My So-Called Family Read Free

“Science Experiment,” as if there had been some bespectacled guy with crazy hair in a lab mixing colored liquids in glass canisters and shouting “Eureka!” when he made a baby. Even though we were supposed to eat lunch with kids from our own class, I walked my tray over to Abigail’s table so I wouldn’t have to talk about my donor.
    â€œI thought you said your dad lived in Europe,” Abigail said as I sat down. So it wasn’t just my class that knew; it was the entire fourth grade. I swallowed hard so I wouldn’t cry. I knew it shouldn’t matter so much. There were two other kids in my class who didn’t have fathers. Heidi’s own father had just up and left one day, and they never saw him again. And a boy in my class had a father who’d died. That had to be worse than someone who may or may not live in Europe.
    â€œI don’t know where my father is,” I admitted. “I don’t even really have one.” I stood up and left my lunch tray where it was. Suddenly I didn’t feel well. My head hurt and I was dizzy. Abigail called after me, but I kept going straight to the nurse’s office. I told her I felt like throwing up. They always let you go home if you are going to throw up. I lay down on the little cot in the nurse’s room and listened to her call Mom. I imagined Mom sitting at her computer, writing about how to have a baby without involving a man. I closed my eyes and waited for her to come and pick me up.
    The name Science Experiment stuck with me through the rest of the school year, but things died down by the time fifth grade started. Still, having a donor was the thing about me that everyone knew. Just like we all knew that Heidi’s mom had gone out on a secret date with the principal. Nobody made fun of me anymore, but I always wished there were a way to go back and make sure no one knew the truth about me.
    At first when Mom and Simon announced we were moving, I was really upset about having to leave. The pink house was the only place I’d ever lived. All the people I knew lived nearby. I thought about Abigail and Heidi, and everyone else I’d known for as long as I could remember. I knew the names of almost all the kids in my entire school—not just the kids in my grade. I knew all of the teachers, too. When we moved, I would have to start all over. I went into my room and lay down on my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine walking into school and not knowing anybody. Everyone would be looking at me because I was the new girl, but they wouldn’t know a thing about me. They wouldn’t know there was anything about me that was different or strange. Lying there on my bed, I realized that moving would be a chance to be normal.
    The woman from the moving company gave me boxes and bubble wrap, just like she gave to Mom. I took the posters down from the walls and packed my books up. I used the bubble wrap to wrap up the snow globes Simon brought back for me every time he returned from a business trip. It was like packing up memories. I taped up the last box and pressed it closed. Then I sat back on my bed. The room looked different, even with all my furniture still in it. You could almost tell the furniture was empty on the inside, like all the personality of the room was gone. There was a pit in my stomach, which wasn’t what I thought closure would feel like. It was strange how my room would be someone else’s room soon, and I’d be moving into someone else’s old room.
    It would be an adventure, like Mom and Simon said, and it would be a fresh start. Nobody would have to know about my donor. I could just blend in like a normal person, in a normal family of four. I stood up from my bed and went to tell Mom that I was done packing, so she could tell the movers to come in and put my boxes and furniture into the truck.

chapter two
    A t night in the new house, when everything else is quiet, you can