by Jen White
“You need some help with that?” Officer B asked, gesturing toward the car door.
“I’m fine.” I opened it.
Billie had cried this afternoon when he came to take us to the police station. I told her it was okay and they weren’t separating us, but what if they did?
“You girls all set there?” Officer B asked. He held open the door to the police station and a blast of cool air almost froze my sweat. Goose bumps ran up my arms. Humans never do well with extreme climate changes.
We stopped at a desk.
“Hey, Dina,” said Officer B.
A lady with huge glasses and even bigger hair smiled at us. Her eyelids were covered in purple and were twice the normal size because of her glasses. She reminded me of an owl. “What do we have here?” she asked.
“Those girls I told you about,” he said.
“Hi there,” she said to Billie and me.
“Hi,” I said, ignoring the do-good smile plastered across her face.
“How’s your day been?”
“They’re fine,” Officer B said. Then he winked again.
He didn’t know if we were fine. He didn’t know anything. He grabbed some papers off Dina’s desk and ambled down the hallway. I hated it when people talked about me like I wasn’t even there.
“Come on, girls,” he said.
Dina sat back down and said, “If you need anything, just holler.”
“Sit here,” Officer B said, pointing to a row of plastic chairs along the wall, right across from a real, live jail cell. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”
Billie sat down and then patted the seat next to her. “You can sit here.”
“I know,” I said, setting my notebook on my lap.
“Can I look at your notebook?” Billie asked.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “It’s just a bunch of stuff about animals…”
“I know.” She sighed, resting the back of her head against the cinder-block wall. “I like animals, too.”
Officer B came over again. “Just make yourself at home,” he said.
“Okay,” said Billie, all cheerful. How come she was acting all happy now? Probably all that orange Fanta dancing through her bloodstream.
How at home could we feel sitting a few yards away from a jail cell? I craned my neck to see. Was there anyone inside? I’d never seen a real jail cell up close, with its solid-steel-to-keep-you-locked-up-forever bars. Someone could slam the door and toss the key. Is that where Dad would go if they found him?
“Is there anyone in there?” I asked, nodding my head toward the jail cell.
Officer B smiled, tapping the handcuffs hanging from his belt. “Not yet, but the day’s not over.”
Dina walked in. “They’re ready for you,” she said to Billie and me.
“Aren’t you going with us?” I asked Officer B.
Now Billie stopped smiling and her eyes got all big. She linked her fingers through mine.
“Don’t worry,” Officer B said. “It’s just some people from Child Protective Services. They’re really nice.”
Billie shook her head.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Come on. We’ll do it together and then…” And then what? Nothing I said would make her feel better. I wouldn’t lie to her, not anymore.
“After you,” Officer B said, holding the door open. “You’re the boss.”
Of course I was, and I’d make sure that it stayed true.
Survival Strategy #46:
BARGAINING IS BEST
I sneezed. The dust in the conference room swirled through the sunlight. I swished my hand through the air, making the dust twist and spin. The gray man sitting across the table stared at me with the look I sometimes got from Dad. Like, Why do you exist?
I had already told them my story. The safe one, the one where Mom died, where Dad left us, and how Billie and me were taking care of ourselves until Julie came.
“So, that’s the whole story?” he asked again.
Gray-shirt-gray-pants-gray-hair-gray-face, sitting in a folding chair against a gray wall. Camouflaged. Like a stick bug. Was that his survival strategy?
The lady sitting next to him, Carla, made a clicking noise with her tongue as she glared at the man. Then she smiled at me. She seemed mostly nice. She flipped open her notebook. “We also have Officer Buck’s notes, but we just want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
Billie asked, “Do you guys have cookies?”
“I don’t, but I can check in a few minutes,” Carla said.
Her brown hair, streaked with red, was tied up in a messy bun. Carla tapped her pencil so lightly, I could barely hear it. The rubber eraser bounced … bounced … bounced.
The door opened and Dina, with her big purple eyelids, walked in with a tray. “Thought the girls might be getting a little snacky,” she said, setting the tray down on the table, filled with granola bars, Cheez-Its, and gummy bears.
“Thanks!” said Billie, grabbing a handful of crackers.
“It’s from my secret stash,” Dina whispered.
“Do you have cookies? I like pink with sprinkles.”
Dina turned toward the door. “Let me check and see what we’ve got in the vending machine.”
I wasn’t stupid. I knew what this was, even with the Cheez-Its and gummy bears and granola bars. An interrogation. Intimidation.
All animals do it to get what they want. Standard predator behavior.
I stared back at the Gray Guy. His hair hung in greasy clumps around his head. The button-down shirt he wore made it look like he had been living in a camper for two months without a normal bathroom, instead of us.
He sniffed real hard and rubbed the end of his nose. Then I saw it: a booger. A small flaky booger hung down from his nostril. Mom called those “bats in a cave.” I would not talk to some guy with bats in his cave. The bat fluttered in his left nostril.
“Can you tell us again what happened before you were left at the Jiffy Co. Gas Station? You said earlier that you were spending the summer with your dad,” asked Carla.
