Hope Is a Ferris Wheel (15 page)

The closer I got to school, the more I didn't want to be there, and the slower my steps got. I was only two blocks away when my feet just stopped.

Eventually the morning bell rang, but I still didn't move.

I don't know how long it was before I started walking back to the trailer, since I don't have a watch or a cell phone, but I knew it couldn't be 11:00 yet, so when I got to the Treasure Trailers entrance, I snuck behind the tinfoil man's trailer. His tinfoil blinds shifted a bit, but he didn't come out, so I sat down and waited for Gloria's car to go cruising by.

Gloria drove off a few minutes later, with Mom in the passenger seat. When I walked in the door, the clock above the stove read 11:05, which meant Gloria was late for work, and everyone in Mr. Savage's class was going to PE.

Since I wasn't in school, I decided I should try to learn something. So I took out my club notebook and reread some of the Emily Dickinson poems I'd written down all those weeks ago. Maybe she mentioned hope somewhere else and gave it a more accurate description. I was in the middle of “I heard a Fly buzz when I died,” when I heard the truck tearing across the gravel and then pulling into our designated driveway.

A few seconds later Winter walked in, jumping when she saw me at the table. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I cut school,” I told her.

“Oh.” She kicked off her combat boots. “Me, too.”

This was the first time I'd ever heard of Winter cutting school, but when I told her that, she said, “I do it all the time.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Don't act so surprised.” She tore open the refrigerator door and began pulling out all sorts of things: cucumber, horseradish, cream cheese. I caught the loaf of bread she tossed me and set it on the table for her, then watched her make the world's most disgusting sandwich.

“Didn't you have your club today?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I mean, yes. But I'm gonna cancel it.” I'd only just decided that, but once I said it, I felt a little lighter. Like I'd been trying so hard the whole time to start a good club and make some actual friends, when all along I shouldn't have been trying at all.

I half expected Winter to talk me out of it, but she just said, “Good,” and took a bite of her sandwich. She must have felt the same way.

“What do you think I should do about Dad?” I asked, thinking maybe she'd have a good answer to that. Her mouth was full, so she had to finish chewing before she answered.

“I dunno,” she said, and then took another bite.

“Do you think I should try to find him somehow?”

“Star,” she said, spewing little chunks of food across the table, “I don't know, okay? I don't even know what
I'm
doing. Can't you just figure something out on your own for once?”

Her words made me wince. Not just the words but the way she said them—like she was absolutely sick of me. I wanted to apologize, but I wasn't sure what to apologize for.

The phone rang, and Winter jumped up to grab it. “Hello?” she answered. “Yes, this is Carly Mackie.” Winter narrowed her eyes at me, and I squeezed my hands together in my lap. “Yes, she's home sick. I'm sorry I forgot to call. Good-bye.” She hung up the phone and told me, “Don't cut school anymore. You're gonna get both of us in trouble.”

She finished her sandwich in silence, then stomped out of the trailer without saying good-bye. I listened to the truck peeling out of the lot, thinking that Emily Dickinson's poem should have been about loneliness instead of hope, because that's what was perching in my soul. No Mom, no Dad, no friends, and now, no Winter.

I didn't have a single person left.

I
threw out all the Emily Dickinson poems and cut up my club notebook with heavy-duty scissors. As I tossed all the strips of notebook into the dumpster, I thought about what I was going to do next. What I had to do, since Mom wouldn't tell me the truth.

I went back to the trailer and stood in front of Mom's door. She never locks it, so I went right in and started looking around for the key to the shed, opening drawers and being careful to smooth out the clothes inside so she'd never know I was in there.

I found the key in Mom's nightstand, hidden under a framed photo of Winter and me. Winter was six in the picture,
maybe seven, and I was a baby. She was holding me, trying to lift me up off the ground.

Winter was right. I was too old now for her to pick me up, for her to have to keep helping. I was going to figure this out on my own and solve my own problems for once.

I snuck out of the trailer, even though I knew Mom wouldn't be home anytime soon, because everyone in our row at Treasure Trailers is a big gossip, according to Gloria. The shed was in an empty lot behind the landlord's house, with a bunch of other sheds. It took a few tries before I found the right one.

I started to go through boxes and trash bags. Under a box of photos, and under a box marked
ASSORTED WIGS
, was the
IMPORTANT STUFF
box. I opened it up and began looking. I checked every single scrap of paper, even things that would never have my dad's name on them, like the invoices from our last dentist visit three years ago. (Cavities are expensive.)

