Lexie sprints across the grass with Skeeter at her heels. They catch up to me at the neighbor’s house. Lexie grabs for Sneaker, but I hold on tight.
“Give me back my cat!” she shouts.
I twist away and hug Sneaker even tighter. Skeeter stares at us, making the startled face you make when someone’s going to throw something at you.
“I said, give her back! That’s my cat!” Lexie shouts again, putting fists up. Her freckled face is flushed from running.
“She’s mine,” I argue.
“Says who? I found her first. Get Mom or Dad, Skeeter. No, wait. Call 911. Yeah. Hurry, Skeet! Tell them that some creepy girl is trying to steal our cat!”
CHAPTER 22
“I AM NOT CREEPY, AND this is not your cat!” I shout, almost too mad to talk. Who does she think she is, calling the police on me? Sneaker is mine. Mine and Anna’s. We’re the ones who saved her from the storm. It’s not our fault that we couldn’t keep her.
But what if the police don’t believe me? What if they find out I steal things, like paper towels and rainmakers? Let her call them! I’ll just tell the police about Pablo and how he took my necklace, Cowwy, and Mama’s letter and picture. If the police arrest anyone, it should be Pablo, not me.
“It’s all right, Poofy. I’ll get you back,” Lexie says to the cat, all the while glaring at me.
“Poofy? What kind of a dumb name is that? Look, her name is not Poof, Poofy, or any other dumb name you come up with. Her name is Sneaker. I found her when I lived here. Only, the foster parents I was staying with said that they were going to take her to the animal shelter and have her put to sleep!”
Okay, so I kind of made up that last part, but I’m mad.
Lexie gasps. “Put to sleep?” For a moment, she almost looks understanding. “That’s awful! Who’d do that?” Then, quick as a snap, she turns mean again. “Look, the cat is mine, and I want her back. What’s with you? Stealing other people’s pets!”
“I didn’t steal anything. I told you, I’m just taking back what’s mine.”
“Does your sister steal too?”
I could have spit at her. How dare she say stuff about Anna? Then Kevin shows up dressed like a dragon.
“Leave my new sister alone!” he shouts. He stares out of the mouth of the dragon, even though the dragon’s eyes are on top of his head. “I know karate,” he adds, doubling up his small fists.
“New sister?” Lexie frowns.
“We’re Sara’s new foster family!” Kevin shouts. I sling one arm around him and hold Sneaker in the other.
“Sara?” Lexie glares at me. “I thought you said your name is Samantha! You steal and lie?” she explodes. “What else? Do you cheat, too? I don’t think people who lie, steal, and cheat should be allowed near our cat, do you, Skeet?” She turns to her brother for support.
Skeeter shrugs and looks over our heads like he’s watching for something to fall from the sky.
I stay as still and silent as a rock. Ben Silverman told me once that when people are being bullies, sometimes silence is the best defense.
“Sara’s sister didn’t get to stay with us. Sara doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her again!” Kevin shouts. “So quit being so mean.”
Kevin’s words stab at me, but Lexie stands her ground.
“It’s too bad all that stuff happened to you. But I found this cat, and I’ve been taking care of her. She’s mine. You’re the one who left her behind, not me.”
“I didn’t leave her!” I say hotly. “Mrs. Craig told us ‘No pets’ when she took us back to the Silvermans’.”
“Yeah, well, I have no clue who any of those people are, but Poof is mine!” Lexie says stiffly.
“ ’Fraid not,” I say just as stiffly, though it’s hard to stand up to someone who is taller than you and really loud.
“Skeeter, tell her whose cat this is!” Lexie spins around to face her brother.
“That’s not fair!” I shout. “You can’t ask him. Of course he’ll say Sneaker’s yours. He’s your brother!”
“I’m your brother!” Kevin’s face lights up. “I’ll be on your side, Sara! It’ll be a tie!”
“Maybe we should let the cat decide,” Skeeter says.
We all stare at him. What does he mean, let the cat decide? How?
“Hand me the cat. You walk twelve steps this way, and you twelve steps that way, and then I’ll put down the cat, and we’ll see who she goes to.”
