Connection
By Jo Ramsey
Copyright 2010 by Jo Ramsey
ISBN# 978-0-9826023-3-1
Smashwords edition published by Jupiter Gardens Press at Smashwords
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Chapter One
I’d always heard shopping for school clothes should be fun. With my mom, it was the exact opposite. “Shanna, your clothes from last year are perfectly good,” she informed me impatiently on the way to the mall. “It isn’t like you’ve grown since last year.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe your chest a little.”
“My chest’s the same size.” I slumped down in the passenger seat to take her focus, and mine, off that part of my anatomy. “Besides, some of my jeans are too big now.”
“Jeans are supposed to be baggy,” she argued.
“They aren’t just baggy,” I protested. “They feel like they’re falling off.”
“It’s your imagination, Shanna.” Her tone warned me to stop debating with her. Mom never made mistakes.
When she turned into the mall parking lot, I made sure not to even breathe loudly, never mind talk. Mom hated driving and parking lots tended to send her over the edge. She couldn’t tolerate having to watch for other cars driving, cars pulling out of spaces, and find an empty space all at the same time. “Shanna, watch for a spot,” she ordered.
Since she’d told me not to talk, it was pretty much impossible for me to let her know if I saw a parking place. Afraid of Mom’s reaction, I decided not to point out that lack of logic. Fortunately, she found a spot on her own. She shut off the car and turned to me. “I hope you have a good idea of what you’re looking for,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be here all day. We can have lunch here if you don’t take too long shopping.”
I wished she’d stayed home. The twisting in my stomach and vise grip around my chest let me know an anxiety attack headed my way. When I’d been about seven or eight, my doctor had told my mother that my constant stomach problems and crying were signs of anxiety disorder, and had tried to get her to take me to a psychologist. Naturally, she’d blown a gasket at the idea. There couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with her child, because that would mean she had something wrong with her too. So she’d taken me home that day and given me an hour-long lecture about “getting over it” and “not acting like a damn baby all the time.” For her, that had been the end of the story. For me, it meant I kept having anxiety attacks and stomach problems.
I’d done some reading about it, though, and could usually manage to keep it at just feeling sick to my stomach. Deep breaths helped, and I took a few as we walked into the mall. If she’d given me money and let me take the bus to the mall like I’d wanted, she wouldn’t have had to be here at all. But pointing that out to her wouldn’t have been a good idea. “I know what I want,” I assured her.
We went into the nearest department store and I started choosing clothes. I hated shopping for stuff to wear. Nothing looked good on me, and clothes didn’t fascinate me that much anyway. They just existed to cover my body. So I pretty much only looked at jeans and shirts.
I wished I didn’t need anything new in the first place. But a lot of people judged others by what they wore, and since I would start high school in a few days, I didn’t want to give people any more of a reason than they already had to hassle me. I didn’t want to have to wear the same stuff I’d worn all through eighth grade. Plus it seemed like I’d lost weight somehow. The jeans Mom had made me wear the year before, which had been too big to start with, had become so loose they almost fell off every time I walked in them. I would have put on a belt or something, but I hated the way they felt around my waist so I didn’t like to wear them, and didn’t own any.
So I had a good reason to ask Mom to take me clothes shopping. Still, my stomach had churned the day I’d finally sucked up the courage to ask. Now, standing in the store surrounded by clothes, I had to swallow hard to keep from puking on my shoes. Mom seemed calm and relaxed, but I knew all too well how she acted in public. She put on a “good mom” show. I would pay for it later. I always did.
“This looks cute.” Mom held up a pink V-neck shirt with flowers embroidered around the neckline. “I think you’d look all right in this.” Her tone held a hint of warning. I had better buy the shirt she commanded me to buy.
I didn’t take it. I would never have been able to wear that shirt. “Too low-cut,” I said quietly. I went back to looking for a pair of the right size jeans. Which would have been easier if I’d known the right size.
“No, it isn’t,” Mom countered. “You haven’t even tried it on.”
