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)
Nancy Spaulding made sure to avail herself of all kinds of charity clothing drives where people bought brand new clothing for poor and foster kids. But she always saved what she got and let Alexis pick it over first. Since we were the same size, I only got what “Princess Alexis” didn’t want. It was enough to keep me from looking homeless, but that was about it.
Of course, I still had some mean girl problems—mostly from girls like Josie Myers, the head cheerleader—who were jealous of all the attention I got from Nick. But on the whole, I was left largely alone, despite the fact that I was shy and different and a foster kind.
I was lucky to have Nick’s protection and I knew it. Whenever anyone tried to pick on me for being weird or different, he was right there defending me. It made high school—which could have been a complete shit show—actually bearable. Especially when you compared it with my daily life at the Spauldings house.
But even there, Nick protected me as much as he could. Though I knew he hated the Spauldings as much as I did, he somehow made Nancy and Gary Spaulding like him. His easy charm was on full display when he deflected Nancy’s wrath from me for ironing something wrong or using too much detergent or not cleaning every speck of lint out of the lint trap or any of the hundred other things that might set her off.
He even managed to get a little more food for us at dinner times, which was a relief since we all felt like we were half starving all of the time. He did such a good job with the lawn that Gary praised him to the skies and he never spent a single night in the box.
Part of this was Nick’s natural charm and part of it was the fact that he’d been in the foster system longer than me and in much rougher homes. Most kids in that situation grow a hard shell around their heart and learn early how to defend themselves. Though Nick was big and muscular for his age, he never used his fists unless there was no other way. Instead, he seemed to have a golden tongue and was able to talk his way out of almost any situation.
After he came to the Spauldings house, things got easier for me and I stopped thinking of suicide. We spent time talking every night and growing closer. Other foster kids came and went. Minh, to my sorrow, was sent to another family and replaced with another girl who was given the maid duties. But as long as Nick and I were together, I felt safe. And though I could see that he only considered me his little sister, I couldn’t help feeling more for him.
To be honest, I was getting quite a crush on my “big brother” though I was afraid to admit it to anyone, especially Nick himself. I was extremely careful to just be his “little sister” and my secret might never have come out if my body hadn’t finally started changing…
FOURTEEN
A lot of things changed for me at the beginning of my Junior year of high school—not all of them good.
I got promoted to First Chair piccolo for one thing and Nick, who was a Senior that year, became the starting quarterback of the football team. That was also the year the school district got more money and the district was re-ordered. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but what it meant was that we had some away games on our schedule that were overnight stays.
I loved those nights, loved riding the bus with my band nerd buddies and knowing that after the game Nick and I could hang out and be ourselves, away from the prying eyes of the merciless Spauldings. It felt like a breath of fresh air, knowing we were going to be free of their awful house, even if it was just for the night.
Again, the Spauldings would have liked to deny us these pleasures. But by then, Nick was getting famous for his football prowess. There was even an article about him in the Wolverton Gazette, focusing on the fact that he had overcome so much, being a foster kid, and was headed for great things in the future. Nancy and Gary were mentioned in the article as the “loving, supportive foster parents.” The reporter even threw in a line about me excelling in band as an afterthought.
After that, of course they couldn’t say a thing. If they suddenly forbid us to go to the away games, the football coach and my band teacher would have wanted to know why. And what could they reasonably say? “We want to keep them home to clean our house and wash our cars and mow our lawns?” That wouldn’t fly, of course, so they had to grit their teeth and bear it.