The Silver Glove

The Silver Glove Read Free Page B

Book: The Silver Glove Read Free
Author: Suzy McKee Charnas
Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult
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it.
    Everybody wanted me to read the rest on Monday, and Mr. Petterick said he’d schedule it in. Lennie made me promise him personally that I would do it.
    It was all very exciting and gratifying, and it was the last real fun I was to have for what felt like forever.
    Time for my appointment with the shrink.
    He sat in the old, oak swivel chair with scars all over the wood. His desk, more scarred oak, was piled with file folders in different colors. He had a couple of magazines open in front of him, as if he’d been reading two articles simultaneously.
    He was wearing a very sleek gray suit. I couldn’t help noticing his socks, which were gray with an electric blue stripe down them, and his black, shiny shoes. This was no ordinary, shabby, poverty-stricken school staffer. I was impressed.
    I sat down, put my bookbag on the floor, and braced myself for the usual exploratory questions. He smiled at me and asked me how I was spending the money that I had been stealing from my mother.
    My jaw dropped, leaving me literally speechless for about a minute. That’s a longer time than you’d think.
    The thing was, he was right. Lately, just now and then, I would sneak a quarter or two, or maybe even a whole dollar, from my mom’s purse before she got up in the morning. I would tell myself that a , it was payment for extra chores and b , as soon as I could I would pay it back anyway. Mostly I did my best to forget it each time it happened, which was not easy. I mean, my mom and I get along a lot better than most kids and their mothers, so why was I taking this stupid risk of spoiling it all?
    Mind you, in third grade I went through nearly a year of telling the most outrageous lies, and then it stopped; and I never figured that one out, either. I guess it was just a phase, and maybe that’s what this was, too.
    Anyway, filching quarters was not what I had expected to discuss with this guy Brightner. For one thing, how the dickens did he even know about it?
    Into the ringing silence in his office I said squeakily, “What money?”
    â€œThe money you take out of her wallet in the mornings before she wakes up.”
    â€œShe told you that?” I said, playing outraged innocence over the pure panic I actually felt.
    I was sure Mom hadn’t said anything to this guy about my pilfering, because she didn’t know about it herself. When my mother knows something about me that’s bad and is supposed to be a secret, like that I’ve been to an all-night movie instead of sleeping over at Barb’s or Megan’s where I’m supposed to be, she gets this sad, tired look as if she’s discovered I’ve been selling military secrets to Russia. She sits me down and starts to discuss my little deception very calmly and openly, and then we scream at each other for a while about different interpretations of the words “trust” and “privacy.” In the end we work out some kind of return to normal.
    There had been no such scene about missing money, though. Besides, Dr. Brightner was brand-new. There hadn’t been time for Mom to talk to him.
    But if she hadn’t told him about the money, how did he know? My mind raced.
    Dr. Brightner read it.
    â€œNo,” he said. “She didn’t tell me.” He let me think about that for a minute. I was feeling pretty sweaty by then.
    â€œHave some candy,” he offered, leaning across the desk to shove a little plate of things that looked like tiny pink-, yellow-, and white-coated seeds at me. They smelled faintly like licorice. “You are kind of skinny for a girl your age. You’re not one of these self-starvers, are you?”
    I shook my head wordlessly.
    â€œI’m glad to hear that.” He sat back again comfortably and quirked his eyebrows up. “Are you saving up the stolen money to run away, by any chance?”
    â€œRunaways screw up their lives,” I said with as much haughtiness as I

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