Shadow Girl (10 page)

She’d have to fight to hold on because her dreams were all she had.

In my mind, I can fly around the world or go to the moon. Fight dragons or monsters. Sail on the ocean in fabulous sailing ships, soar into the night sky without wings. I can go to planets no one has heard of or ever imagined, places with orange skies and yellow mountains that are inhabited by creatures no one has ever seen before. Wonderful places where I have wonderful adventures
.

In my mind, I can be an Olympic athlete, a millionaire. A knight, wizard, or sorcerer. A fighter, hero, or inventor. A princess or witch, a butterfly or bumblebee. I can speak any language, look like any person, live in any time. I can
conjure up fairies, trolls, giants, or any magical creature I want
.

In my mind, I’m smart and brave, able to save the world. I can lead armies, create fabulous music, imagine warm and cozy homes in places so beautiful it hurts just to look at them
.

In my mind, there are people who see me, Jules the person, and love me anyhow
.

O
n the twenty-eighth of December, the Saturday of Christmas week, Jules had another visit with her dad.

Hank gave him a ride over so he could bring bags of Jules’s clothes, most of her toys and books, her recorder, and her skates.

“I’m moving,” he said to Mrs. Chapman by way of explanation. He looked tired and thinner than usual.

Jules got angry when she saw an old doll peeking out of one of the bags, so angry that she grabbed the bag and – without saying anything to her father – ran upstairs.

He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Kids!”

Mrs. Chapman helped him carry up the rest of Jules’s stuff.

“Boy, isn’t this nice?” he said, looking around the room.

Jules couldn’t look at him.

I want to scream!

“I wouldn’t have brought everything all at once like this, but I’ve got no room where I’m staying.”

They went downstairs again, and Mrs. Chapman prepared coffee as Jules and her dad sat in the living room.

“Seems like a nice lady.”

I’m not going to talk to you. You never understand me
.

“Knock it off, Jules. I’m not going to put up with one of your lousy moods. I’m going through a rough time, and the sooner you get that, the better.”

Jules held her breath.

“So, Christmas dinner was good?”

She nodded and stared at the floor.

“Dammit!” he said, raising his voice. “I’m leaving this minute if you don’t talk to me!”

He wins. He always does
.

He stayed for only an hour, promising as he left that their next visit would be better.

It was harder than ever for Jules to know what to do with herself when Christmas and Boxing Day were over. Marilyn and Veronica had a lot of friends, and they either went out or invited them to the house and hung out in their room.

Jules helped with the chores, watched TV, or stayed in the room her things were in. Mrs. Chapman complained to Jules that she was underfoot too much.

“It’s not good to stay in here all day,” she said one morning. “You should be going out. Don’t you have
any
friends?”

I can’t face the kids I know. I’d be a stranger to them
.

“I’ll have to tell Eileen that all you do is mope around.”

What should I do? Where should I go?

She worked up the courage to phone Patsy.

“Where were you, Jules? I’ve been phoning your place like crazy.”

“Dad and I weren’t home a lot.”

“Boy, I thought you were really sick or something.”

“Nah.”

Jules didn’t want to talk over the phone and asked Patsy if she could go over to her house. Patsy had to babysit, but as long as they included her brother in whatever they did, it’d be okay.

Jules got permission to go, gave Patsy’s telephone number and address to Mrs. Chapman, and took off. She felt freer than she’d felt in a long time, though she had a big knot in her stomach at the thought of facing Patsy.

“So where were you?”

It took everything in her to tell Patsy the truth.

Patsy tried to keep the shock and worry out of her face. She was never very good at hiding her feelings, though. “That’s awful, Jules.”

Awful doesn’t come close
.

“But they found your dad. Why can’t they let you go back?”

“Parents get into trouble for going off and leaving their kids.”

Jules didn’t want to talk about the drinking and some of the more terrible things that had happened. It was too much to tell anybody.

And no one in the world would have found out if I hadn’t been weak and stupid
.

