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Home Free

A Gutsy Girl Book

SHARON JENNINGS

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Jennings, Sharon
Home free / by Sharon Jennings.

(The gutsy girl series)
ISBN 978-1-897187-55-5

I. Tide. II. Series: Gutsy girl series
PS8569.E563 H64 2009     jC813'.54     C2009-900730-4

Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Jennings

Edited by Doris Rawson
Designed by Melissa Kaita
Cover by Gillian Newland

Printed and bound in Canada

Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
.

Published by
S
ECOND
S
TORY
P
RESS
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, ON M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca

For Nancy Meloshe, my redhead

I am in the Writing Club at school. I didn't think I'd ever get to be in the Writing Club, but I can't tell you why because that's part of my story.

Now that it's November, Miss Gowdy says it's time to write something long. A book, Miss Gowdy said. She said it can be about something that happened to us. Or we can make it up. Or we can do a little of both, which is what lots of writers do, Miss Gowdy says. They embellish the truth a little to make it better or maybe a little worse. My mother said writers tell lies. But I like the word
embellish
. It sounds like what you do with icing on a plain old white cake.

I am going to tell a story about me, and I think I'll embellish it a bit but I won't tell where. I am also going
to tell some things that I'll probably get in trouble for, but Miss Gowdy says lots of writers get in trouble and it's an honorable thing. Miss Gowdy says some writers even go to jail. I hope I don't have to go to jail, but I'll probably get sent to my room.

I asked Miss Gowdy where I should start my story and she said at the beginning, but she didn't mean when I was born. She said not to confuse my story with my life.

I thought my story, not my life, started with meeting Cassandra this past summer, but then I realized it started when I first heard about Cassandra last June. So I backed it up a bit more, and I put in the part about peeing my pants by accident, even though I will probably get in trouble for telling that. But Miss Gowdy says writers have to look for patterns, and I seem to have a pattern of peeing by accident, with or without my pants on. Now I am jumping ahead, something else Miss Gowdy warned us about.

Miss Gowdy also says I should stop writing my Author's Note and just start the author part.

I was two blocks from home and I knew I wasn't going to make it. I started to run, but the jiggling made it worse. I squeezed as hard as I could, but then I was walking like Frankenstein's monster.
Hur-ry hur-ry hur-ry
, I thought over and over until I was up the steps and at my front door.

It was locked.

Pee trickled down my legs. I couldn't stop it. I just couldn't squeeze anymore. I stared at my shoes and was surprised at how slowly the puddle was forming. When you squeeze really hard for so long, pee doesn't gush, I found out.

My mother opened the door. She looked at me and then
she saw the puddle and then she looked like she was eating a wormy apple.

“What on earth …” she said.

I toed off my runners and peeled off my socks, using only one finger, and I even took off my shorts, but not my underpants. Mom held the door open and said to go wash.

At the bathroom, I turned around. “Don't tell anyone.”

“And why would I want to tell anyone an eleven-year-old girl pees her pants?”

“Please promise. Don't tell anybody.”

“I promise,” she said.

But when I came out of the bathroom, I heard her on the phone. I heard her say, “What a mess.”

I felt something click inside me, like when the shutter closes in a camera. I got to the kitchen just as Mom hung up the phone.

“So what happened to you?” She put my lunch down in front of me.

“Mr. Morgan shooed us all out fast, and I had to go since recess. I thought I could hold it.”

“Why didn't you go after recess?”

“We had the test,” I reminded her. But I could tell that only reminded her about the math test we'd had the day before.

“And what about the math test?” she asked, just like I knew she would. “Did you get it back?”

I nodded.

“And?”

“And I got ninety-three.”

“Ninety-three,” she repeated. I knew there was more. I waited.

“Did you get the highest mark?”

I took a big bite of sandwich, just so I didn't have to answer. Just so I could keep her waiting. I swallowed and shook my head. “No.”

“So who got the highest mark?”

This was really silly because my mother knew if it wasn't me then it was my future husband-to-be, David. So I lied. “Debbie,” I said, and took a big gulp of milk.

