Something Girl (6 page)

She came over to my bed. “You’re not mad at me, are you, Froggy?” she asked.

“No,” I smiled and took her hand.

Chapter Eleven

Ms. Lee took my mom to a women’s shelter. Over the next few days, they both visited me. The police came and helped me fill out a report about the assault. Jujube visited in the evenings because she wasn’t allowed to skip any more classes. She was mad about this, but I told her school was good for her. She had her future to think about.

My mom told me about the shelter. She said the windows were made of bulletproof
glass, and the doors had huge locks and chains on them. She said the place was full of women and children, and she had a lot of people to talk to. It surprised her that there were so many other women with the same problem.

For the first time in my life, I stopped worrying about my mom. I didn’t even have to worry about myself. The hospital wouldn’t let my dad come near me. My mom had a restraining order from the police, which meant he couldn’t come near either of us. He couldn’t even call us on the phone. At first I was surprised people believed what my mom and I said about my dad. He was such a good talker, everyone had always believed him. But Ms. Lee and the police and the hospital just took over and kept my dad away.

The police showed me some pictures they’d taken the night the ambulance brought me to the hospital. I was still out of it then, so I didn’t know about them. When I saw the bruises in the pictures, it made me think of my
dad. I felt as if he was standing right beside me, staring at me with his black eyes.

One of the cops smiled at me. “Your father has been charged, Sophie. The restraining order means he has to stay away from you and your mother. The trial will be in a few months.”

For a minute I felt dumb. The cop could tell I was scared, just like a little kid. She must have thought I was stupid.
Stupid, no good, nothing girl
.

But the cop didn’t look as if she thought I was stupid. She smiled as if she liked me, and then she went on talking. She said they wanted me to be a witness at the trial. Ms. Lee and a lawyer would help me get ready for it.

At night, when I was alone, I had nightmares about my dad and woke up crying. But during the day I stopped feeling as if he was waiting around every corner. I think my mom felt safer too. She stood straighter when she came to visit. She didn’t look at
the ground as much, and sometimes she even smiled.

After a few days, the doctors took the brace off my back. I could sit up and feed myself. This was a relief, because Jujube had started to play games when she fed me. She would say, “The aliens told me to give you this message.” Then she would dribble gravy on my face and start laughing. Sometimes she could be such a pain, but then, she was only twelve.

The day after I got my brace off, Ms. Lee walked into my room with my mom. They brought chairs over to my bed. I could see this meant a long talk, and I started to get nervous. I remembered Ms. Lee saying, “We need to talk about that and a few other things.”

What other things?

Ms. Lee and my mom looked at each other. Then Ms. Lee said, “Sophie, your mother has been hurt quite badly by your father. Not only in her body. Your father also hurt your mother in the way she thinks and feels about life. This takes a long time to heal.”

I looked back and forth between them, wondering what was coming next. My mom didn’t look at me. She stared out the window, like old times. All of a sudden I got a crazy thought. I thought,
She’s going back to my dad. We’re moving back with my dad
.

But then my mom looked at me. She had so much love and worry in her eyes, and it was all for me. I knew it wouldn’t happen then — she wouldn’t go back to my dad.

My mom took my hand and said, “Sophie, this is just for a while — about four months or so. I’m going into a treatment program for people who have problems … drinking problems. It’s here in Edmonton, so I can call and visit you a lot. And I’m going back to school so I can get a better job. Then I can support the two of us.”

My head was spinning and spinning. I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. She was going into a treatment program for drinking? Was I going into the program with her? But she hadn’t said anything about me.
Did that mean I was going somewhere else? But where? Back to my dad?
Was I going back to my dad?

“Sophie,” my mom said, “you’re going to live in a group home for a while. Not forever — just four months, until I get things together.”

I stared at her. A group home? She was sending me to live in a group home? But I didn’t know anyone there. It would be full of freaks and weirdos. They might be worse than my dad. And no one would want to be friends with me if I lived in a group home.

“You’ll get help at the group home too, Sophie,” Ms. Lee said.

