INTRUSION (Whitney Holmes Series)

INTRUSION

A novel by

Elaine Babich

Acclaim for the novels of Elaine Babich:

“Heartbreaking and touching. A powerful story of a teenager’s struggle with anorexia, told in a straight-forward and powerful way, without talking down to the reader and without being overly sentimental.
You Never Called Me Princess
is an honest look at what could happen when a young girl decides to lose weight at all costs. Should be mandatory reading for any parent who suspects their child might have an eating disorder. I believe the novel will show the reader that there are answers to their problems, and that they are not alone. Highly recommended. An important novel.”

—
J.R. Rain
, author of
Moon Dance
and
The Body Departed

“An intriguing debut and an excellent read. Gripping and touching, a story written from the heart. Elaine Babich has fashioned a story that many young girls could relate to. In the end we are left with a poignant glimpse into the beauty of family and the love of life and the wonder that connects us all.”

—
Summer Lee
, author of
Angel Heart
and
Kindred Spirits

“I loved this book and want to recommend it to teenage girls, especially. The heroine is likable, and one to whom YA readers will relate. High moral values, with exploration into body image and excellent life lessons, with no preachiness. Five stars!”

—
Eve Paludan
, author of
Letters from David
and
Taking Back Tara

“Elaine Babich has created such a vivid tale of teenage angst and redemption—one that will stay with me for a long time.”

—
Aiden James
, author of
The Vampires’ Last Lover
and
Plague of Coins

OTHER BOOKS BY ELAINE BABICH

THE KAITLYN CHRONICLES

You Never Called Me Princess

Relatively Normal

Falling Again

Jumping Down

KAITLYN’S SECRETS

Honeymoon with the Enemy

A Different Kind of Love

WHITNEY HOLMES SERIES

Intrusion

Like Touching the Sun

INTRUSION

Published by Elaine Babich

Copyright © 2013 by Elaine Babich

All rights reserved.

(Previously titled
Watching Annabelle.
)

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

I would like to thank my husband of nineteen years for putting up with a wife who gets up at three a.m. to write.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Eve Paludan for the wonderful editing job.

Intrusion

CHAPTER ONE

I was in my living room reading a book, which I did most of the time, when my little brother, Jacob, came running in the house. He was crying, he was dirty and his glasses were missing.

My mom came running from the kitchen she had been cooking dinner,“What in the world...?” she said.

“Some boys beat me up and took my basketball,” Jacob said, blubbering.

“
Where are your glasses?” my mother said.

“
Oh, yeah, and they broke my glasses,” Jacob said through his tears.

My mother sighed and I got off the couch, I walked over to them.

Jacob’s face was streaked with dirt and tears.

“
Who did this?” I asked angrily.

Jacob stopped crying, Eugene and his friends,” he said.

I was furious. Jacob had had trouble with Eugene before. Eugene was a bully and he was Jacob’s age, but was a head taller.

“
I am going down there,” I said.

“
No, you are not,” my mother said.

“
Why not?” I was eight years older than Jacob, who was seven.

“
Your father and I will handle this, Whitney,” she said grimly.

“
Where was Jordan during all this?” I asked. Jordan was my other little brother, who was nine.

“
I don’t know,” Jacob sniffled.

“
Go wash your face and we will have a nice dinner, then when your father gets home, we will go get your basketball,” my mom said, my father rarely ate dinner with us, he was an engineer for a major airline and he was very busy and worked long, odd hours.

This got Jacob’s attention, that Mom was going to wait for Dad and then collect his ball.

“How are you going to do that?” he asked.

“
We will just go to this Eugene’s house and get it,” my mom said.

“
I don’t know where he lives,” Jacob said.

“
You let your father and I worry about that,” she said.

“
Okay,” he said.

“
Now scoot! Go wash the tears and dirt from your face,” Mom said.

“
I think I know where Eugene lives. He is the little brother of a friend of mine at school. I went to her house once,” I said.

“
Then you can go with us,” she said.

