Runaway (24 page)

It's been funny to see the change in Meg. At first she was real wary. She was constantly watching me out of the corner of her eye. I've been on my best behavior, but I think it's actually Lucy who's convinced her that I'm okay. Lucy follows me everywhere. She sits on the counter when I do the dishes, she sits in my lap as I do my homework, she sleeps on my bed and goes crazy when I get home from school. That dog is just a little bundle of waggy love.

So Meg's gone from being pretty suspicious of me to acting a little like Lucy. She hovers around me while I'm eating breakfast; she likes to dry the dishes while I'm washing them (even though they'd drip-dry just fine); and Friday when I jingled through the downstairs door, she called, “Holly's home!” across the shop to Vera, like they'd been waiting for me all day.

Do you know how nice that sounded?

“Holly's home!”

What musical, magical words.

         

Tuesday, November 23
^rd

This morning at breakfast Meg told me that they would fight anyone (like a social worker) who tries to take me from them. She leaned across the table and whispered, “This arrangement may not be legal yet, but we have a plan: If someone comes to take you away, you
run
away, and after they're gone, you come right back.”

I laughed and said okay, because coming from an adult, it sounded crazy.

I also laughed because I liked the way it made me feel like it was
us
against them, instead of just
me
against them.

It's been a long time since I've felt that way.

A long, long time.

         

Tuesday, 4:30 p.m.

I overheard Meg talking on the phone to someone at social services. I don't understand why things have to be so complicated. Why does everything have to be so “official”? Why do courts have to be petitioned? Why do people who have never met me think they know what's best for me?

I'm afraid to let out this breath I've been holding.

I'm afraid that my bubble of hope will just collapse.

         

November 25
^th
, Thanksgiving

I'm still here! And today's the day I get my wish for a big Thanksgiving feast. I should be feeling happy about it, but I'm actually a little sad.

I wish my mom could be here.

Meg asked me if I had any special wishes, and I'm afraid my eyes filled with tears when I asked for spiced peaches.

We started baking pies around seven this morning. It smells so good in the apartment. I don't think I've ever smelled anything like it. The turkey's been roasting for hours, so the air is a mixture of sizzling fat, salt, and sweet. It smells divine! (Lucy thinks so, too. The aroma's making her a little crazy. She's gotten quite a few “Miss Lucille…!” warnings from Vera and Meg for begging.)

It's been fun helping in the kitchen. I've never really done that before. Peeling, grating, measuring, mixing…I like it all, especially because Vera and Meg sing while they work. The songs they know are really old-fashioned, but I like them. They fill the air with joy.

We haven't been cooking for just the three of us, either. Sammy and her grandmother and her grandmother's boyfriend are also coming. It'll be a full house!

         

Thanksgiving, 9:00 p.m.

What an emotional night. Sammy's grandmother's boyfriend was just about to carve the turkey when Vera said, “Before we eat, I think we should take a moment and give thanks.” Then she looked around the table and said, “Maybe we could each say a few words?”

Vera started, closing her eyes and putting her hands together and saying, “Dear Lord, I'm thankful for many things this day: for the food, for the company, but especially for the chance we've been given to open up our home to Holly.”

Right away I got choked up. Then Meg went, saying, “Thank you, Lord, for all you've given us this year, but mostly, thank you for bringing Holly to us.”

She started to add something else, but we were peeking at each other over our clasped hands, and both of us were watery-eyed, so she just smiled.

Next around the table was Sammy, and while I was trying to blink back my tears, she was sitting there like a deer caught in the headlights. I couldn't tell if her mind was a blank or if she was thinking a million miles an hour. But after a minute of everyone waiting she blurted out, “I'm thankful that's a real turkey and not a roasting chicken!”

I busted up. If I had been taking a drink, I would have sprayed it all over the table. That one sentence said a million things to me. And in that instant I knew we were going to have to compare notes about the Thanksgiving dinners we'd had in the past. I knew that I would tell her about wishing for a turkey and getting KFC. And I had the wonderful feeling that it wouldn't stop there, that little by little we would get to know each other better.

