Friends From the Edge by Heather Balog

Author:Heather Balog [Balog, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781983907425
Published: 2018-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

That Summer

1989

“Cassie!” The pebbles clattered against her bedroom window. Even though she knew he couldn’t see her from the outside, Cassie turned over in her bed to face the wall. There was no way in hell that she was talking to him. No way after what he did.

“Cassie! Come on! I wanna talk to you!” he continued to plead, his voice drifting in through the crack of the open window. Thank goodness neither of her parents were home, otherwise they would be expecting her to explain why Jack was standing in the backyard, carrying on and throwing things at the window.

She leaned over the side of the bunk bed to peer at Candace in the bunk beneath her. Luckily, she was still asleep. Cassie didn’t need her tattling to her mother about how Jack had been outside in the backyard when Cassie’s parents weren’t home. Even if Cassie didn’t acknowledge him, she would never hear the end of it from her parents. As much as she wanted to ignore him, she needed to shut him up.

Cassie quickly climbed down the bunk bed ladder and padded over to the window. There wasn’t much that Cassie hated more than the fact she shared a bedroom with her baby sister. She hardly ever invited people over to the house for fear that they would mock her for this. Not that she really had a ton of friends to invite over to the house anyway.

Pushing aside the Smurf curtain (Candace’s choice, not hers—definitely couldn’t let word of that get out at school), she could see him clearly. While it was almost dark, the moon was quite bright, illuminating the entire yard. Even the parts she didn’t want to see were visible under the moonlight. Like the woodshed where she spent countless hours of her life chopping wood because her mother didn’t want her brother to hurt himself doing it. She didn’t make her brother or younger sister do much, except be kids, something Cassie didn’t get to do very often. Cassie needed to pick up the slack at home to make up for the fact that Christopher and Candace couldn’t be responsible for anything, despite the fact that they were all only a few years apart in age. God forbid her older brother Christopher sullied his baseball-playing hands emptying garbage cans, or Candace had to use her legs to push the vacuum through the living room and pull one of her gymnast’s calf muscles.

Both Cassie’s brother and sister were destined for greatness in her mother’s eyes, excusing them from any responsibility a normal kid would have. As far as Cassie’s mother was concerned, they were not normal—they were gifted. And Cassie was just Cassie, easily dismissed and used and abused for their convenience. Need a babysitter? Oh, Cassie’s available. Need someone to cook dinner? Oh, Cassie can do it. The slop sink in the basement is clogged? Oh, Cassie!

Cassie pushed the window open all the way just as Jack was getting ready to toss another rock.

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