Lexie looks smug and grins at Skeeter. “Good idea, Skeet. Put her down, cat burglar,” she adds, planting herself beside her brother.
I start to worry. Will Sneaker remember me when it really counts?
“Can we bend down and reach for her?” I ask, staying just as close to Skeeter’s other side as Lexie is on her side.
Skeeter shakes his head. “Why do girls have to make such a big deal out of everything? Just stand over there and see who the cat goes to!” He glares at his sister and lowers his voice, probably thinking I can’t hear him. But I do.
“You hardly pay any attention to that cat, Lexie. What difference does it make who has her?”
Lexie’s mouth drops open, and then she closes it so tight, it’s just a thin, angry line. “Can it, Skeeter.”
Skeeter ignores her and reaches toward me. Reluctantly, I hand him the cat. At Skeeter’s count, Lexie and I each take twelve steps to either side of him and turn around.
“Close your eyes,” Skeeter commands.
“What?” Lexie glares at him.
“Close your eyes. I’m putting her down. No signaling. No coaxing. No nothing. Just close your eyes and we’ll see who she goes to.”
“Pick Sara! Pick Sara!” Kevin shouts, clapping his hands.
“No picking sides,” Skeeter tells him.
I close my eyes. Please pick me. Please! It seems like forever before I can’t stand it anymore and open my eyes. I can see Lexie has opened hers, too, because she’s looking all over the place.
“Looks like nobody won,” Skeeter announces, motioning toward the porch. Sneaker is busy drinking water.
“I still say she’s mine,” I say, disappointed that Sneaker didn’t choose me, but nobody’s listening.
Instead, Skeeter and Lexie pull open the box they’d brought from the house before the big chase.
Skeeter lifts something out of the box.
“Cowwy!” I shout. “But how—”
“Mom found it mixed up in the stinky—in the sheets,” he explains.
Suddenly, it all starts to make sense. In our hurry to pull up Anna’s sheets, we must have scooped up Cowwy, Mama’s letter, and the picture and stuffed them all in the box together. I probably caught my finger on the necklace when putting the sheets in the box.
“You didn’t also find a jacket, did you, and an envelope with a picture in it?”
“Yep. They’re in here too,” Skeeter answers.
I grab the jacket out of the box and wrap it around me, happy to have it back. The envelope is a new one, and it’s been sealed closed. I slip it into the front pocket of the jacket.
The moment would have been the best ever, if I didn’t think of one awful thing: Pablo didn’t steal anything. “The mirror in the box,” I groan.
Skeeter frowns. “There wasn’t a mirror in the box.”
I don’t say a word. They don’t have to know I blamed Pablo for stealing stuff he never took. He wasn’t the thief—I was. I took his rainmaker. That’s why he gave me the mirror and said all that stuff about mirrors reflecting who we are. He meant me, the thief. He knew, and now he’s gone and there’s no way to tell him I’m sorry.
“Kevin! Sara!” Mrs. Chandler waves from the door. “Time for breakfast.”
“Coming, Mom!” Kevin shouts.
“I’m getting Sneaker,” I announce.
To my surprise, Skeeter steps between me and the porch. “I think it’s choice time,” he says.
I frown. “Choice time?”
“The stuff you left beh
ind, or the cat.”
“Take the cat, Sara!” Kevin shouts, jumping up and down. “The cat, the cat!”
But Kevin doesn’t know that all I have left of my family is in the box.
“So, which is it?” Lexie asks. Her eyes are almost laughing. If I were Anna, I’d bite her.
“The stuff,” I hiss. I grab Kevin’s hand. “Come on, Kev. Let’s go home.”
“She’s a mean girl,” Kevin says as we walk back to the Chandlers’.
I look over my shoulder just as Lexie takes Sneaker into her house. Skeeter’s still in the yard staring after us.
“Ben Silverman, our last foster parent, once told me that people can get mean when something they love is taken away from them,” I answer, slowly climbing the porch steps.
