Home (5 page)

A sunbeam poked at Allie’s eyes, and the smell of bacon tickled her nose.

Oh, no, not a new foster home, Allie thought, as she struggled to shake off the night’s stupor. She looked around the room, squinting in the bright morning light. Flowery wallpaper, a sloped attic ceiling, white dressers, old-fashioned beds. Good, they were still at JoJo’s. Well, not
good
...but at least she wouldn’t have to break in a new foster family.

Allie stretched her legs, searching for the twins. Nothing. She was the only one in the bed.

An explosion of giggly laughter from the kitchen told her where Madeleine and Luke were.

“See? Allie
told
you to eat with a knife and fork!” Madeleine squealed. “She was right. You should listen!”

Well,
this
was something Allie had to see. She hopped out of bed and trotted down the stairs. There, lying on the kitchen floor, was Luke. He was giggling and squirming, trying to push Thor away. But the big dog had pinned him down and was licking his face.

JoJo and Jonathan were both laughing so hard that they were bent over the counter. And Arthur?

Allie stopped in her tracks. Arthur sat at the table, half-smiling. His fake arm was lying on the table—just lying there, like that wasn’t totally disgusting. And he had the stump of his real arm soaking in a bowl of some sort of liquid.

Despite the squirming, squealing boy on the floor, Allie couldn’t take her eyes off Arthur’s arm.

“It’s infected,” Arthur said, when he saw Allie staring. “This stuff kills bacteria. I have to soak my arm in it a couple of times every day.” Arthur winced. “It kind of stings.”

“Oh, uh...sorry,” Allie said.

“Not your fault.” He swirled his stump around in the bowl before lifting it out and dabbing it with a towel. “It’ll get better eventually. I hope.”

“Arthur, it will definitely get better—and soon,” JoJo said. “The more optimistic you are, the faster it will heal. I read that somewhere.”

Allie rolled her eyes. Great. Another one of those life-is-what-you-make-of-it people.

“Okay, we’re officially having a fresh start today,” JoJo said. “Arthur, put your arm back on. You and Jonathan take the kids out to the barn and teach them how to do chores.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Allie asked, frowning.

JoJo raised an eyebrow as she pulled Thor off Luke’s now-clean face. “You’re one of the kids,” she said. “You’re going to learn how to do chores.”

Madeleine and Luke bolted out the door without so much as a “good morning” to Allie. And after Jonathan stepped into his manure-covered rubber boots, and Arthur pulled on his fake arm, they trailed out, too.

This was truly the weirdest family Allie had ever lived with—and she’d lived with a lot of them. Allie stuck her feet into a pair of old boots that were lying by the door and headed outside.

Madeleine was leaning out the haymow window, waving at Arthur down below. “What happened to your real arm? Why do you have a plastic one?”

Arthur stopped and looked up at Madeleine. “When I was born, my right arm was good, but the left one looked weird and the bones were missing. It wasn’t good for anything, so they amputated just below the elbow.”

Arthur tried to walk into the barn.

“Wait!” Luke called, squeezing his head out the same small window as Madeleine. “Is it like a robot arm? Can you lift cars?”

Arthur grinned. “Nope, it’s even better. It’s called an iLimb. I can adjust the thumb using my good hand, so I can pick up things of any size.” He held up his fake arm and showed them, clicking the thumb flat against his palm (like he was about to pull on a tight sweater), then moving it all the way out so he could grab something big, like a basketball.

“The older kind of prosthetics are like lobster claws—they open and shut, but the thumb is stuck in the same groove. This is a ton better,” he said. “It even has sensors that tell it to stop squeezing once I get a good grip, so no more crushed pop cans.”

“Cool!” Luke stared at Arthur like he was a movie star.

“Child Protective Services paid for that,” Jonathan whispered to Allie. “If they hadn’t, he’d be wearing one of those lobster claws.”

Allie scowled. “I don’t care what they paid for. He’s still stuck living here and not with his real family.”

Jonathan’s face clouded over. “You know, the world’s never going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a witch all the time. Try being grateful. Or get yourself a broom.”

Allie and Jonathan stood, scowling at each other as the warm sun beat down on them and chickens poked around their feet.

“Come on, you two,” Arthur said. “Jonathan, you teach Madeleine and Luke how to feed the pigs and cows. Allie, you can clean out the back pen—the one with the little calf in it. Just toss the manure out the back door into the manure spreader. I’ll deal with it later.” He handed Allie a pitchfork and walked into the barn. Leaving her standing there. With a pitchfork.