I swallowed again. Even though I knew I shouldn’t argue with her, I couldn’t stop myself. I would never be able to wear that shirt. “It’s a V-neck, Mom. V-necks are too low-cut.” I’d never worn V-necks. The one time I’d tried one on in a store, I’d been able to see right down the front. Even though I knew I could put something underneath, it just seemed easier not to wear them. “And I don’t really need any shirts. You said you wanted to watch what we spent.”
“I think you should try it on.”
The edge to her voice let me know I’d better do what she said. I took the shirt and added it to the few pairs of jeans I held. Hopefully she wouldn’t make me show her what I looked like in the clothes when I tried them on. Then I’d be able to tell her the shirt didn’t fit.
On the rack beside me, I spotted another shirt, a royal blue one with a green, gold, and purple paisley pattern. It looked perfect; not too low cut, even the right size, I thought. But when I looked at the price tag, I cringed. “Do you like that?” Mom asked.
“It’s pretty,” I replied indifferently. No way would she spend as much as the tag said.
She picked it up from the rack and checked the price. “Would you wear it?” she wanted to know.
“Every day if I could.” The beautiful pattern included all my favorite colors.
She nodded. “Go ahead. It’s more than I’d usually spend, but it is for your first year of high school.”
Stunned, I stared at her. What’s the catch? She did nice things for me occasionally, but the stuff she did in between made me suspicious of the nice stuff. She seemed sincere, though, so I added the shirt to my pile.
I picked out a couple more pairs of jeans and headed for the fitting room. Mom followed, which I expected, but I didn’t expect her to try to come into the cubicle with me. “Mom, I’m fourteen!” I protested.
“I need to see if things fit you before I spend my money on them,” she said, stony-voiced.
This had rapidly begun to turn into my worst nightmare. I had to talk her out of going in with me. “I’ll come out and show you.”
“I don’t see what your problem is,” she muttered. “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” She plopped down on the bench by the fitting room entrance. “Don’t take too long.”
I tried on each pair of jeans in record time. Every time I left the cubicle, Mom tugged on the waist bands of the jeans. “Those are too tight,” she said about the first pair.
“They don’t feel tight,” I said. I loved the jeans, and I wanted them. “They feel perfect.”
She tugged on the waistband again, trying to pull it away from my stomach. The attendant gave us a strange look. Mom didn’t notice and I pretended not to. “You need to be careful what you wear in high school, Shanna,” Mom lectured. “You don’t want older boys to have the wrong idea about you because your clothes are too tight.”
“Older boys probably aren’t even going to look at me, Mom,” I said in a small voice. I wanted to crawl under the carpet and sink into the floor. “Boys never do. And these jeans are comfortable.”
She glared at me. “Try the others.”
After almost half an hour of trying and retrying, I ended up with three pairs of jeans that Mom and I agreed on. “That’s enough,” she said firmly.
“There are five days in a week,” I pointed out. “Not counting weekends.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You can wear a pair more than once before they need to be washed. And you know how to run the washer anyway. And some of the jeans you already have must still be all right.”
All of the jeans I already owned had problems; besides the ones that didn’t fit anymore, the two pairs that did fit me comfortably enough had holes in the knees. Which actually made them stylish according to what I’d seen other people wear, but I didn’t like the holes. “Yeah, they’ll be okay,” I lied.
“Maybe Santa will bring you more for Christmas,” she said jovially.
I’d given up believing in Santa at age five, when I woke up on Christmas Eve to see my parents filling the stocking at the foot of my bed. Mom persisted in the myth even though she’d known since I was seven that I didn’t believe anymore. I didn’t see much point in reminding her of that. “Yeah, maybe.”
We paid for the jeans and the two shirts, my beautiful blue one and the stupid pink one, which Mom had insisted looked great on me and chose to buy even though I told her I’d never wear it. I figured letting her buy it was fair trade for her letting me have the other one. She usually wouldn’t buy anything that expensive, and I knew she’d done it to make up for the way she’d acted in the parking lot. I could let her have the small victory.
“Ready for some lunch?” she asked cheerfully as we left the store.