“Are you going to be mean because they took your sister away?” He twists his neck to look up at me.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Sometimes mean just happens.”
That night, after Mr. and Mrs. Chandler finish tucking Kevin in and saying their good nights to me, I lie alone in bed, staring at the ceiling. Cowwy is tucked tight under my arm. When I turn my head, I try to pretend Anna’s there. I can almost see her green eyes, but after a while all I see is the dark, empty space.
Reaching across what would have been her side of the bed, I grab the blanket and make a long divider down the middle with it. When I’m done, I flip over so that my back is pressed against the bundle of blanket, and some of the sad feelings start to slip away. It’s easier to picture Anna here when I’m not trying to see her, when I just pretend that the bundle of blanket is her back pressed against mine.
It’s what helps me finally fall asleep.
CHAPTER 23
WHEN I WAKE UP, BIRDS are singing outside my window. They make me think of Daddy. I overheard Mrs. Craig saying that Daddy was a jailbird now. I picture him in his big cage, trying to get out, and even though the sun is flooding into my room, I get all sad for him.
Out in the hallway, Kevin races downstairs, pounding his feet with each step.
“Shhh, you’ll wake up Sara,” I hear Mrs. Chandler say. But she’s wrong. I’m already awake.
“Get your things together, Kevin. Dad’s taking you over to Andy’s on his way to work.”
“Can Sara come?”
“Not this time. We have an appointment.”
“What’s a pointment?” I hear Kevin ask.
“An appointment is a time set aside to see someone.”
My heart thumps hard. She’s taking me to see Anna! I just know it! I leap from bed and quickly throw on some clothes, and then I race to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
When I arrive in the kitchen, Mrs. Chandler looks at me, starts to say something, but then stops herself.
“What?”
“Aren’t those the same shorts and T-shirt you had on yesterday?”
I look down and back up at her. “I think so.” What is this? A memory test?
“Sara, you have a whole closetful of clothes that we bought for you. Did you try on any of them?”
“These work fine,” I answer, reaching for an apple and anxious to hear all about seeing Anna. I’ll wait for her to tell me so she doesn’t think I was eavesdropping.
Midway between me and the apple, she gently catches my arm and wraps a hand around my wrist. “Did you wash your hands this morning after going to the bathroom?”
I jerk my hand away. “Yes,” I lie. I really want that apple.
To my shock, she takes my hand and lifts it to her nose. “I don’t smell any soap on it.”
Again I jerk my hand away. I’m not used to people smelling my hands.
“Why don’t you wash them again in the sink, and then you can help yourself to some fruit,” she says, pointing to the sink.
“I know where the sink is,” I tell her, running the water over my hands and then squeezing on the soap.
“The apples are already washed,” she adds, handing one to me.
“You wash apples?” I reach past for another, redder one, and she puts back the one she was holding.
“Yes. I do. They could have pesticides on them,” she explains. “Pesticides kill bugs, but they can harm people, too, if we don’t wash off the fruit and vegetables. Cereal?” she adds.
I stare at the bowl of cornflakes. “Did you wash these, too?” The flakes look a little damp.
“No, but I poured some milk on for you. Want some?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Yes, please,” she says.
“You want some too?” I grab a second bowl.
“I meant that you should say, ‘Yes, please,’ ” she answers.
I sigh. Living with the Chandlers sure comes with a lot of rules. Wash hands. Say please. What next?
Mr. Chandler comes in wearing a big smile. “Good morning, Sara! So, how did you sleep last night?”
“I would have slept a lot better if Anna was here,” I answer. He glances over at Mrs. Chandler, but they do that a lot—look at each other after I say something.
“Did you have sweet dreams?” he presses.
“I don’t dream,” I tell him.
“Well, hopefully that will change someday soon. Sweet dreams are a real treat.”
“Like ice cream,” Kevin says, hoisting his backpack over his shoulders. “With chocolate sauce,” he adds.
Mr. Chandler smiles at him and looks back at me. “Can I give you a hug good-bye?”
I hesitate and don’t stand up. “Why? It’s not like you’re not coming back,” I add. Maybe I would have hugged him if he’d kept Anna, too.
