Just Another Day in My Insanely Real Life Page 2

  It wasn’t always like this, but sometimes that’s hard to believe. Sometimes I have to remind myself that back in the days when Dad was with us, we were like every other family in Emerson: nice house, big backyard, two cars, a zillion after-school activities, vacations at Disneyland, once even a ski trip to Utah.

  Then something happened. I was never sure what. All I knew was that sometime early last spring Mom and Dad started having what they called “private discussions.” I’d go into a room and there they’d be, glaring at each other, not saying a word. “Cassie, dear, could you give us a moment,” Mom would say. “Dad and I are having a private discussion.”

  “Okay, sure, no problem,” I’d mutter, wondering how you could have a discussion when you weren’t even talking.

  And then one day in May, Mom announced at dinner that Dad was “out of the picture.” I was eleven and a half and scared; I kept imagining all our family photos with Dad’s face just gone, like there was a digital photo god somewhere keeping track of families and then systematically deleting people who one day just weren’t there anymore. Miranda was almost fifteen, so she felt like she had the right to keep asking Mom questions. But all Mom would ever say to her was, “I really don’t know Dad’s plans right now, but I’ll tell you when I do.” Which, according to Miranda, meant: “Dad is ’out of the picture,’ so just deal with it, Miranda.”

  Mom spent a lot of time in her bedroom, and I heard her crying all the time, so I kept out of her way and acted like everything was just fine. Besides, I thought, if she wasn’t telling Dad’s “plans” to Miranda, why would she tell me? Once I saw her accept a registered letter from Florida, so my theory was that Dad had moved down there for some reason. I didn’t know this for sure: He’d called us exactly five times since May, but “to hear our voices,” he said, not to tell us what was going on. The last three times he called were back in August, and every time, Miranda just hung up on him.

  So then everything changed. We had to sell our nice big house and our second car, quit our activities, start counting every penny, Mom wanted to stay in Emerson because, she said, we were “doing so well in the schools.” So we moved into a “unit” in Shady Woods, a ratty old condo development on the edge of town. (I don’t mean ratty in the sense that it had actual rats; I mean ratty in the sense that it was old and kind of shabby.) It’s where all the divorced parents go when their families break up. Usually one parent keeps the nice big house where the kids live, and then the kids visit the other parent’s ratty little “unit” on weekends. (Usually the dad gets the “unit,” but our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Patella, was a mom, so it can go either way, I guess. Of course, Mrs. Patella’s kids were all grown up, so she doesn’t really count, anyway.) As far as I knew, we were the only family living in a “unit” full-time, and I hated everything about it: the tiny square rooms, the thin walls, the concrete outside instead of our old backyard. But I also knew we were lucky to have it, so I didn’t complain, except in my head, and then only when I was feeling really grouchy.

  The other big thing that changed was that now Mom was at work all the time, instead of just part of the time, like she was when Dad was “in the picture.” Last May when Dad left, Mom hired this nice housekeeper-slash-nanny (housekeeper for Miranda and me, nanny for Jackson). Her name was Sophie Kwidzyn and she was from Kraków, Poland, and cooked this weird food that actually tasted pretty good. Miranda was kind of snotty to her, but Jackson loved her. He followed her around the “unit” like a big-eyed puppy and crawled into her lap whenever she sat down. She hugged and kissed him and called him all these words in Polish that sounded like creamy desserts.

  Then at the beginning of September, a few days before school was about to start, Sophie told Mom that she had to go back to Kraków to take care of her sick father. “Two weeks,” she promised, “and then I come back.” But two weeks passed, and then three, and no Sophie. Mom finally phoned her in Poland and found out that she wasn’t coming back, not in two weeks, not ever. Jackson, of course, freaked out. Mom was frantic—she had to get back to work to Coordinate Legal Support, but who would watch Jackson? Aunt Abby came to help out for a few days, but she had to get back to her own family. Mom tried hiring a bunch of different babysitters from some babysitter agency, but Jackson hated every single one and just kept crying and crying for Sophie. I was starting to lose it, being stuck in this ratty little “unit” with all these strange women trying to calm down a hysterical little brother and a furious teenage sister playing “music” as loud as she could to drown out the noise. Finally, when I was this close to going psycho, Miranda called a family meeting.