“Eileen, the social worker, told me she went to court to ask a judge to allow them to take me … away from my dad. And now he has to go there and do what they say to get me back.” She couldn’t tell Patsy they’d been kicked out of their home. “Besides, he’s not working right now, and he has to get a job.”

Patsy didn’t say anything for a while. They were sitting on the bed in her room, the one she shared with her sister. She looked at Jules, then down at the bedspread and began picking at some of the fraying threads like she was trying to yank them out.

It’s one thing to be scared. It’s another when your best friend is scared for you
.

“Gee. Over Christmas, Jules. And you gotta stay with people you don’t even know.”

Strange how Patsy’s the only one who speaks the truth
.

F
oster
.

Jules knew the word but wondered why it was used to describe what she was, what Mr. and Mrs. Chapman were. She looked it up in an old dictionary she found in the Chapman basement. “Foster: to bring up or nurse; to encourage, to promote; to cherish.”

Cherish
.

Jules spent a long time in the bathroom the first morning of school after the holidays, searching her face, trying to figure out if what had happened to her – what she was – showed. It was January 6, the day of the Epiphany.

My face is pale, colorless, as always. My eyes look as if they’re bulging out of my head, like my soul is trying to escape my body. If I keep my eyes down, maybe they won’t notice
.

“Jules, you’re old enough to make your own lunch,” Mrs. Chapman told her when she got downstairs. “I have enough to do. I’ve left out what I want you to have.”

Bread and bologna. Ha!

When she got to class, Mrs. Fournier gave her a knowing look.

Shut up. If you say anything, I’ll kill you
.

None of the kids in her class acted differently toward her. Yet. It was good being back at school, though. She didn’t expect to feel that. She could pretend she was normal for at least part of the day.

Jules asked Patsy if she wanted to come over to the Chapmans’ after school. Having Patsy inside that house with her might be good. Her old regular life could soften the new, and she might not feel so out of place.

“Nice house,” Patsy said as they walked around to the back door.

“I guess.”

It felt pretty bare inside after all the Christmas decorations were put away. The furniture wasn’t old or run-down, but there wasn’t much of it. Mrs. Chapman was always complaining about how she needed a new this or that – washing machine, car, clothes for the girls. Mr. Chapman said they’d be able to afford a whole lot more if their kids didn’t have to go to a private Catholic school.

Mrs. Chapman said he was welcome to pull them out, but it would have to be over her dead body.
“They’re going to be raised properly, to be ladies, if it takes every last penny we’ve got!”

Mr. Chapman dressed like a businessman, and Jules thought every businessman had money, but maybe the insurance company he worked for wasn’t successful.

The Chapman family really was like the families her dad talked about, the ones who had fancy-looking houses on the outside but ate Kraft Dinner every night on the inside.

Jules and Patsy found Mrs. Chapman in the living room, watching TV. A soap opera.

“This is Patsy, my friend.”

“Oh. Hi there,” Mrs. Chapman said without looking away from the screen.

“Can she stay over and play?”

Mrs. Chapman looked as if she’d just been zapped by a monster mosquito. “Well, Jules, you know what I told you. You should check with me first.”

That’s what I’m doing
.

“I like to know ahead of time.”

“It’s okay,” Patsy said quickly.

Mrs. Chapman looked at Patsy. “Some other day.”

“Can I show her the room?”

“Of course.”

There wasn’t much to see. Patsy stayed only a few minutes.

As soon as the front door closed, Mrs. Chapman called out from the living room, “Now get yourself changed and start your homework – if you have any.”

Jules was starving. “Could I have a sandwich or maybe an orange?”

“We’re going to have dinner soon. I don’t want you to spoil your appetite.”

Jules went up to the room and made her fort.

What can I imagine? It’s white all around me. I’m in a snow castle, standing on a battlement, a knight looking below to where the enemy troops gather.…

Thump!

“What’s that noise? What’s going on up there?” Mrs. Chapman yelled from downstairs.

Jules picked herself up off the floor, went into the hallway, and leaned over the banister so that Mrs. Chapman could see her. “I was sleeping. Fell out of bed.”

Had my nightmare again
.

