Forget-Me-Not Blue, page 33
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Copyright © 2023 by Sharelle Byars Moranville
All Rights Reserved
HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Printed and bound in June 2023 at Maple Press, York, PA, USA.
First Edition
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-0-8234-5359-7 (hardcover)
To Con and Sofie
chapter 1
“Sof!”
She tried to wake up, but the blanket of sleep was so comfy.
“Sof, open the door.”
Why didn’t her brother open it himself?
Then she remembered.
Connie had put a deadbolt on the inside of her door.
A couple of nights ago, one of her mom’s friends had stumbled into the kitchen where Con and Sofie were making sandwiches. He’d caught up a handful of Sofie’s hair and stuck his face in it, making weird noises. She’d tried to twist away, but he didn’t turn loose.
Con had planted his open hand in the guy’s face and shoved him. “You touch my sister again, you’ll be sorry!”
The man sneered as he staggered into the backyard where their mom and her friends were partying. Sofie glared at him.
“You okay?” Con asked, smoothing Sofie’s hair.
She nodded, but her heart was racing.
And it was racing now. What if Con hadn’t been there?
But now, she could lock herself in her room anytime their mom was partying or that guy came around.
She unlocked the door.
“Swim lessons,” Con said.
“I know.”
“You need to pee before I shower?”
She nodded.
She heard Con throwing beer cans into the recycle bin. All the clanging and banging might wake her mom—which was probably the idea. Connie was angry about the party. But it hadn’t been all that bad. People had mainly stayed outside because the weather was nice.
Still, Sofie hadn’t been able to sleep because of the pounding music and people laughing and arguing. Sofie knew the regulars, like Lili with the big beautiful eyes. Lili had been around ever since Sofie could remember. Last night, she’d worn so many eyelashes she looked like a llama.
“Bet she shoplifted them on the way here,” Con had muttered to Sofie.
But Lili had a big heart, like their mom. Lili stole stuff and gave it to people she liked. Sometimes it was a pretty T-shirt or fancy underwear or sunglasses. Once it had been pills. When Con understood what was happening, he’d taken Sofie to the attic and for the first time in a long time they’d slept side by side on the floor. She had felt safe, even though Connie said what Lili was giving away downstairs could kill a person.
“Does mom know the pills could kill her?”
“Yeah. She knows.”
That was good. Their mom would never take pills like that, because her kids needed her.
When they saw Lili a few days after the night of the pills, she’d been beat up so bad she could hardly see and her arm was in a cast. Sofie was sorry, because Lili was nice.
“She stole from the wrong person,” Con said.
When Sofie came out of the bathroom, she crossed the hall to her mom’s room. Sofie opened the door a teeny crack to make sure she wouldn’t see anything she didn’t want to see, like a boyfriend without any clothes on.
But there was only her mom, asleep with her feet sticking out from under the cover, a streak of sunshine across them.
The room was painted her favorite color—forget-me-not blue. Sofie crept in, feeling the cool from the air conditioner in the window.
The T-shirts and scarves and her mom’s shorts and sundresses on the floor were soft under her feet. Some came from the rich lady her mom cleaned for, but most were thrifting treasures. Sofie stood beside the bed, watching the way her mom’s nose moved a tiny bit with each breath.
She was beautiful. Her silvery blond hair matched the hair of the girl in the photo on the table. That girl was Summer Jones, Sofie’s grandmother, who had been a teen movie star. Sofie might be a movie star someday. She could make a lot of money and help her mom.
In the kitchen, Con reminded her they needed to leave in fifteen minutes.
“I know.”
He had grown another foot in the night; his shoulders had gotten wider and his feet bigger. Soon he wouldn’t fit in the tiny attic—the space he staked a claim on when they moved into this house two years ago. They had never lived anyplace for that long before. But before, they always slept in the same room. Or the same car, that time they were homeless. Which she didn’t remember, but Connie did. She didn’t understand why he wanted to be in the attic alone when together was better.
She put on her swimsuit, then a pair of blue-and-white-striped shorts with red stars—which she loved so much she wore them anytime they were clean. She topped it off with a white T-shirt with a sparkly red star on the front they’d found at the clothing pantry. Red was her favorite color. The shirt had a stain near the bottom, but most things from the clothing pantry had stains. She tucked in that part.
The pipes clanged as Con turned off the shower.
She couldn’t find her flip-flops in her room. She looked in the living room and the kitchen.
The Uno deck was on the kitchen table exactly where it belonged, thank goodness. Since her mom was having parties, maybe they should put the cards where they wouldn’t get damaged. But moving them could be bad luck.
Playing Uno was their ritual. Uno meant one in Spanish. And there were three of them. A triangle had three corners and could fit inside a circle, and circles were safe.