I wanted to go home. Spending an entire morning with Mom left me drained at best. But she clearly still wanted to be nice, and I knew we didn’t have anything at home I wanted to eat. I made myself sound happy when I said, “Sure. Thanks.”
We headed for the food court. On the way, through a throng of hungry back-to-school shoppers, I spotted Becca Foley and Kendra Johnson, two girls from school. Two popular girls who alternated between ignoring me and hassling me. Becca had her blonde hair up in a smooth ponytail held with a blue scrunchie that perfectly matched her blue V-neck shirt, which dipped low enough to show cleavage accentuated by whatever bra she wore under the shirt. She didn’t seem to mind at all showing so much. Uncomfortable at seeing it, I cringed and looked away, though part of me envied her for being able to wear the shirt so easily. Kendra’s curly black hair swept back from her face, perfectly held with a few clips that sparkled in the light, letting me see them even from several yards away. Her pink shirt and jeans mirrored Becca’s outfit. Mom saw them too. “Aren’t those girls in your class?” she asked, interested.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I don’t get along too well with them, though.”
“You should go say hi,” she urged.
I stared at her. Even if I wanted to push my way through the crowd, those girls would never want to talk to me, except to make some snippy comment. “Mom, I just said we don’t get along. They make fun of me.”
“That’s just because they don’t know you,” she insisted. “Go say hi. It would be good if you started high school with some friends.”
“Mom, I’m the last person they’d want to be friends with,” I protested.
“I said go say hi.” Her voice rose. “You have to talk to people sometimes, Shanna.” A few people walking by turned to look at us. Mom acted like she didn’t notice, but I knew from past experience that their attention would just fuel whatever consequence she gave me when we got home. She hated having strangers’ eyes on her, and somehow when it happened, it was always my fault.
Humiliated, I felt tears coming to my eyes and tried to force them not to fall. “You don’t understand. They pick on me, Mom. They call me names. They spread lies about me. Why would I want to talk to them? I can’t.”
“If you don’t go over there right now and say hi to those girls, you’ll be grounded,” she threatened.
Despite my efforts, the tears started to fall. “I’ll take the grounding. I’m not talking to them.”
“You’re acting like a baby.” Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the exit. More heads turned our way, and one woman opened her mouth as we approached her, like she wanted to say something. Mom yanked me right past the stranger, shooting her a fire-filled glare that shut the woman’s mouth again. “Forget lunch. You’re going home to your room.”
The whole way home she ranted at me about how I would never go anywhere in life if I didn’t stop being so damn shy and start talking to people. Her questions slammed into me like fists: How did I expect to make it through high school if I never spoke to anyone? How did I expect to find a date to the prom? (I didn’t. I had no plans of ever going to any kind of formal dance if I could help it.) What was wrong with me anyway? I tried to tune her out, but her loud voice drilled into my head.
“You know how important it is to be popular, Shanna Louise,” she ranted. “How do you expect to go anywhere in life without friends? You’re going into high school. You have to be part of the right group if you’re going to make it there. Trust me. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, and it ruined my whole life. You don’t want to end up like that. I don’t have any friends now, because you don’t have any, so I never meet any other mothers. You need to shape up. I swear, I don’t understand what your problem is.”
I didn’t care about being part of the right group. They treated me like dirt, and because of that, I didn’t even try to talk to them anymore. I’d explained that to Mom in the past, and she refused to listen. In her mind, if I made an effort, all the teasing and name-calling would miraculously go away and I’d have tons of friends. Then she could think of herself as popular, because she’d have a popular daughter.
Finally we arrived home. Clutching the bag containing my new clothes, which had ridden home on my lap, I hurried inside ahead of her, but didn’t manage to make it to my room before she entered. “Next time we see kids you know from school, you’d better speak to them.” Her voice was hard and cold.
“Not if they’re kids who give me a hard time all the time,” I said sullenly.
My cheek stung. I hadn’t even seen her hand move to slap me. “Don’t argue with me, Shanna Louise!” she yelled. “You have to start making friends or you’ll be alone your whole life.” I opened my mouth but shut it quickly when she raised her hand. “Go to your room,” she ordered through gritted teeth. “Don’t even speak to me the rest of the day. I’m disgusted by the way you acted.”