“For heaven’s sake, Jules! What a lot of noise you made. And look at you. Haven’t even changed out of your uniform. Please get it off.” Mrs. Chapman turned her attention back to the TV.

When the girls got home, Jules heard them turn on “American Bandstand.” She forced herself to go downstairs. Marilyn had brought a friend home.

I wonder if she has permission
.

They all said hi when Jules came into the living room and sat down.

“This is Jules,” Marilyn said. “One of our foster kids.”

“How many do you have?”

“Just her. But we always have one or two around.”

“Oh.”

Jules felt her face get hot.

“She’s at Our Lady of Peace. Grade 7.”

“How was it? Today at school?” Jules threw the question out into the room, hoping either Marilyn or Veronica would pick it up.

Veronica didn’t. She kept her head stuck in a
Seventeen
magazine.

“The usual,” Marilyn replied and began talking to her friend about volleyball practice.

When “American Bandstand” was over, the three of them left Jules and went upstairs.

“Jules had a nightmare today. Screamed blue murder and fell out of bed,” Mrs. Chapman said, laughing, as they ate dinner. “Gave me quite a shock.”

“Oh,” Mr. Chapman said. He looked at Jules as if she were one of the blocks of wood in his basement workshop.

“I’d have nightmares too if my father –”

“Veronica!”

“Well …?”

“Jules just had a bad dream, didn’t you?” Mrs. Chapman said.

Jules hung her head over her plate.

That night, she couldn’t calm herself down. The rocking chair was near the window. She could have turned it sideways so that she’d be able to sit and look out, but Jules hated rocking chairs. When you
sat in one, you had to move back and forth, unless you used your legs and feet to keep the chair still. But that wasn’t relaxing.

She preferred to rock her body to her own rhythm, wrapping her arms around her ribcage and holding on.

Taking a blanket from the bed, she sat on the floor in front of the window. The window was too high for her to see outside very well, unless she knelt by the sill, but she could still see parts of the sky.

The moon might be there. Stars or clouds. But outside it’s dark. That’s all that matters. I’ll send my thoughts out of me, set them against the night sky, and try to leave them there
.

It was possible to do. It had always been possible to do.

J
anuary 18. Saturday. Jules waited for her dad.

She didn’t have a watch. She didn’t need one to know when he was supposed to show up. She’d been downstairs in the kitchen, sitting by herself, but she’d had to come up because her thoughts were crashing against the walls.

The phone rang.

“Jules, Jules, it’s your dad,” Mrs. Chapman called up from the kitchen. “He wants to talk to you.” She came downstairs slowly and took the phone. “Hi, honey.”

“Hi.”

“Uh, I’m sorry, Jules. Tracie and I were supposed to get a lift with Hank, but he never showed up. Too late to get there now. But I promise I’ll be there next week.”

“Okay.”

“So, what’re you going to do today?”

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing
.

“Probably play at Patsy’s or Teresa’s.”

“Good. That’s good. Okay. Have a nice time, and we’ll see you next week. We’ll have fun.”

“Yeah.”

I’m not going to let you hang up yet
.

“Dad … you went to court, Eileen said.”

“Yeah.”

“She said I’m a ward, in the care of Children’s Aid for three months.”

He sighed into the phone. “Not even that, you know. It’s temporary, just for now. Until I get myself sorted out. So don’t worry about it one bit. We can talk about it when we meet up.”

“I miss you, Dad.”

“Miss you, too, Jules. Gotta go. Bye.”

Jules couldn’t say good-bye, couldn’t look at Mrs. Chapman as she hung up the phone.

My chest and stomach hurt. If I have to stay here the whole afternoon, I’ll go crazy. The plaza. I’ll go to the plaza
.

Mrs. Chapman gave her permission to go, plus fifty cents spending money.

She headed out into the cold.

A part of Jules wanted to be angry with Mrs. Adamson – for all time. But another part knew that Mrs. Adamson hadn’t meant to make her life miserable.

As Jules pushed the door open to Zellers, her heart beat faster. She felt as if all the employees were staring at her. She kept her head down. She could get to where she wanted to go without looking up.