Contents
Title Page
Begin Reading
Author’s Note
Also Available from Laurel-Leaf Books
Copyright
May 17th
It’s cold. It’s late. I’m trapped in here, trying to sleep under this sorry excuse for a blanket, and I’ve just got to tell you—you don’t know squat. You think you know what I’m going through, you think you know how I can “cope,” but you’re just like everybody else: clueless. Writing. Poetry. Learning to express myself. “It’ll help you turn the page, Holly. Just try it.”
Well, I’m trying it, see? And is it making me feel better? NO! Giving me this journal was a totally lame thing to do. You think writing will get me out of here? You think words will make me forget about the past? Get real, Ms. Leone!
Words can’t fix my life.
Words can’t give me a family.
Words can’t do jack.
You may be a teacher, Ms. Leone, but face it: You don’t know squat.
May 19th
Oh, you really took the cake today. “Put your most embarrassing experience in the form of a cinquain poem.” What did you expect me to do? Write the truth? I knew you’d read them out loud, and you did! How do you spell idiot? I spell it L-E-O-N-E.
Did you like my little poem about spilling my milk in a restaurant? Stupid, I know, so give me an F, see if I care. Like I can even remember ever being in a real restaurant.
You want a cinquain poem about a most embarrassing moment that actually happened to me? Okay, here you go:
Prisoner
Chained outside
Shivering, huddling, sobbing
Naked in the rain
Alone
Oh, yeah. That makes me feel SO much better.
May 20th
My mom died two years ago today.
I’d been scamming food, she’d been shooting up. I miss her.
More than I have tears to cry, I miss her.
May 20th, again
You want to know why I was crying at recess? That cat Camille is why. She called me a homeless freak. Told me I had a face only my mother could love. Normally, I would have told her to eat dirt and die, but today I just couldn’t take it.
I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Everyone knows she’s your favorite. “Miss Leone, do you need some help?” “Miss Leone, do you want me to pass those out?” “Oh, Miss Leone, you look so pretty today!” Adopt her, why don’t you?
Oh, that’s right—she already has two parents.
May 20th again, again
When they moved me in with the Benders, the social worker told me that they were “very kind and very patient people.” What a laugh. They’re phonies, is what they are. Mrs. Bender is a heartless witch, and Mr. Bender is a total creep. He’s always touching me. On the shoulder. On the hair. On the hand. He gets that same look that Mr. Fisk used to get when his wife wasn’t around.
Social services won’t believe me if I complain. They’ll say I’m just looking for trouble. Lying. Faking. Overreacting. “Self-inflicting.”
Well, I’m not going through that again. I’d rather DIE than go through that again. So tonight when Mr. Bender started massaging my shoulders, I told him, “Stop it!”
He didn’t. “I’m only trying to help you unwind,” he said in his snaky voice.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Don’t touch me!” And I slapped his creepy hands away.
That brought Mrs. Bender running. “What is going on in here?” she asked, and after he explained it to her, I got locked in my room. Not the room they show the social worker. That’s the room they tell me I’ll get when I’m a “good” girl. The room I really get is the laundry room. They give me a mat, a blanket, and a bucket to pee in.
So sweet dreams, Ms. Leone, in your feathery bed or whatever you have.
Do you really believe words are going to keep me warm and safe tonight?
May 21st, early morning
Why am I doing this? Why am I writing to you again? I’m shivering in this room, huddled under this blanket writing to you, and why? What good is it? I’m hungry, I can’t sleep, I’m locked in here, and I’ve got to pee. I hate using the bucket, I just hate it.
Man, I’ve got to go. Hold on a minute.
Oh, that’s better.
Maybe I can get back to sleep now.
Nope. I’m too cold.
So you want to hear how I get a drink when they trap me in here on weekends? I turn on the washer. Pretty sly, huh? I used to put my blanket in the dryer and get it roasting hot, but the dryer quit working and of course I got blamed.
I don’t mind the size of this squatty little room, it’s the cold that gets me. Why can’t they give me a better blanket? How about a sleeping bag? Would that kill them?
Whatever. No matter how much I try, I’ll never be “good” enough to sleep in the real room.
I’ve got to come up with a plan to get out of here.
May 21st again, lunchtime
What is it with you and poetry? It’s like some crazy obsession with you. And I couldn’t believe your stupid “Life is poetry” statement. Maybe your life is poetry, but mine’s a pile of four-letter words. “Find the motion. Find the rhythm. Find the timbre of your life.” Whose idea is all this? Yours? Did somebody teach you this stuff? How’s this ever going to help me in life?
And guess what? You can forget it. I’m not doing it. Write your own stupid poem about your own poetic life.
Mine would just get me sent to the office.
May 21st again again, after school
I hate you, you know that? I hate you for making me write that poem. I hate you for making me lie about my life. But most of all I hate you for acting so sweet to me. You don’t really care. I’m a job to you, like I am to everybody else. I know it, so quit pretending you care.