  “Listen,” she told Mom. “This is crazy. I’m fifteen years old, I’ve been babysitting since I was twelve, and I’m not moving back to Kraków. So, why can’t I just watch Jackson in the afternoons until you get home?”

  Mom looked surprised, but not shocked. “That’s nice of you to offer, sweetheart,” she said slowly, “but it’s a big responsibility. Jackson needs a lot of attention. What about your homework?”

  “I’ll be good!” Jackson swore. He looked like a puppy desperate for a bone.

  “Of course, baby, you’re always good,” Mom said, kissing his cheek, “but I don’t know.”

  “Jackie plays by himself all the time, anyway,” Miranda continued. “He’ll be quiet, so I’m sure I’ll be able to study. And Cassie will help, won’t you, Cassie?” She stared at me with a bright Say yes smile.

  “Oh, sure,” I said. Jackie sure seemed to want it. Anyway, what could be worse than what was already going on around here?

  “And you won’t have to pay me, so we’ll save money,” Miranda said.

  Mom looked upset. “Miranda, that’s not the issue!”

  “Of course,” Miranda agreed. “But if you want to pay me…”

  “I’m not going to pay you for helping out!”

  “Fine,” said Miranda. “So let me help out. At least give it a few weeks.”

  That clinched it. And for the first couple of weeks it worked fine, definitely better than with the strange women and all the crying. Miranda would give Jackson a big hug when he got off the school bus, pour him some Nesquik, hang out with him for a few minutes, then do her homework while he played Power Rangers in his room or watched TV. At six she and I would take turns microwaving supper, and then Mom was usually home by seven. Things were almost normal, I thought. But by the end of a month Miranda was turning back into her old irresponsible, lazy, selfish self, and so here I was out on a school night, bicycling four blocks to the CVS.

  I never liked biking at night, and now that it was late October the nights were chilly. But I had no choice: If I didn’t buy the cat food, Miranda sure wouldn’t, and then the cats would declare war, chewing on my spiral note-book, knocking books off the shelves, scratching up my desk, meowing. And then, if all that failed, barfing. Buster and Fuzzy could barf at will. They would barf if they didn’t get fed, didn’t get brushed, didn’t get petted. Once they barfed right in my slippers during the night so I felt a nice cold squoosh when I put them on in the morning. And every day they would barf for their breakfast at precisely six thirty-four a.m., a full one minute before my alarm clock went off at six thirty-five. There was no way they’d let me survive the night if they didn’t get fed. And if I didn’t feed them, I knew, nobody would.

  The CVS was lit up like a maximum-security prison as I coasted into the parking lot. Oh, great, I thought: I hadn’t brought my bicycle lock. Well, I’d only be in the store for a minute. I parked my bike right in front of the door, raced inside to Aisle 8, Pet Supplies, and grabbed four slightly dented cans of Friskies Turkey & Giblets Dinner. That sure sounded better than Cheerios & Mustard Dinner. Suddenly it occurred to me that unless I got some milk, tomorrow morning we’d be having Cheerios & Mustard Breakfast.

  So I raced over to Aisle I, where they kept the milk: big, sweaty full gallons of Dairyland’s Delight. Shhhheeetrock! There was no way I could ride a bike carrying a gallon of milk
; a quart, maybe, but definitely not a gallon. I stuck my arm way in the back of the sour-smelling refrigerator, hoping that maybe an almost-expired quart of milk would be lurking somewhere, when suddenly I heard someone say, “Cassie? Is that you?”

  I spun around. Oh, fabulous. “Hi, Mrs. Langley.”

  Mrs. Langley was our old neighbor when we lived in a house, not a ratty little “unit.” She had two little Yorkies that liked to pee on our grass. They had incredibly stupid names: Honey and Sugar.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you! You’ve gotten so big!” she gushed.

  “Thanks,” I said, as if I’d done it on purpose.

  “Is your mother here?” she asked, looking around.

  “Uh, no. She’s home. She just realized we’re short of milk, so I volunteered to pick some up.”

  “On a school night? What a wonderful daughter you are! But how did you get here? Did you walk?”