Once, when Sofie was in first grade, Social Services had almost taken her and Con away because their mom had left them alone in the trailer for a week. She’d gone to a New Year’s Eve party and not come home. Con had called her and begged, but she was with friends in Texas. Sofie had tried to be brave and not cry, but Connie really had been brave. And they’d almost kept it a secret.
When their mom came back, she’d been so, so sorry, and they had to forgive her. She promised on her life she would never do it again. She loved them and they loved her so much. They’d bundled up and gone outside in snow and sunshine and a forget-me-not-blue sky. They’d held hands and marched in a circle singing a silly song until it ended with Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. And then they crumpled into the snow laughing.
They did that over and over until the trees spun. Sofie remembered the cold on her cheeks. The shadows on the snow. The birds fighting at the feeder in front of the trailer-park office.
Sofie took a deep breath and let it out. The danger of being taken away by Social Services was in the past, but it felt as close as the breeze stirring her hair.
Where were her flip-flops?
She finally found one under the steps, a crumpled beer can beside it.
Connie was going to be so mad about the mess. A pile of clothing was tangled in a broken folding chair. A turned-over cooler gaped open, and cigarette butts and cans were everywhere.
She searched for the other flip-flop, walking through the wet grass. When she found it inside the overturned cooler, her heart beat a dance of relief. The flip-flops were her only shoes.
Inside, she gathered up her towel, swim cap, and The Higher Power of Lucky as Con called, “Ready.”
She’d snatched up the book at the Community Center library yesterday, sure it was the perfect summer book. The girl on the cover looked a little like Sofie, and the yellow and orange colors cried Fun! And it had the word lucky in the title. And it had a gold sticker. Books with stickers were the best.
“I wish school wasn’t out,” she said as they walked to the bus stop.
She liked everything about school. The books. The tests. Especially the tests. The free breakfasts and lunches that helped their mom. The teachers. The field trips. The media center with all the books. And her best friend, AnaMaria, who was in Arizona staying with grandparents for the summer.
“I’m going to be in Mr. Bloom’s class next year,” she told Con.
“You might get the other fifth-grade teacher.”
“I’ll get Mr. Bloom.”
At the end of each year, he gave the Student Explorer Award—a big beautiful globe of the world that hummed when it spun on its axis. Con had won it when he was in fifth grade. When their mom sold it on eBay because they needed money, Sofie had seen the hurt in Connie’s eyes. She would win the globe next year and she and Con would share it. A week in her room, a week in the attic with him. They would not let their mom sell it.
The Y was downtown, so any bus that came along on Southeast 16 would get them close. They shouldn’t have long to wait on the shady bench. Sofie scrunched and twisted her towel into shapes. A mountain. A deadly cobra. The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
When the bus didn’t come quickly, Sofie opened The Higher Power of Lucky. It was shabby, with a bent corner. Most of the books from the Community Center library were beat up. But they were still good.
On page one, she discovered both she and Lucky had too much curly hair. Ha! And like Lucky, she also loved eavesdropping even though it was wrong.
As she read, Sofie felt the dry desert heat as Lucky tidied up around the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center in a tiny town called Hard Pan in the Mojave Desert. The Higher Power of Lucky was going to be a wonderful book. And she knew the story would end happily because that was a Rule.
Con was beside her listening to music. He used to read all the time too. She had been excited when he got the phone for his thirteenth birthday last week. But she was beginning to hate it. Maybe he would drop it crossing the street and a bus would crush it.
When the bus came, it was packed but Con nudged her on. She showed her pass and grabbed the same pole as Con. As they neared downtown, the gold dome of the capitol glistened on the skyline.
At the Y, a big building with lots of glass and shiny tiles, they watched little kids finish their lessons and climb out of the pool and be wrapped in towels. Sofie’s group was next.
She wouldn’t be here if Con hadn’t discovered there were scholarships for swimming lessons at the Y. Their mom could never afford them.
She turned to see what Con was staring at over her shoulder.
There was a swimmer who hadn’t been here last week. She was about Sofie’s age, with goggles around her neck and a towel over her shoulder. An older girl was with her. Why was Con staring?
She bumped against his side. “Do you know them?”
He shook his head.
When the instructor blew her whistle to call swimmers into the water, Sofie hurried to get in. She ended up in a lane next to the new girl, who had beth written in black marker on her swim cap. Sofie’s cap had her full name, sofia, on it because that sounded more like the name of a librarian—which was what she really wanted to be.
chapter 2
A few days later, Sofie stood in the free-lunch line at the Community Center with Connie and her mom. Sofie and Con came here anytime there was no school. Their mom came on the days Tommy’s Place, the restaurant where she worked, was closed.
