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.
11:03 AT NIGHT,
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH
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.
“I have to go straight to bed,” I said.
“Do you want to stay up a little to watch some TV? Just to decompress?”
Decompressing is like deescalating. It means let’s take a little time to calm down. I shook my head no. “I have to go to bed now,” I said because nine o’clock is my bedtime and I have to have nine grapes with my human milk in the morning. Nine years old is how old I was when the police came. It’s how old I was before Forever started.
“What about brushing your teeth?” said my Forever Dad. “Don’t you want to brush your teeth first?”
It’s a rule that We always brush our teeth before going to bed. And I like rules. “Okay, yes, fine,” I said. “After I brush my teeth. And after I go to the bathroom and wash my hands. And after I get a drink of water to put on my dresser and put on jammies. Then I’ll go straight to bed.”
“Which jammies will you wear tonight?” my Forever Mom asked. “The ones with the cats, or the ones with the sock monkeys?”
“The ones with the cats,” I said. “The ones with the sock monkeys are for Mondays.”
Then I thought about my Baby Doll and decided to sing it a lullaby. Even though it couldn’t hear me. Because I could still see the fireworks in my brain which is where I see my Baby Doll. I started singing “I’ll Be There” for it. My Forever Dad turned off the twenty-five or six-two-four and my Forever Mom put her hand over the clock. When it came to the part about looking over my shoulder I said, “Oooooh!” just like Michael Jackson which is not the same way a ghost says it but still. Then I looked over my shoulder and inside my eyes I saw Little Michael Jackson giving Bubbles a great big hug through the bars at the zoo.
“You’re doing great, Forever Girl,” my Forever Dad said. It’s all right for them to call me that for now because it’s still true. I like being their Forever Girl and I’ll miss them both but it’s already way, way, way past my nine. Past nine o’clock and nine years old. I don’t want to go back to that scary place but I have to, have to, have to.
11:32 IN THE MORNING,
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH
In science we are studying hurricanes. I am working with Alison Hill on our project. We have to make a poster and write a report about how hurricanes work. We have to type a list of facts too. But my job is to make the poster. Mrs. Wake is helping me put dots of glue on a big piece of white poster board so that I can attach cotton balls to it. I’m not allowed to use the glue because Ms. Dana told her what happened last year when I memorized the combination to the supply cabinet in Room Five.
But in a minute I’m going to need the glue. It’s part of my secret plan.
“That’s very good, Ginny,” Mrs. Wake says. “Now let’s put some on the bands of clouds on the outside of the hurricane. Those outer winds are the most destructive, so we need to make sure they stand out.”
I put two more cotton balls on the poster board. Alison Hill is near the window at a long table typing the list of facts. Alison Hill is good at typing. She is faster than Larry and faster than me but she gets really mad sometimes when you try to make her go as fast as she can.
I put down the cotton ball I am holding. “Alison Hill, are you done yet?” I ask.
“Not yet, Ginny,” she says.
I look at my watch. The time is 11:35. I put my pencil down on the table hard so that it makes a slap. Then I make a loud breathing sound.
Alison Hill keeps typing.
I pick up the scissors and start cutting out the curved arrows that Mrs. Wake drew for me. I make the breathing sound again. “I am almost ready for those facts,” I say.
Alison Hill slams her hands down on the keyboard. “Ginny, leave me alone!”
“Ginny,” says Mrs. Wake.
But her voice didn’t go up so she wasn’t asking a question.
“I bet the facts would be done if Larry was typing,” I say.
Then Alison Hill throws her paper and pencil in the air and stands up. I look at her. She has her fingers curled up like claws. Mrs. Wake walks over to her and starts to deescalate the situation. They start talking loud and fast.
So I grab the glue and squeeze it all over Mrs. Wake’s chair. I squeeze and I squeeze and I squeeze. Then I put the bottle on the ground and move it under the table with my foot where she can’t see it.
When Mrs. Wake is finished helping Alison Hill calm down she comes back to help me some more. She sits down. “Let’s let Alison get her work done,” she says. “Don’t talk to her right now. She needs to focus.”
So I say, “I can’t find the glue.”