I was glad, because I wanted to punch this guy, Eugene, in the face. I wouldn’t do it, though. I was too old to fight like that anymore, I used to go and fight with my brother’s tormentors until my freshman year, but I was a sophomore now and I needed to grow up.

Jordan came home and heard all about Jacob’s ordeal. He was angry, too.

We had dinner and then we waited for my father to get home, when my father got home, he heard all about Jacob while he ate his warmed-up dinner. He was angry,  I could tell. His face got sort of red and a vein stuck out in his forehead.

“Do you think you know where this Eugene lives?” he asked me.

“
I think so,” I said.

“
You and I are going over there. Your mother doesn’t need this stress,” he said.

“
Paul, I want to go,” my mother said.

“
If you want to go that is fine, Janet, but I think the boys should go, too. Jacob needs to identify the boy who broke his glasses and stole his basketball,” my father said.

Jacob looked terrified. “I don’t want to go,” he whined.

“You are going and that is it,” my father said.

We waited for my father to change his clothes, then we all walked out to the car. I was excited because I wanted to see what would happen.

The neighborhood where I directed my father to wasn’t as nice as ours. We lived in a neighborhood known as “the flower track.” All the trees bloomed with beautiful flowers in the spring. We were lucky enough to have purple flowers that got everywhere when they fell. I was the lucky one to sweep them up!

I located the house where I thought Trina lived. She was the girl who I was sure was Eugene’s sister.

Their house was sort of rundown, it needed painting, and the lawn hadn’t seen a lawnmower in months.

We all got out of the car and went to the door, we looked like an angry mob, and we were.  A woman answered the door after we knocked. She looked a little startled to see all of us at her door.

“Is your husband here?” my father asked. “I need to speak with him.”

“
We’re divorced,” the woman said. “What’s this about?”

“
Does a Eugene live here?” my father asked.

“
Yes, Eugene lives here. What has he done now?” she asked, exasperated.

“
I would like to talk to him if that is all right with you,” my father said.

“
Eugene!” she screamed.

The boy I knew as Eugene came sauntering to the door.

“Yeah?” he said, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops and angling a hip toward us.

“
This man wants to talk to you,” she said.

“
Did you break my son’s glasses and steal his basketball?” my father asked Eugene.

“
His name wasn’t on the basketball,” he said stupidly.

“
Did you break his glasses?” my father asked.

“
Yes,” Eugene said honestly.

“
Oh, Eugene,” his mother whined.

“
I expect you to pay for them,” my father said.

“
We don’t have any money,” his mother said.

“
Then I expect Eugene to work it off by doing my lawn and yours,” my father said.

“
We don’t have a lawnmower,” Eugene said.

“
We do,” my father said.

“
Oh,” Eugene said.

“
I want the basketball back now,” my father said.

Eugene left, and he came back with Jacob’s basketball and handed it to my dad.

“I expect you to be at my house tomorrow to do my lawn,” my father told him. The next day was Saturday.

“
I don’t know where you live.”

My father gave him the address, Eugene’s mother apologized and we left.

When we got in the car, I asked my dad if he thought Eugene would come over to do the lawn.

“
Probably not, but I think we scared him,” my father said.

“
Oh, Paul,” my mother said, laughing.

We all kind of smiled, I thought it served Eugene right if he was scared. I hated that bully for picking on Jacob.

It was springtime and the days were getting longer. It wasn’t quite dark when we arrived home.

Just as we pulled up into the driveway, I saw some guy in a black tee with a logo on it, black jeans and a ball cap. He was putting a pizza parlor flyer on our front doorknob. He had a stack of them in his hand.

“Hi,” I said, as I passed him and grabbed the flyer off our doorknob. He just kept walking away and looking down at the flyers in his hand.

I smiled when I saw the name of the place on the coupon. “We go there every Sunday!” I called after him, but he was already putting the door-hanger ad on Chanda’s, my best friend, house.

I gave my mom the pizza coupon and she put it in her purse.

I went to my room and finished reading my book. I was a speed reader. I could read a book in a day if I didn’t have school.

That evening, my mother came to my room to tuck me into bed. She still did this even though I was in high school.