“The calf is called Scooter,” Luke yelled from the window. “I named him. And it’s a good name,” he said, glaring at Madeleine.

Allie gritted her teeth as she stomped into the barn. The pitchfork handle felt weirdly rough and scratchy in her palm.

As Allie ducked under the bare bulb that dangled from a wooden beam, something light and feathery tickled her face. A spider web! She stumbled ahead, rubbing her free hand up and down her cheek, trying to pull off the strands. Allie avoided making eye contact with Blackie. True, he was standing there doing nothing. But you never knew. You just never knew.

A second bulb hung from an old wire at the far end of the alleyway. And right in front of it was Scooter’s pen. Allie groaned.

The manure was at least two feet deep. Its acidic smell bit at Allie’s throat, making her cough. And perched in the middle of the mess was Scooter the calf, his scraggly little legs quivering with excitement.

Allie stepped carefully into the pen. Her boots slurped as the manure tried to suck her in.

Five sticky steps, and it happened. Allie slid—skated, almost—across a patch of watery manure. In a flash, her feet shot out from under her and she landed, belly-flop style, on her back. She tried to sit up. No luck. Her hips and back had been sucked into the chilly muck like it was quicksand.

The ground shook as Scooter bounded over. The calf leaned down and snuffled excitedly, then stuck out his raspy tongue and dragged it across Allie’s face. He spun around in a circle, smacking Allie’s lips with his manure-covered tail before bounding around the pen kicking up his heels and spraying poop everywhere. Allie sputtered frantically, trying to get the manure—which tasted oddly like warm Dr. Pepper—out of her mouth.

If they ever found her, she was definitely getting first dibs on the bath.

“Cripes, you’re useless.” It was Jonathan, of course. Allie hated that boy.

Scooter, the scrawny little calf, was still racing around in circles—no doubt trying to confuse his prey before attacking her with his disgusting tongue again.

“I hate you,” Allie said, staring up at Jonathan.

“Would you like me to help you up?” Jonathan asked, using a sickly sweet voice that was even worse than his normal snotty one.

“I hate you.”

Jonathan smirked. “I can help you up, you know.”

“I hate you.”

“Just say the word. I’ll even clean the pen out for you if you do.”

“I...” If Allie could have crawled down through the manure and straight to China, she would have done it. “I hate...”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Can you help me up?”

Jonathan didn’t move.

Allie’s skin crawled. “Can you help me up...
please
?”

Without another word, Jonathan reached down, grabbed Allie under the arms and heaved. She came out of the wet manure with a weird slurping sound.

Then he grabbed the pitchfork and started shoveling.

Allie scrambled out of the pen—being careful to not get knocked over by Scooter, The Incredible Running Calf—and stood in the alleyway. Jonathan was hunched over, tossing fork after fork of manure out the door and into the spreader.

“Go on,” he said, nodding. “I keep my promises.”

“Thank you.” Allie still hated him, but at least she didn’t have to clean out that filthy pen.

As Allie walked through the barn, she could hear the twins yakking loudly about artificial arms. No doubt they were following Arthur around like shadows while
he
did all the work. Blackie stared at her as she stomped past, chewing the fresh hay that someone had dumped in his pen. He’d actually moved a few feet to get to it. It looked weird, seeing him standing in a new spot.

Allie headed out into the sunshine and opened the pasture gate. Cows were scattered all across the field. Only Blackie and Scooter were still penned up inside. Might as well get cleaned up and go for a walk, Allie thought.

JoJo met her in the kitchen.

“Allie, that...uh...” JoJo blinked when she saw Allie’s clothes, but kept talking as if it wasn’t weird to have a manure-coated kid in the kitchen. Which it probably wasn’t. “That social worker wants you to fill in this paper. And can you feed Tripod, please?” JoJo handed Allie the paper and a pen, then pulled on some rubber boots.

Allie looked at the sheet. It was blank. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“She said...” JoJo rolled her eyes. “She said she wants you to write a letter to an imaginary pen pal, telling her about your hopes and dreams and fears.”

Allie stared at JoJo.

“You have
got
to be kidding.”

“I kid you not,” JoJo said, as she headed out to the barn. “This worker’s a real winner, huh?”

Allie couldn’t come up with a good retort—and JoJo had left, anyway—so she washed and changed, crammed the pen and paper into her back pocket, then headed out to see the dog.