He gives Mrs. Chandler another quick look, and then he looks back at me and smiles again. “You don’t have to hug us, Sara. I was just asking.”
I narrow my eyes. Last time I gave Daddy a hug good-bye, he never came back. I’m starting to kind of like Mr. Chandler, so I decide that hugging him is definitely not a good idea.
“No hug,” I say, turning back to my cereal. I don’t even have to look at him to know that he has looked again at Mrs. Chandler.
“The good thing about hugs is that they can be saved for later. Have a great day, you two.” He walks over and kisses Mrs. Chandler. I don’t see it, but I hear the little smack and see them hugging each other out of the corner of my eye. Seeing them makes me feel both good and bad inside. Good for them that they have each other to hug, but bad for me since my hugs have run away, been sent to jail, or are locked up in a residential treatment center.
After Mr. Chandler and Kevin are gone, Mrs. Chandler explains what the day is going to look like. “We have someone we’d like you to go see,” she says, making my heart pump hard again.
The excitement builds in me, and it’s all I can do not to shout, I know! Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. “It’s Anna, right?” I ask, hoping she’ll say yes, but the smile melts off my face when she shakes her head.
“I’m taking you to see a doctor. She’s a counselor, Sara. Her name is Dr. Mira Kitanovski. She’s from Yugoslavia.”
“You-go-who?” I ask, crushed that we aren’t going to see Anna. Who wants to go see a doctor? I’m not even sick.
“Yugoslavia. It’s a country across the ocean. It’s not called Yugoslavia anymore. There was a war—try not to talk with food in your mouth, sweetie.”
Well, that’s going to be hard. She’s talking to me, and I’m eating. How else do I talk except with food in my mouth?
“Swallow first,” she says, like she hears my thought. “I want to prepare you. Dr. Kitanovski has a heavy accent, so she might be hard to understand at first, but I think you’re really going to like her.”
“Why does she want to talk to me?” I feel like my blood is draining out of my head and arms and fingers. It’s like a warning to watch out, or something bad’s going to happen.
“She talks to kids and makes them feel better,” Mrs. Chandler explains.
“I feel fine,” I answer, before remembering not to talk with food in my mouth. A cornflake flies
out and lands on the table.
“That’s why we don’t talk with food in our mouth,” she says, wiping it up with a napkin. “She’ll show you pictures, and you can tell stories about them.”
I look at her and down at my empty bowl. Is this meeting a trap to prove that I don’t know how to read? Or is it another kind of center, and they’re taking me there to lock me up this time? I study her face for some sign that she’s hiding something, but her face looks normal.
“Did you want to put on something fresh before we leave?” she asks.
I frown and look again at what I’m wearing. “No. This is good.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go visit Dr. Kitanovski.” She sticks the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and follows me out the door. I crawl into the backseat, picturing Anna sitting next to me, and I wait for her to start the car.
“Buckle up. ‘Click it or ticket,’ ” she says, smiling when she sees me frown. “It’s a slogan the police are saying to get people to put on their seat belts.”
I’m not sure what a slogan is, but I buckle up anyway.
When we pull out of the driveway, I see Lexie playing with Sneaker, and I stiffen. Mrs. Chandler looks at me in the rearview mirror and follows my gaze.
“I’m really sorry about the cat situation,” she says hastily. “When I’m around them, I can’t breathe. I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just something I can’t help.”
I don’t say anything. After a while she turns on the radio and hums to different tunes. The music makes me think of Daddy, and I start wondering what he’s doing.
And Mama—where’s she?
When I next look up, we’re downtown, and all the shops are open. I stare at the people, wondering where they’re going and what they’re buying. Shops soon turn to houses.
“Are we almost there?” I shift uncomfortably in my seat.
“Pretty close.”
After about fifteen more minutes of driving, we finally pull into a crowded parking lot and find a space right up close to the door.
“I called ahead and reserved a spot,” Mrs. Chandler says, turning off the engine and smiling.
I make my lips go into a smile, but inside, nothing seems funny.
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