“Debbie?” my mother asked. “Debbie Oldman?” The shock on her face was so funny I choked, and milk came out my nose.

Mother crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “You're telling stories!” she said. “Debbie Oldman never gets anything but Cs. What's going on here, Lee? You pee your pants like a baby, and now you're lying.”

“You lied, too,” I blurted.

“I beg your pardon?” But she didn't mean she hadn't heard me. When my mother says “I beg your pardon,” I know I'm in trouble.

“You told someone about me peeing. I heard you say, ‘What a mess'.”

“For your information, Miss Nosy, I was talking to Mrs. Fergus about something else.”

“What?” I asked, not believing her. “What else is a mess?”

My mother just sniffed. My mother sniffs a lot when she's about to say something about somebody, and she thinks she's better than the somebody she's going to say something about.

Sniff
.

“Mrs. Fergus is letting her cousin's daughter stay with her this coming summer.”

“What's so messy about that?” I wanted to know.

“The girl's parents are dead. She's been living with someone else, and it hasn't worked out.”

It took me a minute to follow all this. Then I shouted, “She's an orphan!”

“Lee! What a thing to say.”

“But she is. How old is she?”

“Your age.”

This was the best day of my life! Or maybe the second-best day. The best day would be when I met the orphan. An orphan my age moving in next door was beyond my wildest aspirations!

“Lee! Answer me when I speak to you.”

I heard my mother, but I didn't
hear
her. “What?”

“Pardon.”

“What?”

“Lee. A young lady says ‘pardon.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, you didn't answer my question. Who beat you on the test?”

“David. He got ninety-eight. I came second.”

“Second. He beat you by five marks.”

I didn't answer.

My mother sighed. “Well, let's hope you did better on today's test.”

“Today was composition. I always get the highest mark.”

“Lee. You know that pride goeth before a fall.”

“But it's not pride. It's the truth. I always get the highest mark on composition. And that's because when I grow up I'm going to be …” But I saw the look in my mother's eyes. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“The highest mark for making things up. Don't go getting a swelled head about that.”

She smiled as she turned away, and I knew she would brag about my marks to Mrs. Petovsky, who would then brag back about Linda's end-of-year piano recital. I had overheard them before, usually at night, when I could hide in my secret spot. They didn't know I was there in the
bushes, and they said all kinds of things that I just knew I wasn't supposed to hear. They'd lean on the fence after the supper dishes were done and compare notes on the day. Mostly they talked about us kids. And the other moms, of course. (And especially so-called Mrs. Harris.)

But I am digressing, which is wrong, but Miss Gowdy says writers digress all the time, so I think that must mean I'm a writer.

“What does
digress
mean?” I asked her. (Miss Gowdy that is.)

“It means you've wandered off from your main point,” she said.

So my main point right now in
Chapter 1
is the orphan.

“What's the orphan's name?” I asked my mother.

Sniff
. “Cassandra Jovanovich.”
Sniff
.

Two sniffs! My mother really did not like all this for some reason. I wanted to find out why.

I hurried back to school that day. I had to tell everyone about the orphan, Cassandra Jovanovich.

They were playing yogi.

And Kathy was with them.

It was her turn and she was at waist. She was so busy yelling at the enders that maybe she didn't see me. I backed up a foot, then another foot, then another foot, and then she turned around. I know she saw me, but it was as if she didn't see me. She just looked right through me like I wasn't there.

She turned away and said something, but I couldn't hear her. Then the others laughed and looked over at me.

Nancy waved and yelled, “Lee, come on. Take a turn.”
She held up her arm and pulled on the elastic just as Kathy jumped. Which made Kathy touch. Which made Kathy furious.

“Doesn't count! Doesn't count!” she shouted.

Now I was visible. All of a sudden, Kathy could see me. She came right up to me with her fists on her hips. “What are you staring at? You did that on purpose! Made me touch!”

Then she pushed me. The others came running over. “Leave her alone, Kathy,” Susan said. “She didn't do anything.”