Which was nothing new. With my heart in my throat, but thanking heaven the consequences hadn’t been worse, I went upstairs, put away my new jeans and the pink shirt, and lay down on the bed hugging my paisley shirt. At least in my room, I didn’t have to listen to her.
Chapter Two
When I went downstairs the next morning, fearing a repeat of yesterday’s issues with Mom, my dad sat in his recliner watching TV, his normal Sunday morning routine. I hadn’t seen him since before Mom and I had gone shopping; he never came to check on me when Mom sent me to my room. I never knew if he did it as part of the punishment or if Mom scared him as much as she did me.
Not that he usually had much to do with her or me anyway. He spent most of his time watching TV or on his computer. He almost never ate meals with us, and he and Mom each had their own rooms. They’d separated a few years earlier, but had kept on living in the same house. Dad hadn’t been able to afford a place of his own, since Mom had told him, repeatedly and loudly, that whether he lived with us or not, he still had to pay all the household bills. Supposedly the marriage had survived, but they’d held onto most of their habits from that time. I sometimes wondered if Dad even paid enough attention to notice how Mom acted.
Apparently she’d filled him in on the previous day’s shopping trip, at least. “Your mother says you’re grounded,” he said without looking at me.
He didn’t even sound like he cared. It happened all the time; he’d gotten used to it. So had I. “I know,” I said calmly, though butterflies overwhelmed my stomach. “But I hoped I could go to church, at least.”
“You’ll have to ask your mother about that.” He kept his voice neutral. No way would he involve himself in something between me and Mom. Avoiding confrontation at all costs was his default setting.
Which meant I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go. Mom hadn’t awakened yet; she usually slept late on Sundays. By the time she did, I wouldn’t have time to make it to church unless one of them drove me, which never happened. Assuming, of course, that Mom even let me go. My mouth went dry at the thought of asking her.
Surprisingly, by the time I finished my breakfast Mom had come downstairs. “Mom, can I go to church today?” I asked tentatively.
“You’re grounded for a week,” she informed me in a cold voice. “Other than school when it starts, you can’t leave the house. I thought I made that clear yesterday.”
Actually, she’d never told me how long the grounding would last. But it would be safer not to point that out. I tried to keep a pleading note out of my voice as I said, “I know, but this is church. It’s kind of like school.” And it gave me a place to be away from my parents for a while, which with the anger I still sensed from Mom would probably be a good thing.
“I’ll think about it.” She turned away, ending the discussion.
Relieved, I went upstairs to put on a pair of tan slacks and the light blue blouse I often wore to church. When Mom “thought about it,” she almost always ended up saying yes. She felt guilty about quitting church herself, so she usually didn’t try to prevent me from attending. When I came back downstairs, she had the Sunday paper open on the table in front of her. “Um, I don’t want to bug you, Mom, but-” I said quietly.
“You can go.” She didn’t even look up from the paper. “No one’s driving you, though. You can ride your bike. And don’t forget, I know how long it takes you to get there and back. Come straight home.”
Something close to happiness filled me at the realization that I’d be able to spend some time away from her. “I will. Thanks.” I headed for the door.
“How about a hug and kiss?” she demanded.
I reluctantly went over to her and let her hug me and kiss my cheek. I didn’t hug my parents anymore, hadn’t for about five years. I didn’t like being touched that much. “See you later,” I said when she finally let go of me.
“Be careful.” She said it automatically; she told me the same thing every time I left the house. She went back to the paper.
Trying not to think about what might happen when I returned home, I took my bike out of the garage and headed for church. Be careful, Shanna, Mason warned in my mind. There’s more traffic than you think between here and there.
Yeah. Thanks. I carefully didn’t move my mouth when I answered. I’d been hassled more than enough for talking to myself at school. I didn’t really talk to myself; I spoke to my imaginary friends. But in eighth grade you definitely couldn’t say something like that.