I got so mad at her then, I wanted to slug her. I wished she would just shut her mouth. She was the one who put this idea into my mom’s head, I was sure of it. My mom and I were okay by ourselves. We didn’t need anyone’s help.

But Ms. Lee just kept on talking. “Your mother hasn’t been able to give you the time
or the help she wants to, Sophie,” she said. “You need time to figure out how you feel about things. The group home staff will be able to help you with that.”

I figured this was an insult. “You’re saying I’ve got problems?” I asked.

Ms. Lee looked me straight in the eye. “You have things to work out,” she said. “You’re still on probation, and you’ll continue to visit me every two weeks. You’re behind in school and you need extra help there. And the group home staff can help you when you go to court.”

“I don’t need help,” I muttered.

Ms. Lee shook her head. “Living in a group home can be fun, Sophie. You go swimming and camping. There are other kids living there that you can get to know.”

“They’re probably all nutcases,” I said.

Ms. Lee looked a little angry. “They’re just kids like you,” she said.

This didn’t make me feel any better. “I want to live with my mom,” I said. I stared
at her, trying to make her change her mind just by looking at her.

But it didn’t work. My mom just turned her head and stared out the window. “You will live with me, Sophie,” she said. “In a while. Four months isn’t so long, is it?”

She started to cry. Well, that did it. I didn’t want to cause her any trouble, so I shut up. It didn’t matter what I thought anyway. It was all decided.

After they left, I lay in my bed and stared out the window. It felt like the end of the world, as if everything important had just gotten up and walked away from me. First, I’d been dumb enough to get beat up, so I’d lost my dad. And now I was losing my mom. All that was left was me — a stupid, no good, nothing girl.

That night, Jujube brought Rick to visit. At first I didn’t know where to look. There I was, sitting in my bed in a dumb hospital gown. I’d been crying, so my eyes were red, and I didn’t have any makeup on. I must have looked gross.

Jujube sat on the side of my bed and looked back and forth between Rick and me. She grinned like a cat when I told them about the group home.

“I’ll phone you every day,” she said. “I’ll come visit you.”

“You’re not worried about the weirdos I’ll be living with?” I asked. Then I remembered Rick had a friend who was living in a group home. He would probably hate me for saying something like that. I stared down at my hands, hoping he wouldn’t get mad.

He didn’t sound mad. He just said, “You’re going to a group home because your dad beat you, not because you’re killing people in shopping malls.”

“I guess,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “Maybe you’ll end up at the same one Bert’s living in.”

This made me kind of laugh. I looked at him quickly and he grinned at me. “Then I could visit you both at the same time,” he said.

This really made me laugh. I was kind of nervous, but Rick and Jujube laughed too, so I didn’t feel too stupid. Suddenly words started coming out of me again — the truth, like it had with Ms. Lee and my mom.

“I guess I think maybe my mom’s going crazy,” I said. I started to cry again. Here I’d just been laughing, and a minute later I was crying. But I couldn’t help it. “It’s because of everything that’s happened,” I said. “It’s making my mom go crazy, but she won’t tell me. Ms. Lee won’t tell me either.”

There was a moment of silence, so quiet it almost hurt. Then Jujube said, “So what if she is for a while? She’s trying to get better, isn’t she? Just give her a chance.”

“I guess,” I said, staring at my hands. “But I’m scared. What if she really goes off the deep end? Then I’d have to go live with my dad.”

“No way!” said Jujube, jumping up. “Never ever EVER!” Her green eye was really green.

“That wouldn’t happen,” said Rick. “Just ask Ms. Lee. She’ll tell you.”

“I guess,” I said again. “But it’s more than my mom. Nothing’s the same now. Everything’s different. And I’ve got to go live in a group home with people I don’t know. It feels like I’m moving to outer space. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I wanted my dad to stop hitting me, but I didn’t want the rest of it.”

For a long minute, Jujube and Rick just looked at me. Then Jujube said, “Not everything is different. I’m not different, and I’m still your friend. I’ll come visit you no matter where you live. So will your mom, Froggy. You’ll see.”