  My heart started to beat fast, but I wasn’t sure why. What was wrong with buying some milk at eight (now eight twenty, actually) on a Monday night? Nothing. And it was none of her business how I got here. I opened the refrigerator and hauled out a gallon of whole milk. We never drank whole milk, and I wasn’t sure how I’d carry a gallon, but now I just wanted to get away from Mrs. Langley.

  “Okay, well, nice to see you, bye!” I called out as I escaped to the checkout line. Of course, I knew it was rude to just stop talking to her, not even answering her question, but it wasn’t like she was still our neighbor, and she wasn’t even our friend. I once heard Mom telling Aunt Abby how ever since we’d moved into the ratty little “unit,” lots of people just cut us off. Like we were tainted or something, just because Dad was “out of the picture” and we had no money. Miranda kept her friends because she spent all her time yakking on the phone, but I was pretty positive that my two so-called best friends, Hayley Garrison and Brianna Schuster, had written me off just because I dropped swim team at the fitness club. They still talked to me at school and everything, but not like before.

  “NEXT!” barked the cashier. I put the gallon of milk and the four cans of cat food on the counter.

  “Find everything you want today?” he said, yawning.

  “Yup.”

  “Would you like to receive our online newsletter about in-store discounts and other promotions?”

  “I’d really just like to pay,” I said under my breath.

  “Sure thing,” he said. He scanned my stuff. “Five twenty-nine.” He yawned again.

  Monkey droppings! All I’d brought was three dollars! “Um, forget about the milk, then,” I mumbled.

  But Mrs. Langley had caught up with me. She tapped me on the shoulder. “Cassie, dear, are you short?”

  I stood there with my back to her. I shook my head.

  “I don’t mean short,” she apologized. “I mean short of cash.”

  Now I turned around. My face was burning. “I’m fine,” I practically growled.

  Then I plunked down the three dollars, grabbed the cans of cat food, got back on my bike, and zoomed home.

  “Cassie? That you?”

  I went into the living room. “Mom?”

  “I’m just reading with Jackson. I’ll be out in a sec!” she called. I heard her in Jackson’s room saying something, then Jackson giggling, then smoochy good-night kisses. Finally she came out into the living room, still wearing her office costume.

  “Miranda said you went out for cat food. Thank you, honey, but I’d really rather you weren’t out bicycling at night. It’s dangerous.”

  “Listen, Mom,” I protested, “it’s a lot more dangerous facing the wrath of Buster and Fuzzy!”

  She gave a tired laugh. “Okay. But I don’t want you out at night when I’m not home. I don’t want you out at night, period.”

  That made two of us. “Fine,” I said.

  “So, what did you make for supper tonight?” she asked. I could see Miranda lurking outside the living room, listening. Don’t tell her, she mouthed frantically.

  “Um, actually, I didn’t. I was really busy doing homework, so we just ordered pizza,” I said. All things considered, it was probably best not to rat on Miranda about the shopping. It’s not like I was this insanely loyal supersister who would never betray her own kind—I was actually furious with Miranda for a million things, most recently for exposing me to Mrs. Langley’s nosy questions. But at that moment I decided that if I kept Miranda’s little shopping omission a secret, I might be able to cash in later, sometime when I really needed to.

  Thank you! Miranda mouthed.

  “Pizza? Again?” Mom screwed up her face. “First of all, it’s not the most nutritious thing in the world, and second of all, it’s expensive.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I protested. “It has protein and calcium. And I used a three-dollars-off coupon, so it was only seven dollars for a pie.”

  Miranda gave me two thumbs-up signs. I love you, she mouthed.

  Mom was too tired to argue. “Okay. But no more pizza for a week. I mean it. How did your homework go?”

  “Fine. But I haven’t finished writing in my journal for English.”

  “Oh, how’s that going? Has Mr. Mullaney checked it yet?”

  “Nope. The first journal check is next week.”

  “Okay. Well, it’s late, sweetheart. Why don’t you go wash up for bed?”

  “Can I just write a little more in my journal? I’m almost done.” For English we were supposed to write five singlespaced pages a week. Mr. Mullaney was the most nasty, sarcastic, boring English teacher in the whole seventh grade, but at least he let us write anything we wanted in our journals, as long as we filled those pages. It was a lot of work, but lately it was the only school thing I really cared about. I was totally into this Cat versus Valdyk story, even if I didn’t have a clue where it was going.

