Читать книгу Hello There, We've Been Waiting for You! - Laurie B. Arnold - Страница 4

I didn’t know anything about the magic yet. I only knew my life would never be the same. It was the summer before sixth grade and there I was, a prisoner in the front seat of my grandmother’s sparkly gold Cadillac beast. She barreled at the speed of fear, north toward New Mexico on the dusty desert highway. We streaked past a blur of scrub brush and tumbleweeds. Compared to where I’d lived on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, it looked like I’d landed on the moon.

“Honey, this isn’t what either of us wished for, but I’m sure we’ll make the best of it.”

I stared out the passenger window trying not to cry as I watched a tumbleweed skitter across the sand.

“And who knows? We might even have ourselves a little fun. How’d you like to be transformed into a vision of beauty? I happen to be quite the expert.”

She shook her bouncy blond curls.

If she thought she was going to turn me into her clone, she had another think coming. I’m a soccer-player girl, not a dress-up girly-girl.

“Madison, darling, if you’re ignoring me because I picked you up a teensy bit late, you’ll have to get over it.”

A teensy bit late? She’d arrived at the El Paso Airport an hour and a half after my plane got in, looking as if she was trying to be some movie star hot-shot hiding behind giant dark sunglasses. She’d sashayed in on super-spiky red high heels, wearing a matching mini-skirt. With barely a “hello” she whisked me off to my brand new life.

“Will Grandpa Jack be at your house?” I asked.

“Not until Saturday. He only comes around two weekends a month—which is just enough for me. So until then it’ll be just us girls.”

I wished more than anything I could turn back time.

My grandmother took control of the steering wheel with her knees as she drew on fresh red lipstick. Then she cranked up the music on her car’s CD player. At the top of her lungs she sang along to “Dancing Queen” ten times straight.

The weirdest thing? So far she hadn’t once mentioned my mom.

Here’s the funny thing about life. Sometimes stuff happens that makes you want to erase a moment forever. But life isn’t like pencil marks on paper. It can’t be erased even if you make a gazillion wishes every night on the brightest star.

The thing I wanted to erase? Okay, I hate talking about it, but I guess I’ll just come right out and say it. Four months and twenty-three days ago my mom died. Her heart just stopped beating and, almost in a snap, she was gone.

The night she died I moved in with my best friend, Violet, and her family and stayed with them until school let out. Then Violet flew off to spend the summer with her favorite grandmother in Paris, and I boarded a plane to El Paso, forced to face my new life sentence.

By late afternoon we pulled into Truth or Consequences. It was like a ghost town. There wasn’t a soul on the streets, just row after row of thrift shops selling everyone’s cast-offs. I thought about climbing into one of the display windows with a “for sale” sign slung around my neck and waiting for someone to buy me for a bargain.

“How’d you like to see where you’ll be going to school in August?” she asked.

“Is it where my mom went when she was a kid?”

“No. They tore that dump down years ago. It was crumbling to pieces.”

Kind of like my life.

My grandmother sped onto a desolate road, bordered by total colorless nothingness. In the middle of a flat field was a single hulking windowless brick building. Truth or Consequences Middle School. This was a place that would never crumble. It was built like a maximum-security prison.

“Okay, honey. Are you ready to hightail it home?” Then she hit the gas.

Home? I couldn’t imagine I’d ever feel at home anywhere other than in my shingled house in the woods on Bainbridge Island. And I especially couldn’t ever in a million years imagine feeling at home living with my grandmother.

I remembered the first time I met her. I was five. My mom and I were on a road trip, passing through New Mexico.

When she answered the door I’d said, “Hi, Grandma.”

She just about choked on her chewing gum.

“Madison, darling, do I call you Granddaughter?” she’d asked.

“No,” I’d said.

“What do I call you?”

“Madison.”

“And why do I do that, do you suppose?” She’d held my chin in her hand and made me look her in the eye. It was weird.

“Because that’s my name?”

“Yes, Madison is your name. And my name is Florida. Florida Brown. I don’t want to hear you call me Grandmother, Grandma, Nana, Grandmumsy, Granny or anything else that might make me feel the slightest bit old. I work very hard not to look old. Do you understand?”

I’d nodded, even though I didn’t understand at all. My mom rolled her eyes.

My grandmother—excuse me—Florida, turned onto Grape Street, gunned her Cadillac, and shot up the driveway to her red brick house. She hit the brakes and stopped inches short of the garage door. On it hung a black iron cutout of a cowboy ready to lasso any car that dared to come too close.

I breathed in a little courage and reached for the door handle.

“Stay here. Don’t get out,” she whispered.

Florida fiddled with the rearview mirror, swiveling it to get a better angle on someone lurking at the house next door.

Was it a prowler? A murderer on the loose?