Billie got real quiet. All I could hear was the crunching of her crackers.
“Yes, I already told you everything.”
“You were to stay with him just for the summer?”
I nodded and then I shook my head. Julie had seemed so relieved when he’d come to pick us up. In the beginning I hoped it was for always. In the beginning I would’ve done anything to make us a family. But not now.
Finally I said, “I don’t know.”
She flipped through her notebook and asked the Gray Guy, “Did we get ahold of this Julie yet?”
He shook his head. “Just an answering machine. And the cell isn’t working.”
I cringed. Where was she? What if something bad had happened?
Carla turned back to me and smiled wider. “Really, my job is to find out what happened before your dad left you guys and also to find out what you’ve been doing since he left. I think I understand what has happened since he left, except everything’s a little hazy on the part right before the gas station. How were you guys getting along?”
The bars from the jail cell flashed in my mind. Would Dad really go there if they found him? What if nothing happened to him? What if they just let us go back with him? Then what would he do?
I hesitated, then started, “We were—”
Billie sniffed. “Our dad went to get ice cream and then … and he didn’t come back.”
The Gray Guy sighed and crossed his gray leg. His foot wiggled back and forth like a fish tail. He didn’t care. They were going to separate us, I could see it clearly written across his face. He just wanted to finish his job so he could go home and watch TV.
Carla adjusted her glasses. She looked like she really wanted to help. She cleared her throat. “Did you have an argument?” She flipped through some papers on her clipboard. “It says here that you have a bruised cheek.” She looked at Bil
lie, then back at me.
Billie stopped eating.
“How did that happen?”
I held my breath.
Finally, I said, “I’ll talk about it without her here,” then nodded toward Billie. “And him,” I said, pointing at the Gray Guy. “I don’t like him.”
Carla stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Go,” she said. “And tell Officer Buck to come and get the sister.”
The Gray Guy shrugged and walked out.
“Why can’t I stay?” asked Billie, shoving a handful of gummy bears into her mouth. “We’re supposed to stick together. That’s what you always say.”
“We will. Don’t worry. It will only be for a few minutes.”
Officer B opened the door. “Come on now, Billie. I do believe Dina has wrangled up some cookies for you.”
“Okay,” said Billie, staring at me with her worried eyes.
I shooed her away. “It’s fine. I’ll be out in a second. Go eat cookies. Tell Officer B your Barbie joke.”
“A Barbie joke? I sure would like to hear that,” said Officer B.
“Okay,” said Billie as she followed Officer B out of the room.
I turned back to Carla. And right at that exact moment, she tilted her head just so, and it reminded me of Mom.
Carla placed a strand of hair behind her ear, and then as if on command, all the dust particles right above her head began to spin together in the sunlight. I knew it was time.
Instinct was telling me I should trust her.
I tucked my notebook between my leg and the chair. For once, I knew exactly what I was going to say without writing down all the facts first. I just needed to trust my heart, like Mom said.
I closed my eyes and calmed the tectonics in my cranium.
Survival Strategy #47:
BEWARE OF FAULT LINES
Before The Jiffy Co. Dad, Billie, and me had spent the night at a desert campground surrounded by cacti, and boulders, and not very many people. In fact, I didn’t remember seeing anyone that morning except for Dad, who had his photography stuff spread over the little foldout table in the camper. Cameras were laid carefully on one side and prints were stretched out over the other.
“Stay back,” he warned, waving me away with his hand. “I’m working.”
His eyes were red and puffy. He hadn’t slept much at all last night. And I would know, because I hardly slept anymore, either. Nocturnal was how I liked it. That was the only time I could exist without the eyes of Billie watching me. It was the only time the mountains of tectonics that surrounded us when Dad was awake could take a break.
That morning I was trying to be quiet, but I needed to find breakfast for Billie and me without bothering him. We had been parked at this little out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere KOA (Kampgrounds of America) campground for two days, and we were low on supplies. I thought we were somewhere on the border of Arizona and Utah. I crept around the little kitchen, looking in the cupboards for the last box of Pop-Tarts.
“Liberty,” Billie whispered. She lay perched on the foldout bed above the kitchen table, right over Dad’s head. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Quiet.” Dad didn’t like us to use the bathroom in the camper when we were at a campground because sometimes it stunk.
“Okay, just a second,” I said. “I’ll take you.”
Tectonics bubbled underneath. Fault lines crisscrossed our camper.
I took a deep breath. “Dad?”
He ignored me.
“Dad?”
“What?” He stared at me with eyes that could melt someone into magma.
Billie shook her head. She never liked me to talk to him when he was in this kind of mood.
“Nothing,” I said.
I opened another cupboard and reached into the very back, the wood rough and splintery, and there I found the last of the Pop-Tarts. I did a silent happy dance behind Dad and raised the box above my head. Pop-Tart Master.
There was only one silvery package left.
Billie stretched her hand out toward me. “Liberty,” she whispered. Then she mouthed the word please.
Dad slammed his hand on the table. His cameras bounced closer to the edge. One of the lenses he had been cleaning fell to the floor.