  “Okay. I’ll give you ten minutes. And maybe sometime when you’re ready, you’ll show me this story you’re working on?”

  “Sure!” Mom was pretty cool. She wasn’t one of those mothers who’d roll her eyes at all the battle stuff, and feel like she had to remind you all the time how she didn’t approve of violence. I mean, who did? Besides, this was a fantasy, not real life, and fantasies absolutely had to have a certain amount of swordfights and dragon battles and poison arrows. And anyway, Catrain was a noble heroine who used her dragonfire arrows as a totally last resort, and only to serve her Queen. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t written a scene where she actually used one, and I wasn’t even sure I would.

  I kissed Mom’s cheek. It seemed kind of deflated, like she’d lost weight, which wouldn’t be surprising, considering how hard she was working. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of what: Mom, are you okay? Mom, thanks for working so hard. Mom, don’t worry. None of it sounded right. So, I just went into the kitchen where Buster and Fuzzy were circling their food dishes and screeching, Feed us, feed us, feed us!

  “Okay, you little beasts,” I scolded. “Calm down!” I opened a dented can of Turkey & Giblets and dumped it into a crusty bowl, last washed sometime on Saturday. They didn’t care; they dove in. At least someone around here was having a real supper, I thought, sighing as I remembered the gallon of milk I’d deserted back at the CVS. Breakfast was going to stink too.

  I went down the hallway to my room. Miranda was sitting on my bed, brushing her shampoo-smelling long brown hair.

  “You’re in my room,” I said.

  “Bravo, Captain Obvious.” She grinned.

  “So get out.”

  “I will, in a second. I just wanted to thank you for saying we had pizza.”

  “Okay,” I snarled. “But you’d better go shopping tomorrow.”

  “I will, I promise! I’m setting my alarm to go off at five a.m., and then I’ll go to the A & P before school. We’ll have a ton of stuff for breakfast, I swear!”

  I sat on my bed. “We’d better. Because I have a feeling Mom is going to catch on when she wants breakfast and there’
s nothing to eat but spicy brown mustard.”

  “Okay, Cassie. I get it! Okay!”

  “Fine. Great. So get out, Miranda. And shut the door.”

  I sat down at my desk and opened my spiral notebook.

  Cat mounted her beloved stallion, Starlight, and set out to search for the Queen’s two prize warhorses. Only someone close to the Queen could have broken into the stable, she thought, but who? Was there a traitor within the castle walls, someone secretly plotting with Valdyk? Cat was Gifted–she could see and hear things others could not–but she still coudn’t imagine who the traitor could be.

  Despite her worries, it felt great to be galloping through the dark forest, the wind flowing in her long, red–gold hair. Yes, she had let Valdyk get away, but it was really for the best. The King had warned her about Valdyk before he left to hunt the Mystyck Beast. “Just hold the fort, my Catrain,” he had smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Let me deal with this miserable knave when I return.” Anyway, she told herself, Lord Valdyk wasn’t worth losing one of her precious three dragonfire arrows over. Those three arrows were all she had, and all her magical Gifts couldn’t get her any more.

  The important thing was staying focused. The realm was full of evil, full of mischief. Valdk’s spies were everywhere, waiting to attack hungry for damaging information about the Queen. But she would never divulge the Queen’s whereabouts, no matter how hard she was pressed. Though she was only fifteen (sixteen? seventeen?) and, as Lord Valdyk, put it, a mere girl, Catrain was all that stood between the Queen’s throne and total chaos.

  I was exhausted; I couldn’t finish writing. Oh, well, I thought. Mr. Mullaney wasn’t checking the journals until next week, anyway. I’d finish the chapter tomorrow, after a good long sleep, curled up in my bed with Fuzzy and Buster, who were finally quiet and well fed and cuddly and purring. I love my cats, I thought, nestling beside them. Dog people thought cats were aloof and self-centered, but I knew better: Once you got to know them, cats were loyal and sensitive and fun and snuggly, maybe even the best friends I had.