Even though I kept hoping I’d outgrow them like other kids did with their imaginary friends, Mason and the others had never left. My parents knew about them. Despite Mom’s annoyance at a lot of the “childish” things I did, she and Dad didn’t seem bothered by my imaginary friends. Sometimes they encouraged me to let go of them. Mostly they just said, “You know they’re only imaginary, right?” Yeah, of course I did. I just couldn’t figure out how, since my mind had created them, they sometimes knew more than I did.
When I reached Main Street I saw that Mason had been right about the traffic. Of course. Most of the tourists wanted to take advantage of the last official summer weekend before Labor Day. I took a couple deep breaths before starting down the busy street. At the traffic light in the center of town, someone took the corner on a red light without looking, narrowly missing me. I almost fell sideways off my bike trying to avoid a collision.
You all right, Shanna? Simon asked, concerned. That guy was an idiot.
I shook and tried to settle myself down. I hadn’t been hit, at least. I’m okay, I assured the crew in my mind. I should have been watching out for cars.
No, Shanna, J said firmly. He should have been watching out. You didn’t cause that. You had the light.
Yeah, but he probably couldn’t see me because of his blind spot or something, I argued, though it didn’t make sense to argue with someone telling me, for once, that I hadn’t done something wrong. Especially someone who only existed as a figment of my imagination.
He should have looked harder, Mason said angrily. I knew I hadn’t made him angry, though. Quit blaming yourself for everything.
It would have been easier, if everyone else didn’t blame me for pretty much everything. Especially Mom, who claimed I caused anything that went wrong in her life, even if it had nothing to do with me. I didn’t bother saying that to Mason and the others, though. They knew.
I made it to church ten minutes late, but with no more near misses. When I went inside, the minister had already started the opening prayer. I slipped into a seat in the back row, hoping no one had noticed me. Mr. Conant, one of the ushers came over and handed me a bulletin. “Glad you’re here, Shanna,” he said kindly.
I fiddled with the bulletin, crumpling it without even realizing I did it. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. You’re here.”
I looked away and nodded. For some reason, Mr. Conant always acted nice to me. It made me nervous.
During the service, my mind wandered. Maybe I could find a way to avoid going home just a little longer. If I couldn’t, I could shut myself in my room. Mom probably wouldn’t leave me alone.
I wondered what I’d done with my black spiral notebook. I’d been working on a story in it for almost a month and hoped to have it done before school started. I hadn’t seen the notebook in a couple days. Since Mom had grounded me, I had an excuse to sit in my room and write, if I could find the story. Not that I really needed an excuse. Since I had no friends, I pretty much only ever wrote and read. That and watched TV when I had the house to myself or when I managed to talk Mom into letting me watch TV in her room while she sat downstairs.
To stop myself from worrying about going home, I took a pencil out of one of the holes in the back of the pew and started making notes for my story on the bulletin. You should have Brian go to Nova Scotia, Mason suggested. He usually helped me with my stories, though it sometimes occurred to me that having an imaginary person help me with fictional characters might be just a bit nuts.
How can he go to Nova Scotia? I wanted to know.
On the ferry, like you and your mom usually do, Mason explained.
Apparently I needed to rephrase the question. Mason and the others only gave me straight answers if I asked the right things. It annoyed me a little sometimes, but it also made me think things through more clearly, which wasn’t a bad thing. I mean, how can he go without any parents or anything?
We’ll figure it out when you’re home, Mason said patiently. Just pay attention to what I tell you to write this time.
“Shanna, are you all right?” a concerned female voice asked beside me.
Crud. I hadn’t noticed the other people in the congregation had stood to shake each other’s hands, like they always did during the service. I smiled at Mrs. Little. “Sorry, Mrs. Little, I guess I was daydreaming.” I shook her hand. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you for asking,” she said pleasantly. “And you?”
“Okay,” I replied in a small voice. I had to be careful what I said to people. Otherwise I might slip and talk about my home life.
She squinted at me. “Your cheek looks a little red.”
Mom must have slapped me harder than I’d thought. I should have checked the mirror before I had left for church. Mirrors weren’t my friends, though, so I usually avoided them. I shrugged and quickly came up with a story to cover the truth. “Sunburn, probably.”
