I can think of a lot of people who might know but I don’t say any of their names. Then my Forever Mom shuts the stove off and picks up the pan she was using and scoops some scrambled eggs onto a plate. I remember how Crystal with a C let me eat her eggs. But my Forever Mom doesn’t put the plate down on the table for me. Instead she takes a fork out of the drawer and takes a bite. She chews and swallows. “How do you feel now that you’ve written the letter?” she says.
“I feel like I should eat something,” I say.
She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “I mean, how do you feel about what you wrote? Are you happy with it? Is there anything else you might want to add before we send the letter to Rick?”
“I might want to add some hisses,” I say even though hissing is not the same as saying something. “Like I do at school.” It’s what the Maine coons used to do when they met someone new. It makes me feel strong. I do a lot of things that the Maine coons do.
“Wait—you hiss at people at school?”
“Yes,” I say.
“When do you hiss at people?”
“At lunch and when people laugh at me or say mean things. Sometimes I growl too but hissing is easier.”
“Why haven’t you told us this before? How often do you hiss at people?”
And that is two questions together and my Forever Mom is talking fast and her voice is getting louder. I start picking at my fingers.
“Ginny, hissing at people is not a good thing,” she says. “You aren’t allowed to do it anymore, ever. It’s against the rules.”
I look away and say, “Well dang!”
“What do you mean, ‘Well dang!’?”
I put my hands up in the air like Crystal with a C did and let them fall back down again. “I like hissing at people! It makes them laugh! Then they hiss back and a teacher hears them and makes them leave me alone!”
“Ginny, they laugh because they’re making fun of you. It’s weird to hiss at people. Only cats do that.”
“No—I do that too!” I say and it’s true, 100 percent. I learned how to do it a long time ago.
“I mean only cats are supposed to do that. Forever Girls aren’t supposed to hiss. Ever. You can’t act like a wild animal.”
“Well dang!” I say again. I wipe my eyes. “I’m going to my room! No more Chinese Checkers! Just stay upstairs!”
39
EXACTLY 8:05 IN THE MORNING,
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH
In homeroom my teacher Mrs. Henkel asks me how my day is so I say, “My Birth Dad wrote me another letter last night so I wrote one back to him.”
The whole class looks at me and is completely silent. I have never heard them be this quiet before. Then Mrs. Henkel says, “Ginny, don’t you mean your Forever Dad?”
And I say, “No, I mean Rick. He’s the man who Gloria left at the hospital. He drives truck.”
“You mean he drives a truck.”
I shake my head. “No, Sarah, I don’t. Don’t you think I know what he said? He’s my Birth Dad, not yours.”
“Don’t call Mrs. Henkel by her first name,” Ms. Carol whispers. She blinks her too-big eyes.
The kids in the class are still completely quiet. I like them better that way.
“Have you been talking with your father?” she asks.
“Yes, I have,” I say.
“Does Mrs. Lomos know about this?”
“Yes,” I say again and I see Ms. Carol nodding. To Mrs. Henkel.
At exactly 10:08 during social studies I go to the bathroom. Ms. Carol comes too. When I come back to class Michelle Whipple says, “Ginny, do you drive truck?”
And I say, “No, I do not drive truck. My Birth Dad drives truck. I can’t drive truck because I’m still a kid.”
Michelle Whipple laughs so I hiss at her even though I’m not supposed to. Then she says, “What, are you going to scratch me or something?”
“No, I am not going to scratch you. What do you think I am, a cat?”
“You sure sound like one!” says Michelle Whipple. Then she laughs again and looks at me. I see her eyes looking at me while she smiles. I want to blast her with my eyes like Cyclops or stick her with claws like Wolverine or make fire go on her but I don’t have superpowers or matches so instead I attack.
I don’t want Michelle Whipple to ever see me again so I am going to take her eyes out. I grab her hair and pull it hard and try to hold her still because if she is moving I can’t get my fingers close enough to her face. I knock a chair down and push a desk out of the way. I grunt and show my teeth and screech just like Bubbles. Michelle Whipple whips her head back and forth and screams and tries to hit my hands away with hers but I am attacking like a chimp and in a few seconds I will have one of her eyes in my hand.
Ms. Carol grabs me before I can get it out. She pulls me away from Michelle Whipple and holds me down so that I can’t move. I am still very angry but I am not angry at Ms. Carol so I stop. But Michelle Whipple is screaming, “You crazy bitch! Crazy bitch!” over and over and so I yell back at her, “You just stop that, Michelle Whipple! You are hurting my ears! This is tedious!”
40
EXACTLY 3:31,
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5TH
I was suspended from school so I stayed home today. Now I am talking with Patrice.
“Your Forever Parents tell me you got into a fight at school. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Michelle Whipple made me angry,” I say.
“Oh?”
“She said I sound like a cat.”
“Were you sounding like a cat?” says Patrice. “I remember you used to make cat noises a few years ago when you were with Carla and Mike.”
Carla and Mike were my first two Forever Parents. I ran away from them when I was nine years old. I told them I was going outside to play and on my way out the door I took Carla’s purse because it had money in it plus a debit card. I walked around town looking for a map that would help me get back to Gloria’s apartment but I got confused by all the cars plus I didn’t know which town she lived in. The police found me and took me to the hospital and then they brought me back to Carla and Mike. Now I know that Gloria lives in Harrington Falls but I can’t go there because the police will find me. Like Crystal with a C said. So I need to ask Rick to be part of my secret plan instead.
“Ginny?”
“What?”
“Did you say you were making cat noises?”
I nod my head yes.
“It sounds like we’re falling into some of our old patterns. We’ll have to talk more about that later. For now, tell me what’s going on with Baby Wendy. Are you seeing her more often?”
I shake my head no. “I want to see it but it’s always upstairs with my Forever Mom.”
“Do you miss your Forever Mom?”
I nod my head yes.
“She’s worried, Ginny. Your mom is worried that you’re going to hurt the baby.”
I pick at my fingers. I remember the plastic electronic baby. The things I did to it. With my mouth I say, “I am not going to hurt the baby.”
“I know that. And what you did in the first place, giving out your address to Gloria, getting yourself kidnapped. The reporters gave your parents a really hard time when you were away. They’d just brought a baby home and were learning how to be new parents, but the police and the news vans—”