Rules for Flying by Jacquelyn Johnson

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

nine

Eira: Sam, explain. Why aren’t you with your mother?

Me: She got on plane 2 Hawaii. I missed plane.

Eira: Go to the airline’s desk! Tell them what happened. They’ll put you on the next plane to join your mother.

Me: Can’t.

Eira: I don’t understand.

Me: Can’t go 2 Hawaii. Just. Can’t.

Eira: So you’re at the airport now?

Me: No. At a foster home. Afraid. Need your help. Please come and get me, Eira. Please.

Eira: OK. OK. Tell me exactly where you are.

Me: In New York City somewhere.

Eira: Ask the people there the name of the street. The address. What part of city – like the Bronx or Brooklyn or Manhattan or whatever. Dom and I are on way to airport now. We will be there as soon as…

I hear the woman coming down the hall and shove my phone in the top of my backpack.

“What the hell?” the woman says. “What do you think you’re doing. Gimme that!” She grabs my laptop.

“Hey,” I say, trying to grab it back. “I need that. It’s mine!”

“I don’t care what the crap you need, kid. You don’t get any kind of privileges here. I’m keeping this!” She snaps my laptop shut and tucks it under her arm. “And get in the TV room with the others. No loitering out here on your own and doing God Knows What damage to my living room!”

I look around, wondering what in this room could possibly be more damaged than it already is.

“And wipe that damned smirk off your face before I smack you!” she says, turning around and leaving the room. I follow her because I have to know what she’s going to do with my laptop.

She goes down the hall and turns right at the end, into what must be the kitchen. There are two ancient refrigerators, a stove, a table with three broken chairs and not much else. There’s a big pot of something cooking.

She clambers up on a step stool and reaches to put my laptop on top of the upper cabinets, pushing it back so that, from down here, you wouldn’t know it’s there. “And that’s where it stays,” she says. “Now go out there with the others until I call you for grub!”

There’s nothing I can do except what she says. For now. I follow the noise to what looks like it was meant to be a bedroom. Or maybe a dining room. There’s an old couch in there with places where the stuffing is coming out and a lot of dark stains. It’s hard to tell what colour it was, to begin with. Some kind of flower pattern, maybe.

There’s also another old TV, with a daytime TV show on it, one of those ones where everybody is dressed up like they’re going to a party, but all they do is hang around at home and argue with each other. And drink a lot of alcohol. And get divorced and married. They do that a lot. Or have secret babies. Or try to murder each other.

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