Dorinda's Secret by Deborah Gregory

Author:Deborah Gregory [Gregory, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7720-3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Seeing my crew on Monday morning in school is like being in the Twilight Zone. I can’t shake this whole thing about Tiffany, but I’m not talking about it with my crew—not yet. I know I’m kinda secretive, but that’s me.

“Do’ Re Mi, what you thinking without blinking?” Bubbles coos at me after first period.

“Nothing. I’ve just gotta roll into this biology class, and I haven’t quite gotten this DNA thing down yet,” I say, mustering up a pretty good half-true fib-eroni on the Q.T.—on the quick tip.

“Well, don’t feel bad. I haven’t done my Spanish homework either—Yo no sé, okay?”

That sends Chanel into the chuckles. “If you would ask me, I would help you, Bubbles.”

“I’ll bet—then you’d be asking me to borrow duckets all the time, too. No way, José,” Bubbles says, half-joking—but I know she means it.

Then she turns to me again. “So who did you meet yesterday, Do’ Re Mi?”

“Oh, that didn’t even come through,” I lie, proud once again of my Q.T. handiwork. “Mrs. Tattle—my caseworker—just wanted to hang with me and some other kids, because she’s going on vacation.”

“What were they like?” Chanel asks curiously.

“Who?”

“The other kids.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Chanel—I don’t want to talk about it,” I sigh, because I can’t tell one more fib-eroni. I guess I’ve filled my quota for one day, you know what I’m saying?

“Any word yet from the ‘Battle of the Divettes’ peeps?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Not yet,” Bubbles says, heaving a sigh. “But my mom knows she’d better let us know the Minute Rice second she hears—she swore she’d call me on my cell phone!”

“See ya at lunch,” I say, hugging both of them.

I feel relieved when I’m by myself again. I wish I never knew anything about foster care, or adoption, or any of this drama!

Sliding into my seat in biology class, I am on gene alert. I can feel my ears perk up when Mr. Roundworm mentions DNA.

“One of the most fascinating aspects of genetics is that an organism’s DNA is more than a program for telling its cell how to operate. It is also an archive of the individual’s evolutionary history.” Mr. Roundworm taps a piece of chalk on the blackboard, next to the diagram he has drawn of a strand of DNA. It looks like pieces of ribbons wrapped together. “If it were possible to align all the DNA strands of a baby in a single line, it would be long enough to make, on average, fifteen round-trips from the sun to Pluto, the farthest planet in the solar system.”

A trip around the world. That’s it! I’d completely forgotten what my first foster mother, Mrs. Parkay, told me about my mom when I was little. She said my mother was on a trip around the world. Well, my mother must’ve had fifteen round-trips from the sun to Pluto, too, because she has never come back!

When biology class is over, I can’t wait to run up to Mr. Roundworm; but somebody else has beaten me to it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.