“Not Froggy,” Rick told her quietly. “Her name’s Sophie.” He looked at me and said, “I’ll visit you too, Sophie.”

I started to go red and looked away.
No you won’t
, I thought. But I didn’t say it.

“I guess,” I said. “I just wish things were okay with my dad and none of this had happened.”

“But it
did
happen,” Jujube said loudly. “And now things have to change so it won’t happen again.”

When she said this, a bright clear feeling went through me and I understood what she meant. Because she was right. Something
had
happened that had changed things for good. There was no point in wishing it hadn’t happened, or trying to cover it up. But I still had my mom and Jujube, and I still had me. Me — the stupid, no good, nothing girl.

No
, I thought.
The something girl. SomeONE
.

I took a deep breath.
Okay
, I thought.
I’m someone, and I’m moving to a group home. Not to outer space, and not to the end of the earth. It’s just a home with other kids like me
.

I looked at Jujube and smiled— a little smile, but it counted.

“I guess,” I said.

Chapter Twelve

Ms. Lee’s car pulled up to the curb and parked. I looked out the window at the group home. It didn’t look weird. There was a garage and a tree, and a teenage girl sitting on the front steps. Not exactly outer space, I guess.

We got out of the car and walked up to the house. Ms. Lee was on one side of me, my mom on the other.

“Hi,” said the girl on the steps. “You the new girl?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Awesome,” she said. “I’m Helen.” She grinned, then got up and opened the front door. “I’ll tell staff you’re here.”

We followed her into the house. Inside, there was noise coming from everywhere. A stereo was playing, girls were talking, and I could hear someone running down some stairs. This was completely different from my house. For a second I got scared and looked at my mom. She looked nervous too.

But then I thought,
No more having to be quiet all the time. Quiet and hiding and listening for my dad’s footsteps so I know where he is
. When I thought this, I felt a soft peace fill me, even in the middle of all that noise.

Helen stuck her head out of a doorway down the hall. “This way,” she called. “The office is in here.”

We went into the office and met a staff named Rick.
Rick
, I thought.
I like that name
. This cheered me up, even if it wasn’t the Rick I wanted. We sat in the office, and Rick explained the group home rules. Then he showed me around the house. I met the other girls and another staff named Brenda, who was cooking supper.

Then Ms. Lee and my mom had to go. I walked them to the car and watched as they got in. My mom rolled down her window and looked at me. She tried to smile.

“It seems nice,” she said. “You’ll be all right here, hon. I promise I’ll visit and call a lot.”

I tried to smile back. “Yeah,” I said. “You’d better. Or I might forget all about you.”

I was trying to make a joke, and I think my mom could tell. She reached out the window and took my hand. “No you won’t,” she said. “Promise?”

I smiled — a little one, but it counted. “All right,” I said. “I promise to call you too.”

I watched them drive away, then went back to the house. Helen was waiting on the steps and we talked for a while. She’d lived in the group home for three months, so she knew how to explain things. While I listened, I thought,
She seems pretty normal
. Maybe a bit tough — she had a couple of tattoos, but she wasn’t a freak or a weirdo.

After talking to Helen, I went to my new bedroom and unpacked the clothes Ms. Lee had bought me. Then I sat on my bed and listened to the noise going on in the rest of the house. How was I ever going to get used to it — all that laughing and talking, and the stereo playing so loud? When Helen called me for supper, I just sat and watched the other girls joke with staff. There were five girls and two staff, so there was a lot of talking. Then we all had to do chores. I helped Helen with the dishes. This was when I noticed the chore chart on the kitchen wall. My name was already on it, every day of the week.

“Just like home, eh?” Helen said.

“I guess,” I said.

After supper we watched a video, and then I went to my room and finished unpacking. Soon it was time for lights out. I lay in the dark, listening to the house go quiet. Everything felt strange. I was lying in a strange bed in a strange darkness. Because I couldn’t see anything, it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. Without my mom and dad I was nowhere, nobody, nothing.