I do want to get to know her better.

And I want her to know the real me.

         

Still Thanksgiving, almost 10:00 p.m.

Meg peeked in my room when I was writing before. She was coming in to kiss me good night (which she does every night), but when she saw the journal she stopped short. “You keep a journal?” she asked, and the odd thing is, she looked hurt. Or maybe sad, I wasn't sure.

I sat up and closed the book, trying not to slam and yank.

She perched kind of awkwardly on the edge of my bed, and I could tell she wanted to see the journal closer, but I didn't pass it over.

“It looks like it's been through a lot,” she finally said.

I gave a little laugh. “You could say that.”

She still had that look on her face. Sadness? Hurt? I couldn't tell. But why should she be hurt? Did she think I was saying bad things about her in it? What bad thing could I possibly say?

Then she said, “I used to keep a journal.”

“Really?” I asked, and I don't know why, but this seemed very interesting to me. Meg does not seem like the journal-keeping kind.

Of course, then again, neither do I.

“You don't write in it anymore?” I asked.

She shook her head. Then she gave me a knowing look and said, “No one's ever read mine, either.”

We both said nothing for a little while. Then very softly she added, “It helped me through a really rough time.”

I nodded. “Mine, too.”

She looked at my journal again. “You started it when you ran away?”

“A little before.”

She reached out and held my hand. “I meant what I said at dinner. You're a real blessing in my life. I hope someday you'll be able to trust me with what you've gone through.” Then she gave me a sad smile and said, “It's so hard to talk about, isn't it? Who could possibly understand?” Her eyes were watering as she kissed me on the cheek and said, “I'll see you in the morning.”

Now that she's gone to bed, I can't stop wondering:

What in the world happened to
her
?

What “rough time” did her journal help her through?

And what became of it?

Where is that journal now?

         

Friday afternoon

When I went to use the bathroom this morning, I found a book outside my door.

Meg's journal.

There was a little Post-it on it that said: “Please read. Love, Meg.”

So I did.

It is absolutely heartbreaking. She was engaged to a man named Randy who was in the air force. His plane was shot down over enemy territory, but his body was never recovered. For years she didn't know if he was dead or alive, a prisoner of war being tortured or just bones decaying in the earth.

The journal covers about six years, then just stops. There's no conclusion, no wrap-up, no happy ending.

It just stops.

When I was done reading it, I darted around the apartment until I found her. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring out the window.

“Meg?” I said, and when she looked at me, I threw my arms around her and said, “I'm so sorry!”

She smiled at me, but I could tell she'd been crying.

“Did they ever find him?” I asked.

She shook her head. “That was the hardest part. The not knowing.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said again.

After a quiet minute she sighed and said, “What I don't think I wrote in there was how much we wanted children. Randy came from a big family and wanted a dozen children.”

“A dozen!?”

She laughed, and it was a real laugh. “I told him, ‘Four at the most!' and he said, ‘Can't we have five?' He thought we had the genetics to produce an outstanding basketball team.”

I laughed. “A basketball team?”

She nodded, then took a deep breath and sighed. “I was crazy in love with him.”

I put my head on her shoulder. “I could tell.”

We were quiet for a long time, and finally she said, “Do you understand why your coming to stay with us has been such a blessing?”

I sat up and looked at her. “I'm not exactly a basketball team….”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “I don't need a basketball team, Holly. Not anymore.”

Sunday, November 28
^th

scraps of love

torn and tattered

faded, scattered

trashed

threads of hope

frayed and tangled

broken, mangled

dashed

backing, buttons

yarn and batting

quilted tenderly

wrapped up in

this warm repair

my patchwork family

Wednesday, December 1
^st

For days I thought about it, and finally I did it:

I let Meg read this journal.

I understood her so much better after I'd read hers, and since it looks like I am going to be staying here, I want her to understand me, too.

