The Princess of Las Pulgas
her short gray fur. She
nuzzles her Siamese understanding and sympathy under my
chin.
    With her tucked close to me
I open my bedroom window, inviting the sound of the Pacific inside.
When I set her onto the window sill she wraps her tail tightly
around her haunches and stares across our beachfront. Like me,
she's never lived anywhere but here. The steady rhythm of waves has
always rocked me to sleep, and I’ve never thought how important
that sound was until this moment. I get one of those heart shock
moments. What if there’s no ocean where we
end up living?
    I lift Quicken and close
the window, leaning my forehead against the pane, wondering where
we’ll wind up and what the next bad event will be that we have to
face.
    The shelf over my desk
holds a paperweight I won in the eighth grade poetry contest. Two
Channing Yearbooks lie stacked next to it and on top of those sits
my broken Jack-in-the-Box. When I crank the handle of the metal
toy, it swings around freely, not catching the tiny gears. The
puppet’s trapped inside.
    Cradling Jack’s small
prison, I lie curled around it on my bed. I hate you for dying, Dad. I can’t bury my face any deeper in
the pillow. I hate everybody in this stupid world.
     
    “Carlie love, this is tough, but you’ll be
fine. I know it.”
    No! This will not be just fine.

Chapter 7
     
    The house sells less than
three weeks after it goes on the market. Prime location, top- notch
school district. The buyers need to move in ASAP and are willing to
pay moving expenses if Mom agrees to be out before the end of
February. The day they came I kept my fingers in my ears and tried
to block that realtor’s voice. She stiletto-heeled her way through
the rooms with a clipboard in hand, calling Mom Sarah as if they’ve
known each other a long time.
    She sweeps in Sunday
morning after the sale and before even my early bird Mom dresses or
any of us eats breakfast. The woman waves the papers that, once
signed, will turn our house over to a couple from Arizona with a
teenage daughter.
    I can’t watch while Mom
signs away our family home. I grab Quicken and take the stairs two
at a time. In my room I put her on her cushion and throw myself
face-down across my bed. I can’t cry, but my heart feels bloated
and heavy. It’s holding all the tears my eyes can no longer
shed.
    Who’s getting my room? That snotty redheaded
sophomore with the tight jeans and too much mascara, that’s
who.
    “Missy will be a sophomore
at Channing. I’m so happy that she’ll already have someone she
knows there.” That’s what the girl’s mom said the day they came to
see the house.
    I wanted to scream, “Get
out” as Prissy Missy swaggered her way through the rooms, fingering
my bedspread, peering into my closet.
    Rolling over I cover my
eyes with one arm.
    So she arrives in Channing and, what, takes
my place? My house that’s right on the beach? The house everyone
wants to come to for the end-of-school-year party?
    Why did you have to leave us in this mess,
Dad?
    I’d hurl myself out the
window, but I’m smart enough to know I’ll probably only break a
leg. Instead, I hurl a pillow at the door. Quicken does a cat
stretch, then curls up again. I dive under the covers.
     
    The next day at school I
write a short essay in French class, but after I hand it in I can’t
remember what it's about. I stumble through chemistry and one of
Mr. Mancy’s pop quizzes in English. Listening to my teachers’
voices, studying faces of friends, capturing the sounds and images
of the school, takes on a kind of frenzy. Each desk I sit at
becomes important. Each conversation about homework or Mancy’s
quizzes becomes precious, something to be tucked into a scrapbook.
On the English bulletin board the deadline for the Scribe’s yearly
nonfiction contest is posted as April 20th—a lifetime away and a
contest that might happen without me.
    A phantom hand clenches my
stomach at the thought that I might not be at Channing much

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