Girl Unmoored by Hummer Jennifer Gooch

Author:Hummer, Jennifer Gooch [Hummer, Jennifer Gooch]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781936558315
Publisher: NBN_Mobi_Kindle
Published: 2012-03-05T15:00:00+00:00

28

Nemo surdior est quam is qui non audiet.

No man is more deaf than he who will not hear.

“What did you say?” I asked Mike on the phone later, after I biked back from school so fast that my lungs still didn’t know I was home yet.

Turns out I had looked sad instead of perplexed. Mike said Ms. Frane was worried that I was upset about my dad not showing up and asked a lot of questions about how I was doing at home.

“I told her you were doing as well as can be expected, with everything that’s going on. A new mother and new sibling on the way.”

“You told her about the little whatever?” I asked, opening a jar of peanut butter, not sure if I should be mad about it. Although once Mrs. Perry knew something you might as well put it on a bumper sticker.

“I wasn’t supposed to? You should have told me that.”

Mike said that aside from Ms. Frane worrying about me, they had a great time. “In fact, she asked for our card.”

“You told her about Scent Appeal?” I stopped the peanut butter jar mid-rotation and pulled my finger out, a plop of it hanging there.

“Yeah,” Mike admitted. “We never even got to the Hollywood part. She mentioned the shop right away, said she thought she’d seen us before.”

“So you mean she’s seen Chad, as a boy?”

Mike didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, “She did seem awfully familiar.” And even though my throat was still clogged up with all the things I wanted to call Johnny Berman, we got laughing so hard that my head cramped. I thanked him again for going to the conference and he said, “No, Apron, thank you.” He hadn’t seen Chad having that much fun in a long time. After we hung up, I took Johnny Berman’s note and threw it in the trash. I might have given it to any other girl, but not Jenny Pratt.

On my way upstairs I heard a laugh coming from the back porch. My dad’s laugh. He was lying down on the couch with his head in M’s lap.

“There,” M said. “He moves.”

When my dad saw me, he sat up. “Hey, Apron. How was school?”

I would have told him the truth: that it was its usual horrible self with a sprinkle of Chad and Mike on top. But M was there, waiting for me to complain about something so she could complain about me.

“Fine.”

“You want to feel your little brother? Margie’s sure it’s a boy,” he looked over at her with a smile. Then he looked back at me. “Come on.”

The truth was I did want to. So even though it was inside M, I decided I could close my eyes and hold my breath and pretend it was Mrs. Christianson’s stomach that I was feeling. My dad moved over for me and I placed my hand on top of M’s mound. Nothing moved except M’s breath. I picked my hand up to leave, but M caught it and moved it over to her other side.

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