G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2012 by T. M. Goeglein. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-101-57193-4
For Laura, who always has my back.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Acknowledgments
Excerpt
PRELUDE
MY NAME IS SARA JANE RISPOLI.
Several short weeks ago, I turned sixteen.
So far there has been nothing sweet about it.
I have braces, the thick, transparent type—they make my teeth appear too large for my mouth and my lips too small to contain them.
I have good hair and acceptable skin but my nose is Roman, as in it’s roamin’ all over my face, and I plan to do something about it someday.
I have a learner’s permit but no license, but I’ve been driving my dad’s old Lincoln Continental since I was thirteen, so big freaking deal.
I have a boyfriend—well, a boy who treats me like a friend instead of how I want to be treated, so BFD again.
I also have a steel briefcase, and inside that briefcase is ninety-six thousand dollars in cash, an AmEx Black Card in my name, a Sig Sauer .45 conceal-and-carry, and an old leather notebook stuffed full of so many unusual facts, indecipherable notes, and unlisted phone numbers that it’s held together with masking tape and rubber bands.
The notebook is why I have the gun.
What I don’t have anymore are my parents or little brother.
They’re either dead and gone, or just dead, or just gone.
I don’t have a Friendbook page.
I don’t have space on ISpace.
I threw my cell phone into Lake Michigan weeks ago.
I’m being watched, stalked, tapped, and spied on, and if the opportunity arises, the watchers and stalkers will try to snatch me, and the tappers and spies will try to kill me.
As long as I keep moving, I should be okay.
As long as I keep the notebook with me, I should stay alive.
This is not what I thought life would be like when I turned sweet sixteen.
1
A REQUIREMENT OF STUDENTS at Casimir Fepinsky Preparatory (Fep Prep, as everyone calls it) is to keep a journal of their high school career.
I just reread the first two pages of mine, and so far it’s a doozy.
After all, how many sophomores can record their lives as a fugitive-slash-vigilante?
The truth, though, is that I wouldn’t keep a journal if I didn’t have to. I’m not naturally compelled to share the details of my life. That’s why blogging seems self-centered and tweeting is just, I don’t know, borderline insane. Does the world really care that I just ate an onion bagel and now I’m laughing out loud about it? Isn’t that something a crazy person would say?
Then again, I keep up with it partly because writing everything down helps me stay sane.
The other, more important reason is that it may help me find my family.
My English lit teacher, Ms. Ishikawa, is one of my favorites. She’s wise and tiny, like an energetic hamster wearing glasses. In guiding our journal writing, she quoted William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, saying, “What’s past is prologue”—the present is constructed from the events that preceded it.
That’s why I’ve decided to mine the past for information and use this journal as a storehouse—the place where I put the facts in order right up to the moment my family vanished.
The bloody, broken night marked the beginning of a quest—to find them and to discover who and what we really are. To do that requires patience and concentration, but it also requires context, of which I have very little. Tracking them down without knowing what occurred before that night is as impossible as trying to put a puzzle together with pieces missing—you look at jigsaw fragments and see a pair of piercing blue eyes but no head, and a hand but no arm, and the intelligent smile of a young boy but no boy. No dad, no mom, no little brother. Only chunks and shards that don’t fit, since, as Ms. Ishikawa and Shakespeare taught, a human life is not made up only of the present. It’s constructed from dead slices of time, fading memories, and long-ago whispered conversations. So now I’m examining times gone by like a forensic pathologist, dissecting it for clues about my home torn apart and family ripped free of the living world.
The terrible thing that happened to them didn’t occur in a void.
It wasn’t a wayward meteor or supernatural act that destroyed our lives and put me on the run.
It occurred because other terrible things happened before it. I’m determined to understand what they were, and the best way to do it is by taking a hard, honest look at my family.
• • •
My grandfather, my dad’s dad, was Enzo Rispoli, a tiny, soft-spoken man who was in charge of the family business, Rispoli & Sons Fancy Pastries. Grandpa had many nicknames. “Enzo the Baker,” which was self-explanatory, and “Enzo the Biscotto,” which was my favorite since biscotto is Italian for “little cookie,” and that’s what he reminded me of—a small, sweet pastry. Now and then, some men who spoke in such low tones that only my grandpa could hear them (or as I thought of them, the “Men Who Mumbled”) would call him “Enzo the Boss,” which was confusing, since the only people he ever
bossed around—gently—were my father, Antonio, whom everyone calls Anthony, and his younger brother Benito, whom everyone calls Buddy.
I really do despise Uncle Buddy.
Funny, because I used to adore him.