And you probably think you’re doing a good job, but guess what? You’re not. I can see right through you, so just leave me alone, would you? Forget I’m even in your class. Forget you’re supposed to be trying to “help” me. And quit making me write poems!
May 21st again again AGAIN, after school
How stupid are all these agains, huh? I’m not doing that anymore. Four entries in one day is ridiculous, anyway. But before I turn the corner and go into the Benders’ house, I just had to tell you that there is something good in my life.
Dogs.
I love dogs. They’re so happy and loyal and soft. The Benders don’t have one, are you kidding? Wouldn’t want to mess up their perfect house. But on my walk home from school I usually get to say hello to a few, and there’s this one black Labrador I call Blackie that I get to see every day.
Blackie’s old and pretty lame and sleeps on the side of the street where the asphalt can warm his bones. First time I saw him, I thought he was a dead homeless dog because he looked like some of the dead homeless people I’ve seen. But after I checked him out, I discovered he was fine, just really old. I brought him scraps from the cafeteria the next day, and ever since, he waits for me on the corner. He’s a sweet old guy, and I sit and talk to him a lot. He’s a real good listener, and I think he’d follow me home if he could.
Me and him cuddled up on the laundry-room floor.
Sounds like heaven.
May 21st, evening
This journal’s nothing but trouble, you hear me? I ought to just throw it away and be done with it.
How can a journal be trouble, you ask?
Here’s how:
For two months I’ve been walking home to the Benders’ instead of taking the bus. I figured out in a hurry that there was no sense in rushing home. So for two months I’ve been enjoying that little half hour of freedom when I’m not in school having to listen to Camille
kiss up to you, and not at the Benders’ getting blamed for something. I walk through the park, visit with Blackie…it’s the best part of my day.
But today I went and made the mistake of sitting on the curb and writing in this stupid journal. I just had to tell you about Blackie.
What a moron I am. It’s not like you actually heard.
It’s not like you’d even care.
But I had to go and stop and sit and write, and what did it get me?
All upset, for one thing. I don’t like to talk about stuff like wanting a dog. What’s the use in it? It’s never going to happen, so why waste time dreaming about it?
But on top of getting me upset, it also made me late, and late to the Benders’ meant that I was buying drugs.
“I wasn’t buying drugs!” I told them. “I was petting a dog!”
They tore apart my backpack, shouting, “Don’t lie to us, girl! Where have you been? Why weren’t you riding the bus? How long have you been lying to us?”
I skipped the riding-the-bus question. Like they’d believe me anyway?
But I told them fifty times that I didn’t do drugs, didn’t buy drugs or sell drugs or want anything to do with drugs, but when they didn’t find any drugs in my backpack, they still made me strip down to my underwear.
And when Mrs. Bender had gone through every nook and cranny of those, you know what she muttered when she shoved my clothes back at me?
“Well, your mama sure did.”
I almost hit her. But I started crying instead.
I hate that.
I hate her.
And here I am in laundry-room lockdown again.
For being a “bad girl.”
Excuse me for walking home.
Excuse me for petting a dog.
Excuse me for wanting to breathe some air.
So see? If I get in trouble for that, what would’ve happened to me if they’d bothered to look inside this? They don’t care beans about my schoolwork. Everyone knows I’m a “behavioral problem,” so it’s not their fault that I’m flunking sixth grade, right? They’re the saints who’ve taken me in when nobody else wanted me.
But if they had even bothered to flip through this book, they would have read what I wrote about them, and then look out! I would have been in way worse trouble than lockdown with no supper.
Bottom line, this journal’s not only stupid, it’s dangerous.
Tomorrow, first chance I get, I’m burning it.
May 22nd, morning
Before I burn this, I have to tell you one more thing. You’ll faint when you hear.
Ready?
I dreamt a poem last night.
Hey (slap-slap-slap), wake up! You should have been sitting down (ha ha).
You want to hear?
Okay. Here goes:
There once was a doggie named Blackie
Who couldn’t exactly attacky
But he drooled and he licked
Drowned the Benders real quick
Floated off and they never came backy!
Funny, huh? It’s a limerick! (Yeah, yeah, you already knew that, I know.)
Okay. That’s it. Now I’m torching this.
I just need to score a match.
May 22nd, midmorning
Crud. I’m going to have to wait for Monday to burn this because it looks like I’m not getting out of the house until then.
Why?
Because I got busted looking for a match.
“What are you stealing now, girl?” Mrs. Bender asked when she saw me looking through a kitchen cupboard. Then she yanked me back by my hair until I was looking up at the ceiling.
I hate when she does that. It makes me want to cut my hair short. But I did that when I ran away from the Fisks and my neck was cold the whole time.
Big deal, huh? It’s just your neck, right?
Wrong. When your neck’s cold, so’s the rest of you. Try sleeping outside sometime with everything covered but your neck. It makes your whole body shivering cold.
So I’ve got hair that covers my neck, but the trade-off is that now I’ve got to put up with people like Mrs. Bender grabbing it and steering me around.
And while she had me looking at the ceiling, you know what saintly Mrs. Bender did?