Mrs. Little gave me a skeptical look, though she didn’t have a chance to ask any more questions. At the front of the sanctuary, the minister clapped once and said, “Children may be dismissed. Today’s sermon will be on trust.” Everyone sat down so the sermon could begin, and I breathed a sigh of relief as Mrs. Little walked away.
By the time the sermon ended, Mrs. Little had apparently either forgotten about my red cheek or had decided she wouldn’t hear any more information from me. She glanced at me as she passed my pew, joining the crowd heading downstairs for coffee and snacks. I hesitated, and then followed. The social hour after the service counted as part of church, in my opinion, even if I rarely actually talked to anyone. Mom had told me to go straight home, but surely she couldn’t be mad at me for trying to socialize when she’d yelled at me the day before for being antisocial.
When I went into the church parlor, it surprised me to see my next-door neighbor, Ken Gallant, who was two years older than me. He spotted me and came over. “Hey, Shanna. How’s it going?” He sounded happy to see me. I figured he probably reacted that way because since he didn’t usually attend this church, he didn’t know anyone else.
“Okay.” I tried to sound happy as well, though I never quite knew how to talk to him, and my nerves made it hard for me to speak without choking on the words. “What are you doing here?”
“My aunt wanted me to come with her.” He grinned. “I just did to shut her up, basically. So this is where you disappear to on Sundays, huh? I didn’t see your parents.”
Short answer, I told myself. He didn’t need to know anything about my family. He knew too much anyway from living next door. “They stopped coming a couple years ago. I like it, so I kept coming to the services.”
“How’d you get here?” he asked curiously.
“Bike.”
Ken shuddered. “Man, I wouldn’t want to ride a bike on these roads at this time of year. Look, my aunt has a pickup. We could give you and your bike a ride home.”
Riding the five miles back to my house really didn’t appeal to me, but I hated anyone giving me anything, even a ride home. I always felt like I owed them something afterward. I just looked at Ken for a moment while I composed something resembling a polite answer. “I think I’ll be okay riding, thanks.”
Ken knew me too well. He could figure out why I’d turned down the ride. “Shanna, don’t act like that,” he said wearily. “It’s a long ride on a bike and the traffic’s pretty scary. Take the ride. I’ll tell my aunt.” He walked off before I could disagree.
Since I didn’t like arguing any more than I liked accepting things from people, I gave up on talking Ken out of the ride and sat in a corner to wait for him and his aunt to be ready. We ended up being among the last people to leave. I knew I should have just ridden my bike home; my chest clenched tighter with anxiety with each passing minute. Mom would kill me for being so late. But I couldn’t very well have told Ken’s aunt to hurry up, and since I’d already agreed to ride home with her and Ken, I didn’t want to just take off on them. That would have been rude, and I wanted to stay on Ken’s good side. He was the closest I had to a friend.
We finally went to the parking lot, and Ken lifted my bike into the back of his aunt’s truck while I tried to tell him I could do it myself. He climbed into the front seat and slid over next to his aunt to make room for me. After I sat down, I shut the door and sat as close to it as I could so I wouldn’t accidentally bump against Ken.
“Relax, Shanna,” his aunt teased. “You sit any closer to the door and you’ll be on the other side of it.”
Ken laughed.
I didn’t.
It only took a few minutes to drive to my house. Maybe I wouldn’t be as late as I’d feared. I jumped out of the truck and started to grab my bike, but Ken had followed me and took over, lifting the bike down and handing it to me. “Let people help you once in a while, would you?” he said impatiently.
“Thanks,” I said in a quiet voice. I didn’t want him mad at me too. I went around to the driver’s window of the truck and told his aunt, “Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re welcome,” she said kindly. “Anytime. In fact, if you go every Sunday, I could give you a ride every week.”