I can’t deny that my uncle was my best buddy, and my parents’ too—or so it seemed. Uncle Buddy was always around since, to be honest, he didn’t have much of a life of his own. There’s a word I hear in old movies now and then—schlub—that fits him perfectly. He was short and blocky where my dad is tall and thin, shambling and awkward where my dad is graceful and funny, and he laughed too loud at inappropriate moments. Uncle Buddy ate like a garbage truck, shoveling pasta and spattering his shirt with red sauce, and smoking was a constant habit, with him puffing on our porch in an intense, desperate way, like he was mad at the cigarettes. Besides my family, he was alone most of the time, with no real friends and no girlfriend ever. In general, my family tends to stick close and socialize mainly among one another, but Uncle Buddy was extreme. He oozed loneliness, but an annoying type of loneliness, like he wanted something in particular more than he wanted just to be wanted.
There’s an old familiar story my parents tell—they take turns telling it—about how they met. My mom was working in a department store as a hand model, displaying diamond rings, when my dad noticed her. Very smoothly, he asked to see a ring, inspected it, and then, as he slipped it back on her finger, said, “Will you marry me?” Months later, he took her to Italy to pop the question for real and had a ring made for her there, in a little hilltop village called Ravello. It’s a gold signet ring with an R raised in tiny, hard, winking diamonds, and at the end of the story she always turns it on her lovely finger and confesses that she would have said yes the first time my dad asked if he hadn’t been so full of self-confidence.
Uncle Buddy loved that story a little too much.
I know now that he was viciously jealous of who my dad was and what he had, but hid it beneath a thin layer of false good nature.
He pretended to love us, too, but actually despised us, and buried that as well.
He spent hours telling my mom jokes in the kitchen, making her laugh while she used her delicate thumbs and forefingers to shape delicious little ravioli, and helped my dad reattach the lightning-struck weather vane to the slate roof of our big old house on Balmoral Avenue. My uncle happily packed me into his rusty red convertible and took me wherever I wanted to go—Foster Beach or the Art Institute or even shopping on Michigan Avenue, which bored him senseless. On warm summer weekends, we all rode the El to Wrigley Field and sat in the bleacher seats Uncle Buddy had bought especially so we could cheer on his favorite Cubs center fielder, Dominic Hughes.
In particular, I remember breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s.
It was Uncle Buddy’s favorite diner in Chicago.
He loved everything about the place, from its neon sign on the outside to its snug booths on the inside. It was in one of them, with him and me sitting side by side sharing blueberry pancakes so big they spilled over the plate, and my mom and dad across from us sharing a secret smile, that she told us she was pregnant and that it was a boy. I remember how my dad, tall and thinly muscular (like me) with a perpetual five o’clock shadow (not like me, thankfully), was grinning widely as he put his arm around my mom and pulled her close. I also recall the look on my mom’s face. She’s gorgeous, with green, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones (got ’em—thanks, Mom), and wavy black hair, and she literally seemed to be glowing. I was just a kid, confused and excited at the same time, so maybe I don’t remember correctly what happened next, but I think I do.
What I remember is Uncle Buddy’s blank face.
He stared hard at my dad and said, “Another male Rispoli,” as if it were bad news. And then he shook it off like coming out of a trance, smiled his big Uncle Buddy smile, and said, “Hey, since you told us here, you should name the kid Lou!” My parents must have liked the sound of that because several months later my little brother, Lou Mitchell Rispoli, was born at Northwestern Hospital.
Having a new baby around was weird. Until then I had been the center of everyone’s attention, from my parents to my grandparents to Uncle Buddy. Now they all cooed at the baby, held and kissed the baby, and sang him soft Italian lullabies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my share of hugs and cuddles with Lou, too. I loved how he smelled and especially his long eyelashes and chubby fingers. But after a while, enough was enough. In those first two (incredibly long) years of Lou’s life, with everyone treating him like a little prince, my mother teaching school, and my dad working late at the bakery, I began to feel forgotten. Even at that young age, I was aware that a Rispoli never made a scene, so whenever I felt sorry for myself, rather than complain or cry, I’d open my favorite book (Laura Lane, Spygirl) and stare at the pages. I’d only recently learned to read, but it didn’t matter since I wasn’t interested in the words. It was just a place to put my eyes while I waited for someone to pay attention to me.
That’s when Uncle Buddy introduced me to boxing.
I took to it right away, and gave up ballet to learn how to fight.
To be honest, I’m really proud of my left hook.
Boxing was unusual for a six-year-old girl, I admit, almost as much as it is now for a sixteen-year-old girl. But it’s just as graceful as ballet, and when you’re taught to do it well, you realize that it’s less about hitting than not getting hit. Anyway, even though I was taught to stand up for myself if I was being mistreated, it’s not like I’m some kind of brawling maniac. My weapons were the self-confidence I copied from my dad and the power of cool logic instilled in me by my mom.
