Rhymes With Witches Read Free

boo-hoo-hoo. Because Dad hadn’t abandoned us. That was giving him too much power. He’d just gone on a very long trip.
    â€œJane, your father needs some space to figure out who he is,” Mom had said when Dad left three years ago. “He needs to do a lot of thinking. Nobody can do the work for him.”
    â€œBut … what about us?” I’d asked.
    â€œWe’ll be fine,” Mom said. As in, case closed.
    But another time I’d overheard her talking to her friend Kitty, who’d come over bearing beer and brownies. By that point half a year had gone by, and while Dad sent us checks to cover the bills, he still hadn’t come home.
    â€œCarol, you need help,” Kitty had said. “Your gutters are in desperate need of cleaning, and the entire house could stand to be painted. Inside and out. Do you want me to send Dan over to take care of it?”
    â€œNo, thanks,” Mom said. “I can handle it.”
    â€œObviously you can’t,” Kitty said. “And you shouldn’t have to. Honestly, Carol, this is getting ridiculous.”
    â€œYou think I don’t know that?” Mom replied. She was using her “marching bravely onward” voice, meant to keep pity at bay. “Yes, the house is falling apart. And yes, Carl should be here to take care of it—among other things, god knows. But I have to remind myself that things could be worse. At least he’s not dead.”
    â€œDead would be worse?”
    Big silence. I could imagine the look Mom gave Kitty, because I’d received it often enough myself. But Kitty pressed on.
    â€œAlready you’re without a husband, and poor Jane is without a father,” she said. “Think what kind of damage that does to a kid.”
    From my spot on the stairs, I’d felt a welling of shame. Damaged goods, was that how Kitty saw me?
    â€œWell, Kitty, life is messy,” Mom said brusquely. “We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, do we?”
    â€œNo, but we do get to choose how to respond.”
    I’d stood up, because I’d heard enough. Kitty was right: We did get to choose how to respond. And my response was to say screw it. Dad made his decisions, and I’d make mine, and nobody got to say I was damaged goods but me.
    I still believed that, although believing it in my mind and believing it in my heart were sometimes two very different things. Because by staying away for so long, Dad didn’t exactly make me feel as if I was worth sticking around for.
    I turned the teddy bear upside down. It had soft felt pads on the bottoms of its paws, a detail I would have loved if I were still eleven. I opened my dresser drawer and dropped in the bear. I closed the drawer.

    In the middle of the night, my eyes flew open. A dream, or a corner of one, had jerked me from sleep. Something about cheerleading. Something about a boy. A boy in a raincoat.
    Crap. It was Henry Huggins. Henry Huggins, from the Ramona books. He was Beezus’s friend, the one with the paper route and the dog named Ribsy. And when Ramona was in kindergarten, he was the traffic boy that helped her cross the street. One stormy day she trudged into a muddy construction site and got stuck, and Henry lifted her straight out of her boots to safety.

    The next day, Bitsy approached me at my locker. She wore a plaid micro-mini and a white Oxford with the sleeves rolled up. Her white knee socks were scrunched around her ankles, and on her feet she wore clunky Doc Martens. Her hair was tied back in doggy-ears.
    â€œHello, luv,” she said.
    My head jerked up, and I dropped my math spiral.
    â€œDon’t get your knickers in a twist,” she said. “Can’t a girl say hello?”
    I bent to retrieve my notebook, cheeks burning. Chatting with Mary Bryan was one thing—and far weird enough to last forseveral days. But Bitsy? Bitsy was a junior, a full two years older than me. And she was