Sofie’s mouth began to water when the smell of tuna casserole with cornflake topping floated down the line. She and her mom loved that casserole, but Connie hated it. He mumbled something about cat food.
She turned around to say, “Sorry, Connie. But there’s cherry pie.”
At the same time, their mom said, “Look, Con, cherry pie!”
He looked like he didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or wag his tail. He was so confusing these days.
Her mom brushed Sofie’s hair out of her eyes, then refastened a barrette. Sofie loved having her mom mess with her hair. She always wondered where her mom’s straight hair came from. The movie star Summer Jones had curly hair, as did Sofie. Maybe her mom’s dad had straight hair.
Once Sofie had asked her mom, and her mom said she had no idea. She didn’t even know if he had hair. He was just some dumb kid from California who’d left teenage Summer Jones stranded and pregnant in Des Moines, Iowa, a long time ago. “And here we all are,” her mom would say, smiling.
Today her mom looked extra beautiful. She wore a blue T-shirt with a splash of color on one shoulder that made Sofie think of a giant flower, or maybe a melted rainbow. The blue was kind of purply and turned her mom’s eyes the same color.
New people who didn’t know better were in their regular spot, so they found a place at a long table by the windows. There were usually new people at the free lunch, but a lot of the same people, like the mom with the sweet baby in a stroller who’d started coming a few weeks ago. And the tall guy with the piercings and tattoos. He’d been around forever. He came all the time for weeks and then disappeared. But after a while he’d show up again, and Sofie always felt a wave of relief.
Today a guy who wasn’t a regular stared at her mom. When people did that, Sofie wondered if it was because her mom was so pretty, or because she was so tall. Connie was tall like her.
Her mom smiled at the new guy, showing the dimple in her right cheek. Sofie so wanted a dimple. When she was little she’d tried to sleep with her finger poking into her cheek, hoping she’d wake up with a dimple too.
Her mom’s dangle earring sparkled in the sun. Her signature look was a dangle in one ear and a little stud in the other. Sofie wanted a signature look. She was too young for dangles, but she always wore sparkly little studs. What if she wore only one? Would that be a signature look, or just kind of weird?
Her mom slid her cherry pie across to Connie so he had two pieces. “Because you hate the casserole,” she said.
“Thanks,” Con said, in a deep voice that came now and then and startled them.
Since her mom really liked cherry pie too, Sofie slid her own across to share.
After lunch, while Con went to shoot hoops, Sofie and her mom went to check out the clothing pantry and the library at the other end of the building. She linked hands with her mom, not in a babyish way but like friends, until her mom turned left to the clothing pantry and Sofie turned right to the library.
In this library you didn’t need a card, and you could keep a book as long as you wanted. Actually, forever. This was where her books came from. They were her most precious possessions.
When she was holding a book she felt safe. They were bolt holes for escaping. Sometimes Con called her Meerkat because meerkats—which Sofie thought looked kind of like very hairy humans when they stood on their back legs—were famous for their bolt holes.
The lady in charge waved Sofie over to a table. “You want to help, Sofie? We got in three boxes of kids’ books this morning.”
“Sure.”
Sofie could put them on the kids’ shelves in any old order since this wasn’t a real library. But she pretended it was. She sometimes dropped in and alphabetized the books by author’s last name just for fun.
Now and then she glanced at her mom, who was looking at boys’ stuff even though Con didn’t want her picking out his clothes anymore.
As she shelved books, Sofie decided for sure to be a movie star like Summer Jones and make a lot of money so Con could go to college and become a doctor. And then she would become a librarian because she didn’t really want to be a movie star. She would be the head librarian downtown in the building with the murals and stained glass. And she would have the keys so she and Connie could stay all night sometimes.
After a while, her mom gave up looking for clothing. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s find Con and go home.”
They hadn’t been home long. Con and her mom were trying to start the lawn mower. Every time they yanked the cord, the mower coughed. Then quit. Sofie was sitting on the steps looking at a dragon book she’d brought home from the library.
She’d ditched The Higher Power of Lucky when she discovered Lucky’s mom was dead and her dad was very weird and not around, so Lucky became a ward. A ward was someone guarded by a guardian—which did not sound good to Sofie. Sofie did not believe a story with a dead mom could end happily. Probably the sticker on the front had been a mistake.
But her new book was wonderful. She’d never seen a book where the pages folded out to be three pages wide so the dragon threatening the village looked bigger than the sky. It was called The Paper Dragon and it didn’t have a lot of words, but they all felt very important. The book was beat up and two of the fold-our pages were crumpled, but she smoothed them. She couldn’t wait to show it to AnaMaria because of the big, beautiful illustrations. Actually, she might give it to AnaMaria as a welcome-home present.