Mrs. Wake looks around. “It was here just a minute ago,” she says. “Ginny, did you eat the glue? Ms. Dana said—”
Then she gets a funny look on her face and puts her hand under her bottom.
I make sure my mouth is closed.
“Did you do this?” she says. And stands up. She is wearing a nice gray skirt. She tries to look at her bottom but her neck isn’t long enough so she puts her hand there instead. She looks at her hand. She looks at me. Her eyes get big and wet. “Ginny, I can’t believe you!” she says. Then she runs out of the library.
I start moving toward the computer where Alison Hill is working. Then I remember that Alison Hill knows I’m not allowed to use the internet without an adult.
I stop and start picking at my fingers.
On the other side of the library I see a fifth grader get up from a computer. I walk to the place where he was sitting and sit down in his place. Then I type Manicoon.com into the white space at the top of the screen. And click Enter.
On the screen I see Maine coon cats. I see their long ears and bushy tails. Their faces look at me like Fire’s and Coke Head’s. Above them I see tabs that say Information and About Me and Contact Me. And I see the words A Message for My Daughter. Under the words A Message for My Daughter I read,
So I came to the address you gave me and those fuckers called the police. But they can’t shut me down. I have rights too, I told them. No one can take away freedom of speech. Four years ago they took you away and I’ve been trying to find you ever since. Thank God for the internet. Don’t tell anyone about this blog though. I can’t come back to the house where you live because the judge issued a restraining order. G., I love you so much. I want you back so we can be a family again. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been without you? I’ll do anything to get you back. You should see the new cages I put in. We’re moving lots of tail. I’m clean now too. Rehab and everything. Crystal says I should lie low and cool it. But I can’t cool it. She helped out a lot after you left but I have to see you. So name the time and place and I’ll be there. Leave a comment and as soon as I read it I’ll delete it. Ha. That almost rhymes.
I don’t know what Leave a comment means but then I see the word Comment under Gloria’s letter. So I click it and I see a place to type. I write, You can come to the Harvest Concert on October 18th. Please get my Baby Doll from the suitcase under my bed. Don’t leave it there
alone.
Then I click the word Submit which I’m guessing is like Send and then the X to make the screen go away and I go back to the table to wait for Mrs. Wake.
EXACTLY 6:57 IN THE MORNING,
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH
Before I went outside to get on the bus I counted the five slices of bread that were left in the bread bag and my Forever Mom said the word approximately means close to but not exactly. And that the bread is approximately gone. So if today is September 14th then tonight when I go to bed it will be approximately the 15th. Then at midnight the 15th will be exactly here.
Approximately is a good word to use when you can’t get to a watch or a clock. It’s also good for thinking about your Baby Doll if you don’t know exactly if anyone found it or exactly the time Gloria might bring it to the Harvest Concert.
But I can’t think about what time she might come because the bus is pulling into the school parking lot and I see a parked car that looks approximately like the Green Car. My watch says it is exactly 6:59. The car I see is green like I remember but it doesn’t have the thick piece of plastic Gloria taped to the back window when it broke. And standing in front of the car is someone who looks approximately like Gloria but not exactly. She is far away but she is really, really skinny and mostly she has the same kind of hair but she isn’t wearing the shirt from the Facebook picture. I stare and stare at her out the window until we stop in front of the school. Then I get off the bus. I want to walk around the bus to see if it is her but Mrs. Wake is right there on the sidewalk waiting for me. She brings me inside.
Plus yesterday I told Gloria that she should come to the Harvest Concert so it can’t be her.
Mrs. Lomos called my Forever Parents yesterday and told them about the glue. I had to write a letter of apology to Mrs. Wake. I take it out of my backpack and hold it out to her. “Here,” I say.
She takes it.
We go to homeroom and then to language arts. Now it is exactly 7:45. Mrs. Wake reads the letter when she sits down. All she says is “Thank you, Ginny.” Her mouth is a thin line and she is not talking as much as she did yesterday. I’m guessing she is angry but she isn’t yelling so I don’t have to be careful. But still I don’t argue when she tells me to take out my homework. We are working on the hurricane project both in science and in language arts.
The Truth According to Ginny Moon Page 4