Feather's Girl by Jacquelyn Johnson

Author:Jacquelyn Johnson [Johnson, Jacquelyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crimson Hill Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ten

I feel like I’m getting so good at knowing all the streets of our town and the towns near us, I could be a tour guide. If I was old enough to drive a car, I’d already know where everything is around here.

Then, one day when I’m not even searching for Feather is the day that I find him.

Mom says we have to go over to Mr. Maclean’s house that afternoon, right after school. She says he and Julia just got back from looking at new schools for her, because she needs a fresh start.

Also, Julia has something particular to say to me. If it’s her doing a fake apology, I don’t even want to hear it. I don’t believe she’d really feel sorry for all the times she called me names, or bumped up against me really hard, or did threats, or hit me, or other ugly stuff to hurt me.

Stuff that still hurts, even now that the bruises are mostly gone. Because it hurts me in my heart. And in my head.

But mom says everyone makes mistakes sometimes. We all do, she says, because we’re human. And when we make mistakes, we need to apologize. And make amends. That means try to undo the harm. As if that’s even possible, with someone like Julia. There isn’t any eraser for cruelty and violence, is there?

She can’t undo all the horrible things she’s done. Even if she really wants to.

I just can’t imagine anything Julia will do. Or could do. To make it better.

To act better.

If Mr. Maclean makes Julia apologize, Mom is going to make me say, “Hey, that’s OK, it was nothing.” Which is a big fat lie. It was not nothing.

I try to tell mom this. She says I’m being obstinate and stubborn and as mean-spirited towards Julia as she was to me. And to get over myself and try to think of poor Julia, whose mother died when she was a young girl. And how lucky I am not to ever have gone through such a horrible thing.

I say, “Sure. But she didn’t lose her father, did she?”

Mom doesn’t say anything to that. She just turns up the radio and drives.

So, we go over to Mr. Maclean’s and Julia’s house. I don’t even want to get out of the car, but Mom makes me come into their house. It’s neat enough, but everything is beige. And it smells funny, like some kind of air-freshener.

Julia is slouched on a chair in the living room. She’s scowling. “Julia went to the counselors,” Mr. Maclean explains when we’re all sitting down. “She sees what she did was hurtful and wrong.”

Julia just sits there, not looking at anyone. I can tell she doesn’t even care one bit.

“So now, she wants to apologize to you, Morley,” Mr. Maclean says. “And also ask what she can do to make amends. That means, to make it up to you?”

Nothing, I think. I don’t want her apology. I don’t want to shake her hand, or just hug and say let’s be friends.

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