I found out a lot of things looking through that box, like where all the Food Bank cards had disappeared to. I was beginning to think that maybe Mom had been really serious about keeping Dad a complete secret. But then I found Winter's birth certificate, and there on the same line as
Name of father
was
Robert Carlisle
. So I stopped looking
at every tiny scrap and started looking for my birth certificate.

It wasn't much farther down.

Name of child: Star Bright Mackie
. That was me. I used to hate my middle name until I found out Winter's is Gloria.

Name of mother: Carlotta Janine Mackie
.

And then,
Name of father: Francis Tangelo
.

I could have been Star Tangelo. Or Star Mackie-Tangelo. Or Star Tangelo-Mackie. It was hard to decide which one was best, since they were all better than plain old Star Mackie, but I probably would have liked Star Tangelo, because then nobody would have called me Star Trashy.

I checked outside, and it wasn't dark yet, so I still had a bit more time to snoop around. I dug through the rest of the box, and there, almost at the very, very bottom, I found it.

An envelope. Mom's name was right there in the center, and there was no letter inside, but that didn't matter. The date on the stamp was from seven years ago, but that didn't matter either. What mattered was the address in the upper left corner of the envelope, under the name Frank Tangelo.

My father's address.

Dear Dad,

This is your daughter, Star Mackie. I'm ten years old now and in fifth grade. My teacher is horrible, and I hate him. The boy who sits in front of me is also horrible, and I hate him, too. I would have written you a letter much sooner, but Mom wouldn't tell me who you were.

I just want to know a few things:

1. If you knew it was my birthday, would you send me a birthday card? If you already know my birthday, why didn't you send me one? Is it because of Mom? Because I don't care what she says anymore. (My birthday is July 9, by the way.)

2. Did you know I have a sister? I think you should know, because Winter (my sister) has a different father, and he knows all about me. I even got to meet him. Weird, huh? Maybe we should meet, too!

3. Do you have brown eyes?

4. What is a club I could start that everyone would actually want to join? I have already tried the Trailer Park Club and the Emily Dickinson Club, but they aren't working.

5. When Mom was pregnant with me, did she eat disgusting things? Like cucumber and horseradish sandwiches? I would ask Mom, but I think I'm not going to talk to her for a while.

Hope you are doing well.

Love, your daughter,

Star Mackie

I
t was the easiest letter in the world to write. In fact, I could have written more, but I didn't want the envelope to be too heavy or for him to get bored while reading it and decide that maybe he'd rather be eating a grilled cheese sandwich or something.

I had it stamped and ready to go and dropped it into the collection box down the street. Hope was beginning to spin again, and when I woke up the next morning, my head wasn't throbbing anymore and I didn't feel like spending another entire day at Treasure Trailers, so I got dressed and ate a piece of peanut butter bread on my way to school.

I got there early enough to have to drop my backpack
off by Mr. Savage's door. Some of the girls from class were there, folding fortune-tellers from a big stack of old homework assignments. I tried to shoo away the loneliness that came to perch, and I finally just walked away.

I made my way to the playground, to the bench by the united States map, to wait for the bell to ring. But the second I sat down, Eddie appeared, his feet planted right in the middle of California. “Where were you yesterday?” he asked.

“Sick,” I said. I wondered if I should cough or something, but I didn't bother.

“Oh,” he said, sitting down next to me. “'Cause you never showed up for club, and Langston and I sat there like fools for, like, a half hour before Miss Fergusson said it was obvious no one was coming.”

Denny and Genny weren't even there? I guess they knew I was sick, so they hadn't shown up. “Sorry,” I told Eddie.

“That's okay,” he said, and he spit on the ground. “Miss Fergusson says we can have her room today. Are we still gonna read something by Emily Dickinson, or did you find any better poems?”

“I …” I didn't know what to say. “I don't …”

Sighing, Eddie leaned back and stretched his long legs.
“If you really want to do Emily Dickinson again, that's fine.”

The bell rang, and I didn't move.

Eddie didn't either.

I was still ready to cancel the whole club, but now, with my letter on the way to Dad, the Ferris wheel was slowly piecing itself back together. Hope was starting to make its way around again, and I figured I could at least have one more meeting.

As the monitors blew their whistles and pulled kids off the jungle gym so they could line up for class, I told Eddie I'd see him after school in Miss Fergusson's room.

I was even sort of excited.