Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I shook my head.
“I…I don’t understand.”
“You will,” Nancy Spaulding snapped. “Come with me.”
She turned and marched out of the barn with me trailing behind her, feeling shocked. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be—I was sure my social worker must have made some mistake. When she had dropped me off in front of the Spaulding’s mini-mansion, Nancy and Gary had been there beaming at me with their arms around each other.
“This is Kira—I’m so glad you could take her on short notice,” the social worker said, a frazzled look on her face. “We really had nowhere else to put her. Thank you for being so accommodating!”
“Of course! We’re always ready to add to our little family,” Nancy had exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear and showing off immaculate white teeth.
I learned later that she had been a dental hygienist before she met and married Gary and they started their multilevel marketing business which was selling essential oils to gullible buyers, who were in turn supposed to sell them to their friends. Nancy was fanatical about dental hygiene and cleanliness in general, standing over us each night to make sure we brushed properly and making certain we each took a shower every night.
This might not sound so bad—some foster parents don’t care if the children in their care are clean or not. But Nancy took it to the extreme, as I was soon to find out. And she didn’t do it to benefit any of her foster kids—she just knew that if Child Protective Services got calls about the kids living with her going to school dirty and disheveled, there were likely to be problems. So she made certain we were always clean, even if we were abused in other ways.
Anyway, both the Spauldings had been smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths when I first met them.
Nancy was rail thin and had bleached blonde hair that was coiled into a tall coif at the crown of her head. She was wearing a spotless white skirt with an equally white blouse. I couldn’t help thinking that this looked like impractical clothing for country living but I would find out soon enough that she only ever wore white—I would also learn how her clothes stayed so spotless.
Gary was also tall and thin, like his wife, except for a small round potbelly that strained the front of his polo shirt. He had thinning brown hair that was scraped over a shiny scalp in the most obvious comb-over I had ever seen and small, piggy eyes that were muddy brown. A long sharp nose hung over a skinny mustache and even skinnier lips. When he smiled, he also revealed bright, unnaturally white teeth.
The two of them shook hands with my case worker and then offered to take her inside for some tea or coffee.
“Thanks but I really don’t have time,” was her hurried reply. She spared a glance at me. “Be good for the Spauldings—they’re one of the very best foster families we have and you’re lucky to get a spot with them,” she lectured me.
“Um, okay.” I nodded uncertainly. Even at the very beginning there was something I didn’t trust about those bright, white smiles. But there was nothing I could do about it—Nancy and Gary clearly had the local CPS office completely fooled. But to me, they showed their true colors almost at once.
After showing me my “room” in the old barn, Nancy marched me to the back of the main house.
“This is the only entrance you will ever use when entering our home,” she announced, pointing to a stairway that led down to a small brown door set into the back of the house. “You will be allowed into the main house during dinner and to do your chores. At night, you will have your shower and brush your teeth before you go back to your room. Come with me.”
Wordlessly, I followed her down the narrow set of steps and through the back door. It let into a dark, underground basement area which was lit by a single bulb that hung from a cord attached to the low ceiling.
In one corner, I saw a rusty upright shower with see-through glass walls. Beside it was a sink with several cups, each with a cheap plastic toothbrush standing up in it.
“This will be your cup and brush. You must brush and shower every night.”
Nancy whipped a black Sharpie marker out of the pocket of her spotless white skirt and grabbed the pink plastic cup she’d been pointing at.
“Now what did that case worker say your name was again?” she demanded.
“Kira,” I told her in a small voice. “K-i—”
“Never mind that—I can spell!” she snapped, hastily writing on the cup. When she put it down, I saw she had spelled my name “Keerah.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she was already putting the cup back down in the row at the edge of the sink and recapping the Sharpie.