Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave (20 page)

I sat up higher and flipped through the pages until I saw it, the page I hadn't let myself read. I knew it was there, like a gigantic ostrich egg, waiting to be cracked open. The page I hadn't looked at since Dad had picked us up from Julie's.

But I remembered what it said, and I remembered Mom's long fingers curled over the pencil as she wrote it, maybe six months ago. Mom had just finished a long overnight shift at the hospital. I had just finished watching
Hunter and Hunted
, the episode about killer whales, and I was writing facts about their pods and how they mate for life and how the baby is called a calf, just like a baby cow. And I was wondering if Dad had ever taken pictures of killer whales, when Mom surprised me.

“Can I see your notebook?” Her hair was still in a ponytail from working all night, and she hadn't even changed out of her scrubs. On mornings like this, she usually went straight to bed, but that day she stayed up for a little bit.

I stopped writing midsentence. My pencil was poised over the paper like it was being held by an invisible string.

“Why?”

“Because.” She smiled. The corners of her eyes were thick with tired lines.

“Okay.”

She took my notebook and flipped through it. She paused at certain pages, read what I had written, and sometimes she smiled. It felt a little weird to watch her read with me standing there. I felt sort of embarrassed.

“I need to pay more attention,” she said.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. It's just, I work too much. I hate it. I'm sorry, Liberty.”

“It's fine, Mom. We're fine.”

But she didn't know how sometimes I heard her cry when she thought no one was listening. I knew it was hard for Mom to take care of Billie and me all by herself.

Then she turned to the page where I had glued Dad's picture of the penguin with the Cheetos-colored feet. She stopped smiling and stared at it for what felt like a long time. Then she quietly turned the page.

She asked, “Can I have your pencil?”

“What do you want to do?” I only had twenty-four empty pages left. Once I let Billie draw a picture of a dolphin in it and she ripped the page. Really I only liked me to write in my notebook.

“I just want to write something,” she said.

Now, I took a deep breath and stared at what she had written I traced her cursive with big loopy
Y'
s.

I love you, Liberty. Trust your intelligent mind, but more importantly trust your heart. Together they will create your best self.

It was almost too hard, this page, with its corners curled and dirty.

I put my hand over my chest, hoping I could somehow stop the hollow feeling that grew inside the longer I sat here looking at it.

With Dad, I had to try to forget the life I had before, otherwise I couldn't bear it.

I pressed my fingertips into the grooves in the paper where Mom's writing had pressed too hard. I read the words again. I didn't see how I could ever be both parts of myself, logical and emotional. Everything felt too horrible, like I would crack open and explode into a million molecules.

 

Survival Strategy #44:

KNOW WHO TO TRUST

For some reason, the doctor wore an eye patch.

“Why do you wear that thing?” asked Billie, pointing to his eye.

“Billie,” I said, trying to shush her. “That's rude.”

“What?” she asked. “I just want to know.”

The doctor smiled. “It's fine. My left eye doesn't work very well, an old mountain bike injury, so I wear this.”

The nurse came in. “Are you finished with your breakfast, Billie? 'Cause we're clearing everything away.”

“No,” yelled Billie, running out the bedroom door.

The doctor smiled again. People were always amused by Billie. Somehow, this morning, she wasn't as amusing to me. My head hurt.

“So, tell me again what happened? I know you told me a little last night, but I want to make sure I have everything straight,” Pirate Doctor said. He was right; I had been too tired to explain everything last night, but I had given him Julie's phone numbers.

“I already told you,” I said.

The skin around his good eye crinkled. “Come on. Billie told me her part, so I have the basics, but there's more, I know. You might as well get used to telling it, because a police officer is coming by soon, now that you're up.”

I ignored my achy head. “No, first we have to call Julie. The truck driver said we could call her first.”

Pirate Doctor said, “I called her and left a message.”

I lay back down on the bed and covered my eyes. My insides burned like a bonfire. Where was she? Didn't she know we needed her? Didn't she know our dad was crazy?

He held up a little paper cup. “Also, I need you to take this medicine.”

I shook my head.

