My Forever Parents are outside right now walking around the yard. My Forever Mom walks all the time now because she wants the baby inside her to descend. That means it is almost ready to come out.
I am in my room holding my quilt and crying. Because I am fourteen years old. Right this minute. Right now. And I’m not supposed to be. I’m supposed to be nine years old and keeping my Baby Doll safe. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be nine years old.
My Forever Dad knocks on my door and opens it.
“Ginny, why don’t you come outside with us? I thought you’d like to play catch.”
“I don’t want to,” I say.
“All right,” he says. “Then how about basketball? We could shoot some hoops.”
“I want to stay in my room,” I say.
“Ginny, it’s your birthday. I know a lot has been going on and you’re confused, but this should be a happy time. We’re going to have presents and cake after supper.”
He keeps trying to get me to come outside but I won’t go. I need to be alone inside my brain right now. Even though it’s my birthday. Even though there will be presents and cake after supper. At 10:36 he finally leaves.
Manicoon.com. Manicoon.com. I say the website over and over with my mouth. Quiet in a whisper. It is the only thing that matters. I tried to get on it yesterday but I couldn’t get away from Mrs. Wake. I have to get on the computer one more time to ask Gloria where my Baby Doll went and to tell her to wait. And she has to wait for the Harvest Concert like I told her. She can’t be impulsive and try to come sooner. She has to, has to, has to wait or she’ll get caught and ruin everything.
16
EXACTLY 9:10 IN THE MORNING,
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH
We are in language arts writing poems about picking apples. Tomorrow we are going to the apple cider farm and the apple poems are helping us get ready. To help us write the poems we read one by Robert Frost. It has apple trees and a ladder in it. If I had a ladder right now I would climb out of this classroom. I have to escape from it so that I can go to the library and get on a computer.
Which means I have to find something new to glue Mrs. Wake to.
When you write a poem you have to talk about things that mean something else. The ladder in Robert Frost’s poem means heaven, Mrs. Carter said. So in my poem I put a ladder that means I am climbing out of my bedroom window to go with Gloria. We have to draw a picture to go with our poem so I draw the Green Car and the Blue House and me on the ladder climbing out of my room. Next I will draw a picture of my Baby Doll in the Green Car but Mrs. Carter is standing next to my desk looking down at what I’m drawing. She says it isn’t appropriate.
“No, I’m afraid it isn’t,” says Mrs. Wake when she sees the picture. “And I think we should probably show this to Mrs. Lomos.”
So Mrs. Wake brings me down to Mrs. Lomos’s office. We pass the water fountain and the bathroom and the janitor’s closet. I think about pushing her in there and locking the door. I run ahead and jiggle the door handle. It is locked.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Wake asks.
“Jiggling the door handle,” I say.
I think about locking her somewhere else but it would have to be somewhere really, really quiet. Otherwise someone might hear her banging to get out.
Mrs. Lomos says Mrs. Carter was right. It wasn’t appropriate to draw pictures of Gloria and the Green Car. Or me escaping. When I ask why not she says because Gloria isn’t safe and the picture means I want to go with her.
Which makes sense. So it isn’t appropriate for me to draw what I really want because people might find out about it. I am surprised that Mrs. Lomos told me that but I’m glad because now I can do a better job at keeping it secret.
“We’re going to keep you safe in spite of yourself, young lady,” Mrs. Wake says when we are in the hallway going back to class. I don’t know what that means so I ask her.
“It means we know what you’ve been up to,” she answers. “We’ve finally got your number.”
“I’m fourteen years old,” I say.
“That’s right,” says Mrs. Wake. “Your birthday was two days ago, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say.
17
EXACTLY 3:05 IN THE AFTERNOON,
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST
I am at the kitchen table eating nine grapes for my afternoon snack.
“Ginny, we have to talk about the computers at school,” my Forever Mom says. “We know about Gloria’s Facebook page and her blog. She’s been pretty quick to delete the comments you left for her, but we know the two of you have been in touch.”
I put the first grape in my mouth and wait for her to keep going.
“The police can’t make her shut the pages down, but we’ve been watching to see what she posts. The police have, too. So you can’t talk with her that way anymore.”
I don’t know if she read any of my Comments. I don’t know if Gloria had a chance to read it and delete the last one. I don’t know if my Forever Mom knows that I told Gloria to come to the Harvest Concert.
“Ginny?”
“What?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, how do you feel about it?”
I think hard and make sure my mouth is shut. I want to be good and tell her but I can’t.
“How did you feel about the apple cider farm?” she says. “And how about the fact that you’re in a safe place and have plenty to eat? How do you feel about knowing that no one is going to hit you? And what about becoming a big sister and staying at the same school for two years in a row? Or staying at the same house?”
She isn’t yelling but her voice is getting louder. Plus she asked five questions all at once. I don’t say anything. I eat two more grapes and wait.
And then she yells.
“Why the hell are you doing this, Ginny? Why the hell are you telling Gloria to keep coming back? She beat the hell out of you! You had a fractured arm and were starving! You almost died! I’m supposed to have a baby in two weeks—we can’t have this kind of insanity in the house with a newborn baby! Ginny, don’t you see? This all has to end! We can’t—”
She stops. I squeeze my eyes shut just in case. Then I hear her walk out of the kitchen. I hear the bathroom door close. She is crying.
Which means I’m not going to get hit.
I take a deep breath and finish my grapes. The last six.
18
EXACTLY 4:08 IN THE AFTERNOON,
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND
“It works like this,” says Patrice. “When a Forever Girl gets adopted, it’s forever, unless she makes her new Forever Home a dangerous place. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Within the past two weeks you beat up a plastic electronic baby and arranged to have Gloria try to kidnap you twice. You tried to throw a chair through a window, and you bit one of your teachers. Now, does that sound like a good environment for a baby sister?”
“No,” I say.
“Do you know what could happen to you if you don’t stop it?”
“If I don’t stop what?” I say.
“If you don’t stop trying to contact Gloria.”