Tripod was lying in the sun on his fuzzy blanket. When he realized Allie was coming over to see him, his tail thumped on the ground.

Allie filled his water bowl from the rain barrel beside the barn, like she’d seen Jonathan do. Then she grabbed a handful of dog food from the storage bin and put it into Tripod’s other bowl.

She put the bowls near Tripod’s head, then waited for him to eat. He whimpered as he tried to twist his body so he could get his head into the dish. It was clearly hurting him.

Allie looked around. There was no one in the yard to help. So she took a piece of dog food, dipped it in water and offered it to Tripod. He licked it out of her hand, then lay his head back down while he chewed, staring at her and gently thumping his tail. Allie soaked another piece of food, then another and another, feeding them to Tripod until he didn’t want to eat any more.

She lay her hand gently on what was left of his leg, feeling the heat through the bandages. He thunked his tail once more, then yawned and closed his eyes.

Must be nice to be happy
, Allie thought.
Nice to feel like you’ve got a real home.

Allie pulled the crumpled paper out of her pocket, smoothed it down and started writing.

Dear Imaginary Pen Pal,

Well, they’re at it again. All that social worker crap about getting a better future and understanding your past and blah blah blah. Now I have to write a stupid letter about my goals and fears.

Here’s the thing: My goals used to be to read every book I could find and to become a famous writer. Now things are different. Now my goal is to get us moved back in with Mom. My fear is that we’ll be dragged from one foster home to the next, until they dump us on the street. That’s what happens, you know. If you’re not with a real family when you turn 18, they just shut down your foster care file. Get lost. Find a bench to sleep on. I can’t let that happen to Madeleine and Luke.

              Wanna know a secret? I’m scared. My goal is to fix things up, patch things up and cover things up—again—so Madeleine and Luke can have a happy life. But I’m scared that I’m not good enough to do it.

Allie looked down at Tripod. When he saw her looking at him, he put his front paw (the one he still had) on her leg and pushed, asking for more rubs.

Allie tore the letter into tiny pieces and shoved them into her pocket. No bloody way she was going to let Stone pick around in her brain. She scratched Tripod behind the ears as she tried to breathe away the heavy feeling in her chest. She could hear Madeleine and Luke racing around in the haymow, laughing and playing. Allie walked over to the hammock, climbed in and closed her eyes.

If she fell asleep, maybe they’d go inside without her. Then she could get a break from everyone. She could get a break from the awful heavy feeling in her chest, too.

“Allie.”

Allie kept her eyes closed. It was her first time in a hammock. It was like floating on a cloud. Like floating on a lily pad. Like...

“Allie!”

Allie kept her eyes closed. But relaxed-like closed. If you scrunched, it was obvious you were ignoring the person talking to you. The flabby, freckled, irritating person talking to you.

“ALLIE!”

Jonathan poked her in the ribs. Her side spasmed, making it obvious she was awake.

“Allie, you’re an idiot,” the flabby, freckled, irritating person said.

Allie opened her eyes—but slowly, so he'd know she found him annoying.

Jonathan clearly didn’t care. He stood there, holding the pitchfork in one hand, and an egg bucket in the other.

“When you
open
the pasture gate, you need to
close
the pasture gate,” he said, through gritted teeth.

A shadow fell across Allie’s face. She glanced to her left and screamed. Blackie was standing right there, chewing his cud and staring down at her. Cripes, he was huge—3,500 pounds, according to the sign hammered up in the barn. That was scary enough when he was in his pen, but out here, where he could trample pretty much anything...well, you did not want to be lying down looking
up
at him, that was for sure.

So Allie lunged out of the hammock. Tried to, anyway. Unfortunately, her boot got caught in the webbing and she fell face-first into the grass. She flopped around like a fish in a boat, trying to free herself. Jonathan and Blackie just stood there, staring.

“Are you done?” Jonathan asked, making her realize how much she really, truly, hated that boy. It was bad enough being pitched into a foster home. Worse, still, that this idiot was already here. He was absolutely the worst foster brother she’d ever had.

“I left the pasture gate open?” Allie asked, as she struggled to her feet.

“Yep.”

“But how did Blackie get out of the barn?”

Jonathan stared at her like she was the stupidest person he’d ever met. “His pen opens up at the back. He can walk out into the pasture whenever he wants. And it wasn’t just Blackie you let out.” Jonathan waved the pitchfork at nothing in particular.