And then there are parts of me that are just, well . . . me.
I’m not shy, I’m quiet. And I’m not a wallflower, I’m an observer.
Also, in the most tense of situations, I grow calm.
Anyway, Uncle Buddy must have noticed that I felt forgotten, and one afternoon he picked me up in his old red convertible and drove us to the southwest side, to a place called Windy City Gym. It was on the third floor of a soot-covered warehouse. When we entered, the building seemed deserted. We climbed a dark flight of stairs, Uncle Buddy telling me to watch my step, and then he opened a set of double doors and we were flooded with sudden sunshine streaming through glass skylights. The room was deep and tall, with high ceilings crisscrossed by thick wooden beams. From those beams hung heavy bags, several of which were being rhythmically pummeled by guys whose hands were wrapped in tape. There were mirrors and speed bags and jump ropes hanging from the brick walls, along with dozens of old photos and peeling posters of boxers who had trained at Windy City. In the middle of it all, beneath a haze of dusty sunlight, sat a boxing ring—not a ring at all, in fact, but a canvas-covered square. It was taller than me and lined with rope on all four sides. Two guys were inside, circling and dancing, dipping their shoulders and popping their boxing gloves off each other. I smelled chalk and heard the squeak of sneakers, the buzz of a jump rope, and a squealing bell. I was aware of my small size, the thinness of my shoulders and legs, but at that moment it was exactly where I wanted to be.
Uncle Buddy laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Sara Jane, meet Willy Williams.” I turned to a small African American man, almost as small as my grandpa Enzo and a little older. He wore steel-rimmed glasses on his face, a newsboy cap on his head, and a gray fuzzy mustache beneath his nose. He offered a hand for me to shake. When I did, he smiled, and his smile made me feel warm and welcome.
“So this is Anthony and Teresa’s little girl. You look just like your mama, you know that? Except your eyes. You got your daddy’s eyes.”
People said that all the time, so I nodded and smiled back.
“How old are you, Sara Jane?”
“I’m six.”
“My, my, big six.” He nodded at the boxers in the ring beating up on each other and said, “Don’t let those guys scare you, my girl.”
“They don’t scare me,” I said, mesmerized by the
fight. “It looks fun.”
“Fun?” he said, raising his eyebrows over his glasses and grinning. “Say, did you know that your daddy won a very important championship boxing match once?”
I didn’t, and it surprised me. “Really?” I said. “He did?”
“Indeed. I trained him myself. I trained your uncle here, too. ’Course, Anthony had a left hook that Buddy never saw coming,” Willy said, with a wink at Uncle Buddy.
Uncle Buddy smiled but didn’t look happy as Willy went on to say how my dad’s build made him the ideal size for a light middleweight. Uncle Buddy’s short thickness made him a little too heavy and a little too slow to be a boxer. Then Willy patted Uncle Buddy’s shoulder and said, “But no one ever tried as hard as Buddy. And no one was tougher. You sure could take a punch, kid. You sure had a chin.”
Uncle Buddy rubbed his jaw and grinned at me, saying, “I sure took enough of them in the ring from your dad, Sara Jane. I sparred with him day and night. If it wasn’t for me, he never would’ve won that championship.”
“That’s right,” Willy said. “He couldn’t have done it without Buddy’s help.”
This time when Uncle Buddy smiled, he actually looked pleased. He put his hand on my head and said, “Well, Willy. What do you think?”
I would learn later that Willy Williams had one of the sharpest eyes in boxing. He could inspect someone from head to toe, even a skinny six-year-old girl, and instantly decide if she had what it took to be a fighter. Once Willy formed an opinion, whether it was about a person’s viability in the ring or politics or baseball or any other issue, he would deliver his judgment in a little rhyme. Willy stared at me while rubbing his chin. Finally, he pointed a finger in my direction and said—
“Sara Jane,
to me, it’s plain.
Looking at you,
I see a boxer through and through.”
I began to train with Willy that very day and never looked back. I started slowly, moving around the ring, getting used to the rhythm and movement, while he taught me how to use my hands and what to do with my feet—how to pivot and move, and how to get around and below a punch. Soon, my brain and body began to work together, the first half strategically directing mechanics, the other executing orders on command, until the partnership became one homogenous fighter, me. There’s an odd, empowering phenomenon that boxers experience when their physical and mental selves begin to merge into a single being, and I could feel it happening. It was as if I was gaining control of something inside myself that I didn’t even know existed, and it felt like an upgrade, like new features being added to the original Sara Jane. Sometimes before bed, I’d throw a dozen combination punches at my reflection in the mirror. Faster, faster, faster! I’d think, watching my hands and arms pumping like pistons, obeying my command.
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