Dorinda Gets a Groove by Deborah Gregory

Author:Deborah Gregory [Gregory, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497677241
Publisher: Premier Digital Publishing
Published: 2011-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter

7

Mrs. Bosco is so happy about the Kats and Kittys Klub donation to ACS—the Administration of Children’s Services—that she just dismisses my feelings about being called out as a foster child in front of my fellow Kats and Kittys. She makes me so mad, I don’t want to ask if I can talk to her about her background for my school time-line project.

“Dorinda, sometimes I think you have a hard head. Your life is gonna be so much easier when you learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth.” She is folding up the laundry—which it seems like she’s doing all the time, because there are so many people living in our house.

“I know—and I’m supposed to check it, to make sure it has hooves,” I say, trying to go along with the program. I still don’t know what Mrs. Bosco means by the last part, but I’m not gonna ask. I’ve had enough embarrassment for a whole year!

“I don’t think God loves you any less than other children, just because you lost your mother,” Mrs. Bosco continues. “And obviously, those Kats and Kittys children like you, too.”

Now I feel stupid for coming home and crying in front of Mrs. Bosco. I didn’t mean to, but sometimes I get so clogged up inside, everything spouts out all over the place—kinda like that girl in The Exorcist. I guess I don’t know how to express my feelings the way other people do.

Suddenly, what Mrs. Bosco just said sinks in. What did she mean by “I lost my mother”? Maybe she knows what happened to her, and she’s just not telling me. Maybe she’s dead!

“Tiffany called you twice today,” Mrs. Bosco says, shaking out Topwe’s red corduroy pants, then folding them really carefully. I hear Topwe coughing from his bedroom. He went to bed early because he’s still not feeling well—otherwise he would never miss his favorite television show, She’s All That and a Pussycat.

At least I’m not HIV-positive like Topwe. My problems are nothing next to his, or Gaye’s. So why am I being so self-conscious about everything?

“Maybe I should make him some warm milk and bring it to him in the bedroom?” I ask Mrs. Bosco, getting up to go to the kitchen.

“No, Dorinda. I gave him some cough syrup and his medicine before he went to bed. Let him sleep if he can.” Mrs. Bosco looks up at me, adjusting her bifocal glasses. I know her eyesight isn’t good, but sometimes I wonder if she does that because she wants to look closer inside me or something—like she has gammaray vision.

“Tiffany told me all about you learning the keyboard. You ain’t said nothing about it.” I can tell, by the tone in her voice, that she’s really asking, “Wazzup with that?”

“Oh—yeah. It was a lot of fun,” I respond, trying to sound kinda bubbly about it. “It’s not easy or anything. I’d have to practice a lot—but I would like to learn it some more.”

“Well, that sounds real good,” Mrs.

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