Dorinda's Secret Read Free Page A

my mother and father are. They obviously don’t love me, or I wouldn’t be here.
    I can feel myself starting to cry, but I get mad instead. I’m tired of crying about stupid people who don’t care about me. All of a sudden, I start crying anyway—but I think it’s because I’m crying for Paulo. They shouldn’t put him in a foster home—he must feel so scared right now. Why don’t they just let him go back home to his aunt?
    She doesn’t want him anymore—that’s probably why. That thought makes me angry, and I peek out from behind the pillow to see if Monie sees me crying.
    She’s just gotten home from her boyfriend Hector’s house. Now she’s sitting at the dresser, writing something—probably a stupid love letter to Hector, because I know she
never
does her homework. She’s already been left back once, and she hates me because I got skipped twice. (I’m only twelve, but my crew doesn’t know I’m so young—they think I’m fourteen like them, and I’m too afraid to tell them the truth. They’d probably never want to speak with me again, let alone chill with me!)
    I cover my face with the pillow again, because the light from the lamp is bothering me. Then, all of a sudden, I find myself blurting out, “Do you ever think about your mother?”
    Monie looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “No,” she says, getting an attitude, “and I don’t know why you’re lying there thinking about something so
stupid
.”
    Chantelle doesn’t say anything; she just keeps popping her gum. What was I thinking about, talking to Monie? Her brain is on permanent vacation, you know? She doesn’t understand anything. Neither does Chantelle. And my other foster sisters are too young. I wish I had a
real
sister like the twins. They have each other.
    Well, actually, I do have a real sister. We were together in my first foster home. But she got to stay there, and I didn’t, and that’s the last I ever saw or heard from her.
    Thank goodness for the Cheetah Girls. Having my crew—especially Chanel—is as close to having sisters as I’ll ever get. Even so, it’s not the same as having a real one… .
    I’m in an apartment, and this pretty brown lady is showing me all her beautiful clothes. “You can come live with me and pick out all the clothes you want to wear,” she says.
    It’s a really big apartment, and there are lots and lots of beautiful clothes everywhere. I start trying on some of the clothes, but they’re all too big for me.
    â€œDon’t worry, when you grow up, you can wear these clothes, because I’ll give them all to you,” the pretty lady says. I ask her why. She tells me, “I’m your mother, that’s why”
    I start crying, and I hug her. She is so tall, and her skin is smooth chocolate. When she smiles, she looks like a movie star with really white teeth.
    I don’t even feel mad at her anymore… .
    The noise from a car alarm wakes me up from my dream. I look at the clock and see that it’s seven in the morning—time for me to get up and go to my Saturday morning vocal and dance lessons at Drinka Champagne Conservatory.
    I walk to the bathroom, but somebody is in it. “Hurry up!” I yell, tapping my knuckles on the door.
    I wonder who the lady in the dream was. She didn’t look like anybody I know.
    Maybe it
was
my mother. Maybe I’m psychic or something, like Chanel, and her father’s girlfriend, Princess Pamela, who has a fortune-telling parlor.
    Leaning against the bathroom door in a trance, I daydream about what my mother looks like. I guess I
would
like to know. She’s probably pretty, and brown-skinned—and too busy to take care of me.
    Suddenly I realize that I forgot to do my biology homework! I never space out like that. What was I supposed to be reading? That’s