Allie pulled her boot out of the webbing and looked around. There were cows eating the grass, cows standing in JoJo’s strawberry patch, cows munching tomato plants.

Allie cringed. Twenty cows could do a lot of damage in a very short time.

“JoJo’s going to kill us,” Allie wailed.

“Kill
you
, you moron.” Jonathan scowled. “I had nothing to do with this.”

Allie hopped on one foot as she yanked her boot back on. “What do I do?” she shrieked. Allie hated it when she shrieked.

“Cripes, you are
such
a witch. You really should have come with a broom.” Jonathan looked around and shrugged. “You’ll figure it out.” Then he walked off. Just
left
her there like he didn’t care. Which he probably didn’t.

Allie spun around wildly, looking for something—anything—that might make old Blackie want to walk back into the pasture. If you could get a
bull
to move, often the cows would follow. She’d read that somewhere. But the fact that Blackie was now staring vacantly at the empty hammock, chewing, didn’t bode well. He wasn’t much of a go-getter.

Allie ran over to the lawnmower and squeezed its grass-clipping bag. Full! She quickly unhooked the bag and dragged it toward Blackie, her arms shaking. What if he trampled her? What if he bit her? What if he did nothing, and JoJo’s garden got destroyed?

Allie took a deep breath, grabbed a handful of sticky grass clippings and held them under Blackie’s nose. The old bull’s head shot up. He snorted, then stuck out his enormous tongue, wrapped it around the whole handful of grass and sucked it right into his mouth. Allie jumped and rubbed her hand frantically against her jeans. His tongue was surprisingly rough—like sandpaper.

“Start walking, brainiac,” Jonathan yelled. He was standing by the pasture gate. Not helping, of course. Just standing there.

Allie backed toward the pasture as fast as she could, pulling out handfuls of grass every few steps. Blackie shuffled along with her, sucking back clippings as fast as he could get them. And behind him, all the cows started falling in line. It was amazing! They didn’t have a clue what was going on, but they didn’t want to be left out. If Blackie was actually going somewhere, they had to follow.

“So, brainiac, you did it,” Jonathan said, as Allie backed past him, followed by Blackie and a long line of curious cows. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Just close the stupid gate when the last cow gets in,” Allie muttered, as she wiped bull spit off her hand.

“This gate?” he asked, pointing at the only pasture gate she could possibly be talking about. “
Now
you think this gate needs to be closed?”

Allie gritted her teeth. If it was possible to move objects with your mind, Allie would slam that gate right into Jonathan’s stomach.

“Ouch! Get off!” Jonathan was squirming frantically, pushing at the last cow, which had stopped and was standing right on his foot.

Allie smiled. It wasn’t a pasture gate slammed into the belly, but it would do.

“You were snoring in the hammock, you know,” Jonathan said, as he shut and latched the gate. “And you missed lunch. It’s almost supper time.”

“Not everyone eats as much as you.” Allie climbed over the pasture fence. Going through the gate would have meant asking Jonathan to undo the latch. “And at least I’m not scared of a rooster.”

Okay, it sounded lame, but it was the best she could come up with. Suddenly, a tight knot formed in her stomach.

“Where are the twins?” Allie swung around, searching the yard.

“They’re in the house watching a movie,” Jonathan said, as he headed toward the barn. “You could stop acting like a fussy mother, you know.”

“It’s none of your business,” Allie muttered, as she stomped off toward the house.

When Allie pulled the door open, an amazing smell stopped her in her tracks. She breathed deeply, her mouth watering.

JoJo was at the sink, covered with flour, tomato sauce and bubbles. She smiled at Allie.

“Lasagna, garlic bread and apple crisp coming up. Luke and Madeleine are in the living room,” she said. “So, did you write your letter to your imaginary pen pal?”

“Didn’t have time,” Allie said. “I probably won’t, either.”

The floor shook as Thor galloped in from the living room and barked like crazy at the back door.

JoJo glanced out the window and shook her head. “She’s here, again.”

Madeleine peeked around the corner. “Do we get to visit Mommy tonight?”

“Not tonight, Madeleine,” JoJo said, as she opened the door for Stone. “Tonight we’re having a feast and then story time.”

Stone waltzed in like she owned the place.

“When do we get to see our mom?” Allie asked, as Stone gave JoJo a big folder stuffed with papers. Probably more court documents and witness statements, to show JoJo how messed-up Allie’s family was.