Before I could answer, Mom burst out of our house and stormed across the yard. At least she stormed when she started. By the time she reached us, she walked casually and had a smile on her face. Only I knew how fake that smile was. “Hello, Ken,” she said civilly. She didn’t like Ken. From what she’d muttered in the past, she’d become convinced he, like any teenage boy, would corrupt me. Or maybe that I would corrupt him. She looked at his aunt. “Hi. I’m Louise Bailey.”
Ken’s aunt extended her hand through the window and smiled. “I’m Doreen Clark. You’re Shanna’s mom?”
“Yes.”
“It turns out Shanna and I go to the same church,” Doreen explained. Her voice faltered a bit at the stony look my mother gave her. “Since I had Kenny with me today and had to drive him home anyhow, I gave Shanna a ride too.”
Mom glared at me. “I hope she said thank you.”
“She did,” Doreen assured her.
“Good.” Mom looked at me. Even though the smile stayed put, her eyes turned cold. “Put your bike away and go inside, Shanna. You’re still grounded.”
Of course, she had to say that in front of everyone. Gut twisting with fear of what she might do once we went inside, I wheeled my bike into the garage and took a minute to breathe deeply in the failed hope of settling my nerves. I heard Doreen’s truck drive away and the slam of my house’s back door. Not wanting to make Mom wait too long, I left the garage, shut the door, and went into the house. Mom waited for me in the kitchen. “I told you to come straight home,” she said accusingly.
I breathed deeply to keep from showing my fear. That would only piss her off more. “I did. Just I took a ride from Doreen instead of riding my bike.”
“Doreen said you stayed for community time.” Mom’s voice hardened.
A rock plummeted to the bottom of my gut. “That’s part of church, isn’t it?”
“You know damn well I meant come home right after the service!” Mom clenched her fist. “I was worried about you, don’t you comprehend that? You’d better move it up to your room and out of my sight, Shanna Louise. Now, before I change my mind.”
I didn’t want to know what that meant. I ran up to my room and shut the door. One corner of my black notebook stuck out from under the radiator. Good. I found my favorite pen, sat on the bed, and waited for Mason to tell me what to write. For the rest of the day, I could pretend I was somewhere else.
Chapter Three
At least both my parents worked full time. Even though I might be stuck in the house till school started on Wednesday, it would be quiet most of the time.
Before she had left for work on Monday, Mom had given me a long lecture. “No leaving the house. No friends over.” She never accepted that I didn’t have any friends who would want to visit. “No phone.” Sternness filled her tone, and her eyes narrowed. In her mind, I’d already done all those things.
“What if the phone rings?” I asked, not realizing until after I spoke how sarcastic it sounded.
She glared at me. “You know what I mean, Shanna. Obviously if the phone rings you should answer it. But if it’s one of your friends, tell them you can’t talk. No TV.”
I hadn’t had a friend who actually called me since sixth grade, so the rule against talking to friends didn’t bother me. And the no TV rule annoyed me a little, but not much. I had plenty of books to read, plus the one I was writing. Mom never grounded me from books, at least. “Okay,” I agreed. “Have a good day at work.”
“I’ll be calling to check in on you,” she threatened.
Like she didn’t do that every time she grounded me. “I’ll be here.”
She didn’t leave right away, and I had the feeling she wanted to stick around and spout off at me more. Finally she had to go so she wouldn’t be late for work. As soon as she had left, I turned on the radio and curled up in Dad’s recliner with my notebook. Peace and quiet. I loved weekdays during the summer, because with my parents out of the house, I could just relax. I didn’t have to worry about being yelled at or worse.
The day before, I’d gotten over two chapters written in my story about a boy who had accidentally become a secret agent, and I would finish the book by Wednesday morning if I really worked. I was proud of myself for getting this far this fast; I’d only started the book three weeks before. I’d never written anything so quickly before, and in my opinion the story included some of the best writing I’d ever done. As long as Mason and the others dictated to me, I always knew I wrote well.
I totally lost track of time while I wrote. When the doorbell rang, I looked at the clock. It astonished me to see it was almost noon. I set the notebook aside and went to the front window, where I could see who waited at the door without them seeing me. Since I only saw Ken there, I opened the door. “I’m grounded,” I said quickly.