Dad cursed. “What do I have to do to get you two to shut up for five minutes?”
Billie shrank down deeper into the blankets. Her eyes were big. I turned my back on those eyes and tried to be quiet as I opened the package. There were two inside, enough to share.
Dad, with his baseball cap pulled down low, hunched over the pieces of his camera, holding a screwdriver in his hand. I put one Pop-Tart behind my back and turned to Billie, holding up the other one, and opened my mouth wide.
She mouthed the word no.
I started to hand her the other Pop-Tart, the one from behind my back. But before I could, she reached out to grab the one from my mouth. She reached too far and teetered on the edge of the bunk.
Billie’s arms flailed, trying to grab anything to keep herself from falling.
I reached out—I tried to save her. “Billie!” I said, clutching her arm, but it was too late. She fell.
Down. Down. Down. Falling seemed to take forever.
She crashed right on top of the table, right on top of Dad. And right on top of all his precious things.
Then everything got fuzzy.
Billie screamed. I screamed. And Dad froze.
But only for a minute. Because it was like tectonics—plates crashing into each other. The Big One.
Only there was no place to duck and cover.
I tried to help, I did—but I slipped on the glass and the pieces poked me through my socks. Broken camera lenses, flashes, and prints scattered all over the dirty floor of the camper.
And in a flash I remembered. Just pieces, at first. The red faces, the tears, and the yelling.
It came back to me like I was watching it on TV.
Real memories, from when I was little.
The lenses crunched under my feet reminding me to save Billie. Because now Dad had her. And he was slapping her. Hard. With each slap I felt like everything inside me shattered. I rebelled against the instinct inside me that told me to run, to save myself first.
I wouldn’t run away from Billie. Not ever.
Instead, I dove right into the epicenter, grabbing him around his waist.
Hit me. Dad, hit me.
I bit him as hard as I could on his arm. I tasted blood.
Dad yelled and dropped Billie on top of his broken camera. Then he sank to his knees, breathing really hard. His eyes were red and faraway, like he wasn’t even there.
Billie ran to me and I hugged her close. Then I kicked open the camper door and pulled her outside.
Away. Free from all the shaking.
We huddled under a scraggly tree. Duck and cover, just like Mrs. Mortensen had said. Shaking and sweaty, we crouched under that tree waiting for the Earth to right itself.
I wiped the tears from her eyes. Billie’s face was red and swollen, like she had been stung by a million bees.
“Can you see me?” I asked.
Billie nodded.
And we stayed there for I don’t know how long. Then a lady came from nowhere and asked us where our mom was. And she wanted to know where we were from. And if everything was all right.
So we went back to our campsite and sat at the picnic table until Dad came out.
He said nothing, except he had to get gas, so get inside the camper because it was time to go.
Survival Strategy #48:
RESCUE YOURSELF
“Is that all that happened?” asked Billie, her mouth full of KFC.
We were eating on trays over our beds in the hospital. And Billie and me were the only overnight patients. I guess that’s a pretty good thing about staying at an itty-bitty hospital: you get lots of special treatment.
I swirled gravy into my mashed potatoes. A new nurse was on th
e night shift and kept poking her head around the corner to make sure we didn’t need anything.
“And we get to stay here until Dad comes back?” Billie asked.
“I think so. We need to ask Pirate Doctor,” I said.
“Good,” said Billie. “I like him. He’s nice.”
That afternoon with Carla, I wouldn’t tell her anything until she promised she’d keep Billie and me together. Then I told her everything. The whole story. Even the bad stuff. No faking it whatsoever.
After dinner, I tried to sleep. But the sheets were stiff and I still couldn’t get used to wearing clothes that didn’t belong to me. I pulled on the collar of the T-shirt I wore now. I should’ve picked the larger one, but it was hard to tell how small the shirt really was when the nurse held it up to me, proclaiming it was just my size.
Billie was sleeping in actual pajamas that were in the box of clean used clothes.
I rubbed my arm where the IV had been.
“Why didn’t you drink more water?” Pirate Doctor had asked. “Your sister wasn’t nearly as dehydrated as you.”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I guess when I was protecting Billie all the time, I sort of forgot about myself.
Now I rolled over and stared at her sleeping in the bed beside me. Tonight, she barely even said good night, but she begged Pirate Doctor to sit by her bed until she fell asleep. He told her stories about all the weird diseases he learned about in medical school and what it was like when he went to El Salvador to help kids who didn’t have doctors.
I said that, like, a million iguanas lived in El Salvador, combing the jungle floor for fruit and plants. Billie had told me to shh when I interrupted him. Usually she liked to listen to me talk about animals, but not tonight.
I rolled over and pulled the sheet off of me. It was too hot and my head hurt.
I stood up and pulled the curtains back. The moon sat high in the cloudless sky, so large and white that it made me squint. Where was our dad? Why didn’t he come back? I’m sure Mom knew where he was. Was she up in heaven? I thought, if she was going to be anywhere, she’d be in the ocean, swimming with a pod of dolphins, or splashing through the waves with a huge smile on her face, searching the shore for Billie and me.