“Hello to you, too,” Stone said, putting on a fake hurt face. It looked even stupider than her fake smile.

“We should be able to go for supervised visits. We should be able to see her at your office. I know my rights.”

“Clearly, you do.” Stone raised an eyebrow. “But I don’t know if your mom’s made any progress, yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. You have to consider the needs of the foster children. We get to see our mom, at least for supervised visits. That’s the way it works, and you know it.” Stone sat down at the table and JoJo handed her a cup of tea.

Allie put on her best
you know I’m right
look. And Stone? She was avoiding eye contact—staring at her tea, at JoJo, at the stove...

Good. That meant Allie was winning. When the workers ran out of lame excuses and hoped foster kids would just give up, they stopped making eye contact.

“We want to see our mom this week, at your office.” Allie had to make Stone cave. After supervised visits at the social workers’ office came unsupervised visits at home. Then overnight visits. Then, if nothing went wrong, the workers would have no choice but to let Allie and the twins move back to the city. They couldn’t stop it at that point. As long as nothing went wrong.

Suddenly, Allie realized Stone was staring at her. Really staring at her.

“You’re good at manipulating people, aren’t you?” Stone said, using a cold voice that kind of creeped Allie out.

Allie opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“You’ll get your visits—supervised, at the office.” Stone paused, taking a slow sip of her tea. “But if your mom doesn’t get it together, I’m not sending you back there. You’ve jerked around a lot of social workers, but you won’t be pulling that stunt with me.”

Allie opened her mouth, then closed it. Again. She was starting to feel like a guppy.

Allie looked down at her hands, then quickly shoved them into her pockets. They were covered with bull spit and bits of grass. And they were shaking.

Stone stood up. “I’ll schedule this for tomorrow, assuming your mom is available.”

“She will be.” Allie tried to breathe normally—tried to keep her voice cool. “She wants us back.”

As soon as Stone shut the door behind her, Luke and Madeleine bounded out of the living room.

“What did she want? Is she bringing Mommy here?” Madeleine asked.

“She’s not coming here, Madeleine. We’re going home,” Luke said. He climbed onto a chair and leaned over the table so he could take a deep sniff of the lasagna.

“You don’t know that.” Madeleine pushed his head away and tried to sniff the dinner herself.

“Stop it, you two.” Allie gently pulled them back into their seats. “We’re going to visit Mommy at the Stone lady’s office tomorrow. She said Mommy’s looking forward to seeing us.”

JoJo glanced at Allie as she set two baskets of garlic bread on the table, but said nothing.

“Then we’ll be going for home visits next week, then overnight visits after that,” Allie added. “Things are moving along!” She smiled brightly, and the twins perked up as they grabbed their forks.

JoJo had just pulled the milk jug out of the fridge when Arthur and Jonathan burst through the door.

“You should see all the birds in the old oak tree by the orchard,” Arthur said. “There are hundreds of them. You can barely see the tree!”

Luke and Madeleine started to scramble out of their seats.

“No, you don’t,” Allie said. “Dinner, bath and bedtime. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

They sank back down, looking defeated.

Allie shook her head and smiled. “Don’t give me those pouty faces. You know I’m right.”

JoJo laughed. “You’re a good mom, but don’t forget to bath yourself.”

Allie eyed her suspiciously. “What does that mean?” She’d heard enough about being parentified. About needing to enjoy her childhood. About letting someone older than her raise the twins. Blah, blah, blah...

“It means you’re doing a good job of taking care of the twins.”

“And?”

“And it means you smell like the barn, so you’ll want a bath before you head into town tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Allie’s cheeks burned. For some reason, being snarky with JoJo made her squirm. JoJo wasn’t like the other foster moms.

Jonathan snorted. “It’s a good thing you’re a good mom, because you’re a pretty snotty foster kid. And a crappy sister. And you don’t know what a bull looks like. Or a rooster...”

“Shut up.”

Later that night, freshly scrubbed, stuffed with lasagna and cozied up in bed with the twins, Allie felt the knot in her chest loosen. She felt herself drifting off. She pinched her own arm, trying to keep herself awake.

She couldn’t fall asleep. Not yet. JoJo and Arthur were still downstairs watching a show. Allie needed to stay awake until they went to bed. She had to trade the books she’d read for new ones. Then she had to stay awake to read. Once they’d moved back home, she’d never see JoJo’s library again. There were so many beautiful books crammed into that amazing room. She needed to read as many as possible. She was running out of time.