“Well, it's your choice, but if you think you have a headache now, just wait until the painkiller wears off.” He jingled the cup of pills.

I sighed and held out my hand.

“Now, that's good. You'll thank me later.”

The pills scratched as they went down, and I slopped water all over myself.

“Come on, tell me what happened to your sister.”

“The same thing that happened to me. Our dad left us at the gas station and never came back.”

His one visible brown eye blinked. “She said that. But why does she have a bruise on her cheek?”

“Ask her,” I said. I didn't know why I was protecting Dad. Maybe part of me still thought he was ours, even though he was awful. His blood was my blood, and that counted for something, didn't it?

“She said she fell.”

I picked at the corner of the sheet where a thread had come loose. His one good eye bored into me like it was never going to stop searching for the truth. I closed my eyes and focused on the pounding in my cranium. I had always liked that word.
Cranium.
It sounded smart. But inside my head there was Billie's face—no squiggly line between her eyes, no dirty hair or pinched face. Just her golden self. Before everything happened. That's how she should always look. She should.

But I just couldn't tell. Not yet.

“She fell,” I said finally, waiting for the Earth to crack open because I was such a big, fat liar. But nothing happened.

Pirate Doctor said, “Hmmmm.”

“You can't separate us. We are staying together. Billie and me. Promise.”

He paused. “Doctors never make promises.”

“I don't care what happens to us, but we have to stay together. I take care of her. She needs me.”

“I'm not the one who gets to make that decision, but I'll do what I can. I promise.” He smiled, like maybe he meant it.

 

Survival Strategy #45:

BEWARE OF PRISONERS

After that, Doris showed me the shower. And she let me pick through a box of old clothes and shoes that had been donated to the hospital. Billie said she liked her new-old unicorn T-shirt, but I thought it looked too small. And the Junction County Jamboree T-shirt I wore had an itchy tag. But the only other T-shirt was a Big Bird shirt, so, no thank you.

Then someone knocked at the door.

It was a police officer, except this time he had on a uniform and a shiny badge. He said his name was Officer Buck, but that “all the kids” called him Officer B. What kids? Junction felt almost too small to have children.

Officer B wrote down our names, Dad's name, a description of the camper, and our address so he could “sort everything out.” Also he had Julie's phone numbers. And he, too, said he would call her. Then he stuck his pen in the spiral binding of his notebook and said, “I sure am going to work hard to help you girls.” Then he winked.

I wasn't sure what that wink was supposed to mean. Yes, he would work hard? Or no? Was he just trying to get Billie and me to like him?

Then Officer B said we had to go with him.

Pirate Doctor didn't want us to go because I had a concussion and I was dehydrated and maybe had something-something stress disorder. And Billie had had the first of her rabies shots and tests, but there were more tomorrow. And she was dehydrated, too.

But since, I guess, the police station was only around the corner, Pirate Doctor finally said okay.

The police car was blue. In San Diego they were black and white, like normal. And Billie got to sit in the front, even though she was only eight, because Officer B said the station was real close.

“You sure you don't want anything to drink?” Officer B asked, gesturing to the small red cooler under Billie's feet at the bottom of his squad car. “It's a hot one out here.”

“No, thank you.” I shifted closer to the inside of the car door.

Billie already had an orange Fanta sitting in between her legs. She took another gigantic drink, and an orange mustache formed above her lip. Then she examined the stitches on her finger. “That stitch right there hurts the most,” she said.

“Don't touch it,” I said. “It will get infected.”

“I'm already infected with rat germs. But the doctor gave me a shot for that.” She smiled. “I'm full of rat spit.”

“That's the truth,” I said. Then I stared out the window at scrubby bushes, desert, and an occasional little baby house. We turned a corner and pulled in front of what looked like the house we had just left, except this one had a handicapped sign in front.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“The station.”

A small sign out front said
JUNCTION COUNTY POLICE STATION
.

“There are a couple of people who want to interview you girls. We'll be finished lickety-split.” He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door.

Billie turned to me. “What do they want?”

“Just to ask us some questions. It's okay,” I said, eyeing the police station again. It didn't seem very threatening, but I couldn't let my guard down.

“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.