She called, “How-ie!” across the house at Mr. Bender. “This girl’s ransacking our cupboards!”
“I wasn’t ransacking!” I croaked. “I was just looking for a toothpick!”
What’s the harm in taking a toothpick, right? But she pulled harder on the fistful of hair and said, “And you think stealing our toothpicks is okay?”
“I wasn’t stealing them!” I gasped. “I just need one. Or some floss. Can I have some floss? I have food stuck between my teeth.”
It was a pretty good lie, don’t you think? And I sounded pretty convincing, too. But she just shouted, “How-ie! I told you! This girl’s a thief!”
So see? I use drugs and I’m a thief.
Then Mr. Bender came into the kitchen, saying, “I just checked my wallet—there’s fifty dollars missing!”
They searched my stuff again.
Stripped me down again.
Called me a thief and a liar and a bad girl again.
Which is why I’m in lockdown for the rest of the weekend.
Again.
May 22nd, afternoon
I’ve been thinking: The way Mrs. Bender went through my stuff looking for the missing money wasn’t very thorough. Nothing like when she was searching for drugs.
You know what else?
Mrs. Bender loves the shopping network. I swear she spends the whole day watching jewelry twinkle on TV.
So you know what I think?
I think she wants stuff that her creepy husband won’t let her get. I think she wants to peg me as a thief because she’s been stealing money out of his wallet.
Money social services gives him for taking care of me.
May 22nd, nighttime
What are you supposed to do in a laundry room all day? They did let me out for ten minutes when I pounded on the door and shouted that I really had to use the bathroom, but I got locked right back in. And around six Mrs. Bender shoved a plate of cold mashed-potato mush at me and said, “You need to think long and hard about your actions, girl, because actions have consequences.” That was it for the entire day.
So you know what I did? I read that stupid book you gave us. “Don’t read ahead, class. Do NOT read ahead! We want to stay together and discuss it as a group. If you want to do extra reading, read from another book.”
Well, guess what? I don’t happen to have another book. There’s no library tucked away inside this luxurious laundry room. All I happen to have is my binder, this stupid journal, and your little discussion book.
So sue me. I read ahead. Clear to the end.
And I knew it. I just knew it. The girl dies. Why do teachers think books where people die are such good books? They’re rotten, you hear me? Who wants to read about people drowning or getting cancer or finding out their parents are dead? Or you know what’s even worse? Dogs dying. If a teacher’s having you read a book with a dog in it, the dog’s going to be dead by the end of the book. I hate that! Why do they always have to kill off the dog?
Maybe you teachers think books like that open our eyes and prepare us for life, but guess what? All they do is teach us that life is cruel and people are mean and there’s not squat we can do to change it.
Like this is something I didn’t already know?
Sunday, May 23rd
Sundays terrify me. Every Sunday morning at 9:30 Mrs. Bender leaves the house to pick up her mother and take her to church. After church they go shopping and out to lunch, which means I’m home alone with Mr. Bender from 9:30 until about 2:00.
“Are you going to be a good girl today?” he always asks through the laundry-room door when she’s gone.
I used to argue that I had been good and that I hadn’t meant to make them mad, or whatever. But it didn’t tak
e long to get the picture that there was no way I was going to win that argument, so I’d just grumble, “Yes, sir,” and he’d let me out and fix pancakes and bacon and eggs, chatting about nothing the whole time.
It’s not like the Benders starve me, but if it wasn’t for my school lunch card and Sunday morning breakfasts, I’d have, like, zero hot meals a week.
Not that hot lunch is actually hot, but it’s a whole lot better than the slop Mrs. Bender shoves at me through the laundry-room door.
So Sunday mornings are torture for me. I love the smell of bacon. I love pancakes and syrup and butter. My mouth’s watering just thinking about them.
But Mr. Bender is so creepy, and being alone in the house with him makes me real skittish. He always says, “Relax, Holly. We’ll just have us a nice breakfast and get to know each other a little better.” Then he gives me a snaky wink as he cracks open an egg and says, “It’ll be our little secret, all right?”
So I’ve started thinking that the breakfast isn’t worth the price of admission. I don’t like putting up with his snaky ways for the rest of the day. He brushes up against me. Touches my shoulder while I’m doing the dishes. Says “soothing” things to me that tie me up in knots. I’m always relieved when his witchy wife pulls up and he tells me it’s time to get back in the laundry room.
You think I’m overreacting, don’t you? Inventing. You think maybe Mr. Bender is just being fatherly and I’m ultra-sensitive because of Mr. Fisk? Well, guess again. Today when Mrs. Bender left and he said, “Are you going to be a good girl today?” I decided, Forget it. “No, Mr. Bender, I’m not,” I told him. “I’m a liar and a thief and I do drugs, so you’d better not let me out of here.”
He opened the door anyway. Then he laughed and said, “Come on, Holly, let’s have us some breakfast.”
“No,” I told him. “I’m sick of you accusing me of stuff all week and then acting like nothing’s wrong when your wife’s gone.” I stepped out of the laundry room and headed down the hall. “But I will use the bathroom.”