Imperfect Spiral (33 page)

“Touch,” he said. “Underneath.”

It was soft. Soft and smooth and vulnerable. It made me think of Humphrey's chest when he got run over by the bicycle.

“Isn't it so, so, so soft?” he whispered. “It almost gives me tears.”

“Almost,” I said.

“Now it's the
triple
-greatest day of my life,” he said.

“A trifecta,” I said.

“Yup,” he said. “It's a trifecta.”

I can't imagine that he knew that word, but he didn't really need to. He caught my drift.

“A try-my-pie-die-why-bye-bye-
fecta
!” he said.

He pretty much always did catch my drift.

“Yup, it's the greatest trifecta of my life,” he said.

Humphrey gently set the frog down. Then we set out for home, and Second Dessert.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but making a book takes collaborators, and I'm grateful for mine. Many thanks to Caryn Wiseman for loving Danielle and Humphrey and launching them into the publishing world; Stacy Cantor Abrams for receiving this story so warmly; and Mary Kate Castellani for fearless yet sensitive editing. Pam Bachorz, Adam Meyer, Deborah Schaumberg, and Jon Skovron gave me writerly encouragement in the important early stages, for which I thank them. Finally, loving thanks to Rick Hoffman and Ben Hoffman for reading many drafts of this book—but, if they are to be believed, and I choose to believe them, never too many for them.

Imperfect Spiral
is woven mostly around themes concerning friendship, fear, courage, connection, and heartbreak. There's also a thread relating to immigration—a topic that claims a special place in my heart and life, probably because I'm the daughter of a refugee whose family struggled to gain entry to the United States in the face of restrictive immigration rules.

Meigs County, the setting of this book, is a fictional place. Fictional, too, are the proposed county and state laws targeting undocumented (or “illegal”) immigrants that the story mentions. However, some states and communities have adopted laws like these in an effort to push out undocumented immigrants. Such laws might order local police to check the immigration status of people they stop, or deny driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on
the question of what actions states are allowed to take, but the answer to this question continues to evolve.

At the broader national level, policies on illegal immigration are also always evolving. The usual tools for addressing the issue include control of the nation's borders, arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants, and punishing U.S. companies that hire them. On a few extraordinary occasions, the national government has also taken a very different approach, offering some undocumented immigrants a reprieve from the threat of deportation and a chance at citizenship. The favored groups have included farm workers, immigrants who were in the United States for a certain period of time or as of a certain date, and young adults who had been brought to the United States as children. This happened during the administration of President Ronald Reagan and also during President Barack Obama's administration.
Imperfect Spiral
, however, reflects the far more typical situation for undocumented immigrants, in which there is no special program to help them.

Illegal immigration is a topic that often incites heated discussion. Reasonable people can disagree about the issues. I'm always hopeful that those who formulate immigration policy, as well as those who simply debate it, are mindful that it's
people
we're talking about here—even if the immigration laws insist on referring to anyone who isn't a citizen or a national of the United States as an “alien.”

Please visit my website,
www.debbielevybooks.com
, for links to places where you can read more about immigration issues.

Copyright © 2013 by Debbie Levy

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in July 2013
by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
E-book edition published in 2013
www.bloomsbury.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Walker BFYR, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018 Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at
[email protected]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levy, Debbie.
Imperfect spiral / Debbie Levy.
pages     cm
Summary: When a teenaged girl's babysitting charge is killed in a car accident while in her care, she must come to terms with the aftermath of the tragedy and her community's search for someone to blame.
[1. Traffic accidents—Fiction. 2. Babysitters—Fiction. 3. Blame—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L58258Im 2013     [Fic]—dc23     2012027329

ISBN: 978-0-8027-3442-6 (e-book)