“
I am proud of you that you didn’t say anything when we went to Eugene’s door,” she said.

“
I wanted to, but I think Dad handled it pretty well,” I said.

“
I should say so,” my mother said smiling.

“
Do you think he will show up to do our lawn?” I asked her.

“
I doubt it. Did you see his lawn? I don’t think he even knows how to use a lawnmower,” my mother said.

“
Well, he did say he didn’t own one,” I said.

“
That is true,” she said making me into a burrito by tucking all the sides of my blanket around me. I usually got hot in the night and tore the whole thing off of me, but it was the thought that counted. She kissed me goodnight and I fell asleep.

I was surprised to hear the sound of a lawnmower when I woke up. I was still in my pajamas and I went to the door.

There was Eugene and my father. My dad was showing him how to use our gas mower.

I was shocked to see that Eugene actually showed up maybe he wasn’t such a bad kid after all, for a bully.

I went back to bed and put a pillow over my head to muffle the sounds of the lawnmower.

I started thinking about Jordan and Jacob. Maybe because I was so much older, I had always had a feeling that I needed to take care of them. I remembered one time when we had a babysitter and Jordan had pooped his pants. The babysitter went into their room to change his diaper and all of a sudden, I heard her throwing up. I ran in there and she was vomiting in the diaper pail.

I told her to go to the bathroom and that I would take care of Jordan. I changed his diaper and then I threw the vomit down our other bathroom’s toilet and flushed a few times.

She begged me not to tell my mom but when she left, but I did. We never used her anymore for a babysitter. When I got old enough, I started babysitting, which was convenient for my parents and it helped me because they paid me to watch my own sweet little brothers.

Finally, I couldn’t stand the lawnmower noise anymore so I got up for breakfast. On Saturdays, we were lucky if there was any milk left in the fridge because that was shopping day. I lucked out that there was just enough milk to wet my Lucky Charms.

After I finished eating, I looked at the clock. It wasn’t too early to go over to my best friend’s house next door. Her name was Chanda and we were like sisters. I noticed if you had a next-door neighbor your age, you either hated each other or loved each other. I was lucky that Chanda was so nice, so we really were great friends.

Chanda and I even had the same birthday. We discovered it when we were five and both got brand-new bikes and were riding them around. Ever since then, we were best friends. She was my birthday twin and we always celebrated our birthdays together now.

I knocked on her door and asked her mother if she was awake yet. She said she didn’t know but told me to go on back to her bedroom and see.

I knocked politely at her door. I heard a muffled, sleepy voice, so I knew it would be okay to go in.

I walked in the door and Chanda was still under the covers with her pillow over her head.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I said.

She stuck her head out and said, “Tell me who cuts the lawn this early with a gas mower?”

“Oh, that is over at my house. Jacob had some trouble yesterday and my dad is punishing the punisher,” I said.

Chanda sat up.,“What happened?”

“Jacob came home yesterday with his glasses broken and his basketball stolen. It was that Eugene kid who did it, that bully who always bothers him,” I said.

“
Sheesh. Your dad is doing the lawn because of that?” she asked confused.

“
No, Eugene is doing our lawn,” I said, smiling.

“
How did that happen?” she asked.

“
Well, we all went to his house last night to talk to his mom. My dad told him to come over and do the lawn for payment for the glasses he broke,” I said.

“
Wow, your dad is cool,” she said.

“
Yeah, well, Eugene is supposed to do his own lawn, too,” I laughed.

“
Lawn mowing won’t pay for the glasses.”

“
No. My dad proved his point, though.”

“
That is funny,” she said, smiling.

“
Yep. Hey, get up and let’s take the bus to the mall. I want to see the new bathing suits they have out for summer,” I said.

“
Okay,” she said, hopping out of bed.

“
I will wait for you in the dining room while you dress.” We were good friends, but both of us were modest.

I went into the dining room and Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley were eating breakfast. There was a huge plate of scrambled eggs on the table and a plate of toast, there were plates on the side, and it looked good. My Lucky Charms hadn’t been that filling.