I was really nervous when I gave it to her. My heart was pounding! She asked me, “Are you sure?” so I
could
have snatched it back. But I just winced and said, “Just promise you won't kick me out once you read it, okay?”

She laughed and said, “Of course I won't,” but I still worried. The whole time she had it, I worried. I couldn't really remember a lot of what I'd written, but I knew it was brutally honest. Scary honest. Would she think I was an awful person?

And other parts…would she think they were stupid? Catty? Crude? Embarrassing?

And the poems…oh no, the poems! Were they completely lame?

I kept wondering what was taking her so long.

What was she thinking?

When she finally brought it back to me, she sat beside me on the couch for what felt like an eternity, saying nothing. Her eyes were a little watery, and she didn't seem to want to look at me.

Inside I started to panic. Why had I ever let her read my journal? It said in black and white how great I was at lying and deceiving and stealing…why
would
she want me to live with her?

But then she looked at me and whispered, “I am so proud to know you.”

It wasn't what I was expecting. “Proud?”

She nodded. “And I am so sorry for all you've been through.”

After that we just talked. She asked me a few questions about things in the journal, but she didn't quiz me up about it or anything. We actually talked more about the future. About the good things ahead.

In the middle of all that talking, though, she gave me some advice that, at the time, I thought was crazy. But it's stuck with me, and now I can't seem to get it out of my mind.

She thinks I should send you a copy of this journal, Ms. Leone.

She thinks you'd really want to know.

What happened to me.

What I've been through.

Why it was so hard for me to talk to you.

Everything.

She also thinks I need to thank you for giving me the journal.

For getting me writing.

And…she seems to think you'll like my poems.

I don't know about
that,
but I do think she has a point. And what's interesting to me is that I'd forgotten it was you I was talking to in this journal. I'm not sure when the switch happened, but somewhere along the line I stopped venting at you and started writing to…some imagined friend? Myself? I don't know, and I guess it doesn't really matter. The important thing is that this journal made me feel less alone. Like I had someone to talk to.

I remember saying (quite a few pages ago) that I felt like I'd solved something inside me, even though I didn't really understand what the puzzle was. Now I see that it was this book, this journal, that helped me feel that way. It helped me sort through a lot of the hurt and anger. Maybe it didn't solve anything, but somehow it gave me strength. It gave me hope. And the truth is, I don't know if I could have survived this journey without it.

While I'm at it, let me confess that there
is
something to the whole poetry thing you pushed on us. I hate to admit it, but I've grown to like it. I think in stanzas sometimes. I play with phrases in my mind. It's not the sissy stuff I used to think it was. It's the raw heart of the matter.

So after mulling it over for a long time, I've decided to take Meg's advice.

I want you to know that I'm okay.

I want you to know that you helped me.

And I want to say thank you.

Thank you for helping me turn the page.

Author's Note

The idea for
Runaway
was sparked by my friend and teaching colleague Greg Sarkisian. When
Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy
came out in 1999, he read it and, after telling me how great it was (see, what a friend!), he mentioned that he would love to know more about the homeless girl that Sammy rescues in the story.

The instant he said it I knew this book was in my future. The idea just gripped me. How do you become homeless at twelve? How long could you survive on your own? How
did
Holly wind up in a refrigerator box on the banks of a dried-up riverbed? I had the basic story of her life when I wrote
Sisters of Mercy,
but the details? The details would be hard to face. Hard to live with for the year or more it would take me to write it.

When I write a book, I become immersed in the story. I live it. Breathe it. Think about it day and night. People have told me I'm prolific, but what I really am is obsessive. I just can't seem to let things rest. Ever since Greg made that original comment, Holly's been haunting me. She's been there in the back of my mind, waiting for me to face her one on one. Waiting for the time when I would finally tell her story.

