depending on my mood.
The problem is, I don’t know how to let all the colors show.
Mom was standing at the mailbox when I got home, looking
kind of frantic. I climbed off the bus and walked over to
her.
“What are you doing home so early?” I asked.
She’s a legal secretary and she doesn’t usually
get home until after six.
“I got a strange call,” she muttered. She was
already walking toward our apartment. Walking off rapidly,
I should say.
I ran to catch up. “I’m not going to school tomorrow.
Okay? No one was there and we didn’t do anything. So
there is no point--”
She unlocked the door, stepped inside and set everything down
on the table in our entry hall. You don’t want to know
everything that’s piled on that table. Mail, umbrellas,
jackets, school papers, books -- and that’s only the
top layer I can see. The truth is, we’re not very neat.
My dad was neat. When he was here, everything was picked up.
Either we would do it or he’d come behind us and do
it, but real huffy-like, which wasn’t worth dealing
with.
Mom made a beeline to the kitchen desk, which is where she
puts all the bills and stuff she absolutely has to deal with.
I gave up. There was no point bringing up not going to school
until her mind was off whatever it was on now. I walked over
and rummaged through the pantry. I moved around boxes of crackers,
cereal, shortbread cookies, bread, can stuff and peanut butter.
There was absolutely nothing to eat.
It was her funny breathing that made me turn and look at her.
She sat down on the desk chair with her hand pressed against
her throat.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking to her.
My heart felt funny because she looked so weird, like she
was having an attack of some kind.
This may be a strange place to do it, but maybe I’d
better do a better job of telling you who we are. I’m
Katelyn Elizabeth Kaplan. Katelyn Kaplan. Can you believe
my parents did that to me? Do you know how hard your mouth
has to work to say Katelyn Kaplan? I go by Kate. I thought
about going by Katie because Katie Kaplan flows a lot better
than Kate Kaplan, but I’m not a Katie. Katies are cute
and perky and popular. They make cheerleading and grow up
to do morning talk shows. That’s not me. I am definitely
a Kate.
I’m almost thirteen and I’ll be going into the
seventh grade. I could be going into the eighth grade but
my parents didn’t put me into kindergarten until I was
almost six because I was so shy. See? Light gray started way
back then.
My mother is also light gray. Not her hair, or anything. It’s
dark blonde, like mine. Some people call it dirty blonde but
I personally hate that description. Mom and I have the same
brown eyes, too. I should say mine resemble hers. Obviously
she has eyes and so do I. Her name is Lynn. She’s a
very nice person who’s kind of quiet and mannerly.
My Dad left again eight months ago. I say again because he
and Mom were separated once before for almost two years. Now
he lives in Chicago, which is only forty-five minutes away
from where we live (in Wheeling, Illinois), but we don’t
see him much anymore. He has a girlfriend and they live a
loft apartment. I think the fact that Dad left makes my Mom
sadder than it does me. Things were very tense when he was
around. Now they’re just messy.
Anyway, back to the story. Mom had just sat down, clutching
a letter to her and breathing funny.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a house,” she said. “Left to
us by some relative of your father’s.” She looked
at me and blinked a couple of times. “Left to us. You
and me. From a relative of your father’s I don’t
even know.”
Okay, it was weird but it didn’t explain the crazed
way she was looking.
“And it’s in need of repairs and upkeep that,
apparently, I’m responsible for,” she finished.
She sat there, completely motionless for a few seconds and
then she burst out laughing. Not chuckling, but milk-out-your-nose
kind of hysterical laughter.
I don’t know why, but I started to laugh, too. It wasn’t
funny. We don’t have enough money. We didn’t have
much when my Dad was here and now we have even less. I don’t
know how much we have, exactly. Every time I ask, Mom says
she doesn’t want to talk about it. But I see the way
she stresses out when someone calls about a bill, and that
happens a lot. To say we had to pay for repairs for some house
we didn’t even live in was insane.
“Where is it?” I asked, when we’d both recovered
from our little laughing fit.
“In the city.”
“In Chicago?” It came all squeaky. “In the
city, itself?” She nodded and I suddenly felt all excited.
I mean, a whole house, left to us. That was amazing. “Let’s
go look at it.”
“Go look at it,” she repeated, looking a little
bit dazed.
I nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah.”
“Go look at it,” she muttered again.
“Hello? Mother? You already said that about ten times.
Yes, go look at it. Let’s go look at it!”
She shook her head, slowly. “I don’t suppose we
have a lot of choice.” Her voice had gone dead calm,
one extreme to the other.
“What about tomorrow?” I suggested.
“You’ve got school and I’ve got work.”
I moaned and rolled my eyes. “But nothing is going on
at school. No one was even there today.”
One side of her mouth turned up. “No one? Just you?”
“I think I saw a janitor and Mrs. Cahill was there.
Do you know she made me sit in my assigned seat?”
“Even though you were the only one in class?”
“I know! You see what I mean? It’s so stupid.
So I could skip it. That’s what I was talking about
when I got home and you said it was okay.”
“Not fair,” she said, shaking her finger at me.
“You know you can’t ask me stuff when I’m
distracted. I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“It really is kind of a bad habit of yours,” I
agreed.
“Oh, Lord,” she said again, looking off and wringing
her hands. “What are we going to do?”
“Maybe it’ll be great,” I offered hopefully.
She didn’t reply, at first, but, after a minute, she
looked back at the letter in her hand. “First things
first. I need to talk to these people.”
“What people?”
“Selwin, Meyers and Crone. The attorney’s that
sent me this letter.”
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