Page 4 - My FlipBook

the government for letting foster kids live with her. Not to
mention the house rules. We have to let her search our bags
state pays her for taking me in. What a joke to call her any
and pull the straps of my tattered backpack, the one my new
foster mother Connie got me with the “measly stipend” the
whenever we enter or leave the house and ask permission
blond hair, really white teeth, and a letterman’s jacket smiles
I nod at him but don’t say anything, and instead rush to
ćùĄø ñ þÿĄõòÿÿû ñþô ñ óÿąĀüõ Āõþóùüă͞ ÷ąĉ ćùĄø ҏÿĀĀĉ
ty-nine, as in I’m the one hundred and ninety-ninth student
who goes here. I open it and in goes everything but a binder,
Trophy cases holding 4-H awards and plaques for state
“Who is she?” I hear whispered as I walk by. A pretty
ing—every Wrangler-and-cowboy-boot-wearing one of them
championship-winning basketball teams line the blue walls
of the only hallway in the entire school, and yet the walk to
ăćñĄ ýĉ ąþĂąüĉ ñąòąĂþ øñùĂ ÿąĄ ÿö ýĉ öñóõ ñă 㥹҆ ýĉ
poo commercial giggles into her friend’s ear as I pass by.
type of mother, rather than someone who takes money from
schedule in the pocket of my skinny jeans—not Wranglers—
my locker is a long one. Because all the students are star-
brunette who looks like the kind of girl you’d see in a sham-
The bell rings. I stop at locker one hundred and nine-
at me from the locker next door. “Hey, New Girl.”
before we so much as go to the bathroom.
stands at their blue lockers watching me.
room four for history. At the front of the room, behind a tattered wooden desk, a balding man with a white beard and round gut smiles 16