I wanted Holly to have her own unique voice, and for her book to have a distinct style. The idea of a journal came to mind, which led me to the thought of journaling as a classroom tool, and then to musing over the myriad ways teachers try to get kids to keep communications open; to let kids know that they're there for them and they
believe
in them.

When plotting a book, I often spend time lying on the couch sort of story-dreaming—I let one cognitive thread lead to the next, then to the next. Sometimes it gets me absolutely nowhere. Sometimes it helps me make connections or devise wickedly wonderful twists of plot. In the case of
Runaway,
it brought me to the idea that Holly's teacher would be the one to give Holly a journal and encourage her to write. And Holly's reaction would, of course, be just as you found it on page one. But still, Holly has no one. Not a soul in the world whom she feels she can trust. So she talks to Ms. Leone through the journal, and long before she's even aware of it, the journal becomes her lifeline, and eventually her most prized possession.

In my own life, I also came to writing from a place of anger. Life seemed devastating and cruel and completely unfair, and I started lashing out about it on paper. Now when I do school visits, I often share my adopted philosophy on dealing with hard times: Don't take your anger out on yourself (through drugs or alcohol or whatever), don't take it out on other people (by being negative or aggressive or just plain mean), take it out on paper. Getting your anger or sadness or frustration out of your system and onto paper is very cheap and very real therapy. Of course that's a simplistic view of dealing with anger, but in my case, writing saved me from the despair I was feeling, and over time it has evolved into an amazing, joyful career. So I'm a believer, man. A big believer in the power of words!

Anyway, for over a year I've been living in Holly's world, learning about everything from horse trailers to the Los Angeles River, interviewing people, sneaking inside the cargo hold of a Greyhound bus, and yes, spending time at homeless shelters. A lot of this research was sobering, but not unfamiliar. My husband and I lived the first years of our marriage in a run-down four-hundred-square-foot rental house in a bad part of town. Gang activity, domestic violence, drug deals, and homelessness were all present in our neighborhood. We got two big dogs and shut the blinds, but we were never blind to what was going on around us. This was the environment that spawned the character of Holly in the first place.

Ridiculous as it sounds, it was facing poetry that actually scared me the most. I'm an embarrassingly emotional person, and getting down to the “raw heart of the matter” was terrifying to me. I was not a poet—how could I write poems? Even through the voice of Holly, what made me think I could pull this off?

But I had this
ideaaaa,
and anyone who knows me, knows that when I have an
ideaaaa,
there's trouble brewin'. I'm like a dog with a bone. I chew on it and chew on it and just won't let it go. So I chewed on poetry. I studied it, I practiced it, and eventually I got almost comfortable with it. And I'm glad I faced my fears. The poems express Holly's emotions in a way that her narration alone couldn't. There are no walls in her poems, no posturing; just Holly as she really is: vulnerable, scared, and alone.

As always when creating a book, there were people who gave invaluable insight, information, and support. Top of the list is my intelligent, compassionate, versatile, and astute editor, Nancy Siscoe. (Hey, gushing's allowed—this woman pulled me out of the slush pile.) Right beside her is my rock of a husband, fellow writer, and partner in everything, Mark Parsons. Then there's Ginger Knowlton at Curtis Brown, Ltd., who's a lot more than an agent, and my new and very sharp manuscript readers, Colton and Connor. On the research end of things, there's Steve Rodarte at the San Luis Obispo Greyhound Station, plus the actual driver who busted me but didn't have me arrested (and instead showed me how you could escape the cargo hold), Nancy Herzog-Johnson, a friend and longtime volunteer at the Prado Lane homeless shelter, and Whitney, the girl at the shelter who told me her story while I was “under cover.”

Those people have my sincere thanks, but the
dedication
of this book goes to a group that doesn't hear thank you enough—teachers. Teachers like Ms. Leone. The ones who are determined to reach the kid who seems unreachable. The ones who put their heart and soul into their profession and often don't know the outcome of their efforts. The ones who care enough to make a difference, even if they're never thanked.

This book I dedicate to them.