I was going to be fourteen! Of course I was old enough—I'd been old enough for years! I just hadn't had any luck convincing her of that. And Grams had always insisted on staying out of it. “It's not my place to tell you, Samantha.” How many times had I heard that?
But now…well, there was obviously something, and what else could it be? So as I took my shower, I started getting nervous. Almost panicky. Why had my father been such a secret all these years? Was he a criminal? A jerk? Slimy? Dead? I mean, what was taking so long for her to tell me if there wasn't something weird about him? She wouldn't be keeping it from me if he was just some normal guy, right?
But then maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe she was just going to share how… oh no! What if she wanted me to come live with her! No! It had to be my dad. It just had to be.
I got out of the shower and got dressed quick. And I'd worked myself into such a state that I just barged into the kitchen, where Grams and Mom were putting together sandwiches, and said, “Are you here to tell me who my father is?”
“Your”—Mom's face turned white as she looked at Grams—”father?”
“Mom! I'm going to be fourteen—I can handle it!”
My mom gave me a quivery smile. “Well… no. That's not why I'm here.”
“It's not?”
“No! I'm here because it's your birthday, sweetheart.”
All of a sudden my mind flashed with an idea. “Okay, then, for my birthday I want my birth certificate.”
“Your what?”
“My birth certificate.”
“But… it doesn't say who your father is.”
“You wrote Unknown?” I blinked at her like mad, then said, “Is he unknown?”
Grams had been trying to stay out of it, but when she heard that, she scolded, “Samantha!”
“Well?” I asked. “What else am I supposed to think?”
“You're supposed to think… you're supposed to think…” Grams looked to my mom for help.
I shook my head. “Mom, in a few hours I'll be fourteen. Fourteen. Why is this such a big secret? Do you have any idea what kids my age talk about? Believe me, talking about who my dad is, is not going to shock me.” Then, since she was just standing there like a fish out of water, I said, “And even if it doesn't tell me anything, I still want my birth certificate.”
“But… but why?” she stammered.
“Because I have a friend who's an astrologer and she needs it to do my birth chart.”
“Your birth chart? What's that?”
“It's a way astrologers map out… you know, things about you. She usually gets a lot of money to do them because they're really complicated, but she's going to do mine for free.”
“Why?”
“Because I helped her get her watch back.”
“Her watch?”
“Never mind, Mom. The point is, I want my birth certificate.”
“But I thought you didn't believe in the zodiac.” I studied her a minute. “That's not the point.” “Then what is the point?” “For my birthday, I want my birth certificate.” Finally Grams steps forward and says, “I think we can work that out, Samantha, but first, there's something else your mother wants to talk to you about.” She picks up a tray of sandwiches and heads into the living room, whispering to my mother, “It's time, Lana.”
My mom fidgets. She flutters. She blinks and she sputters. Then she sits in the armchair, picks up a sandwich, looks at me, and says, “Funny you should ask about your birth certificate.” “Why's it funny?”
“Because I have a little confession to make.” My head starts racing with the craziest ideas. If it wasn't about my father, then what could it possibly be? Wait! Maybe I wasn't really hers. Hey, why hadn't I thought of that before? It made perfect sense to me! It explained everything. But why would she adopt me when, let's face it, she didn't really want me. So maybe I was stolen? Maybe… but why would she steal something she didn't want? Or maybe they found me in a Dumpster. Yeah! Maybe they found me in a Dumpster and couldn't figure out what to do with me so they kept me. Or… Grams eyes my mother and prompts, “Lana…” “Don't push me, Mother,” my mom says back. Then she turns and gives me a quivery smile and I can tell— this is it.
So there I am, holding my breath, waiting for my mom to drop her bombshell, and you know what she says? She says, “Do you remember what a rough time you had in kindergarten?”
“Kindergarten?” I squint at her. Leave it to my mom to bring up a completely unrelated, very sore subject. “What's kindergarten got to do with anything?”
“Well, I made a mistake.”
“About kindergarten'? You mean you shouldn't have let them hold me back?”
“No, no. It was true—you weren't ready.”
“Kindergarten was stupid,” I grumbled. “The first time and especially the second time. Like I didn't know my ABCs? Like I couldn't count to twenty?”
“I know, Samantha. You were smart. Which is why I did what I did.”
“Did what you… what did you do?”
Her eyes were fluttering like crazy. Her mouth was in hypertwitch. But she didn't answer my question. Instead she said, “To this day I don't understand why you couldn't have just sat still. Squirm, squirm, squirm. And you'd talk out of turn and tackle other kids. There was this one boy, Tyrone, do you remember him? Big kid, and nice as can be. You'd tackle him and steal his scooter. One time you even gave him a black eye!”
“Mom! WHAT DID YOU DO?”
“Well, I… I… “ She gave me a cross look. “And there's no need to shout.” Then she composed herself and said, “You have to understand, I thought you were ready! You were so precocious. Your vocabulary was astonishing! And even though you were a little small, I thought you could handle it. I thought waiting another year would make you so bored. Besides, I was having trouble making ends meet and… and… it seemed like the perfect solution!”
It felt like a cold drop of water was trickling down my spine. “Are you saying… do you mean that…” I knew she was trying to tell me something big, only I wasn't quite getting it.
Then Grams rolls her eyes and says, “Just tell her, Lana.”
“All right, all right,” Mom snaps. Then she does a total diva pose, with her hand to her forehead as she sighs and looks down. “Samantha, it was the wrong thing to do and I'm sorry. But I did it, and it's time you knew.”
“Knew what?”
She drops her hand and sighs again. “The reason you weren't ready for kindergarten was because you actually weren't ready for kindergarten.”
“What?”
“You were only four years old.”
Like two ice drifts heading for each other, my life and my mother's lie crashed together. I felt cold. Helpless. Destroyed. It was worse than being adopted.
Or stolen.
Or found in a Dumpster.
Finally I choked out, “That means I'm only twelve?”
She gave me a helpless little look and tried to smile. “But tomorrow you'll be thirteen…”
“So you what? Doctored my birth certificate? I mean, the school makes you give them a birth certificate, right?”
She nodded. “And then when they had you repeat kindergarten, I just… well, I couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth.”
“But what about me? Why didn't you tell me?”
“I was afraid you would spill the beans. And because you were always so proud of turning another year older. I didn't have the heart to—”
I sprang to my feet. “I can't believe this! I can't believe that you would do that! All these years I thought I'd failed kindergarten! Do you know how embarrassing that is? But no, I didn't really fail—you just put me in too early! It was easier for you to stick me in school than it was for you to take care of me!”
“Samantha!” Grams said. “Samantha, that's just not true. Try to understand that your mother—”
“No!” I shouted. “And why didn't you tell me, Grams? I can't believe you've gone along with
this all these years!”
“Please try to understand. Your mother wanted to—”
“I don't care what she wanted! This is my life! You should've told me!”
And before either one of them could stop me, I bolted out the door.
Nobody should have to be thirteen twice. It's not like I really believe in bad luck, but for me thirteen had not been a very good year.
Scratch that—it'd been downright rotten.
Plus, in the back of my mind, turning fourteen was like quietly turning the corner on bad things. Like escaping bad luck. Being fourteen was a lot more “almost sixteen” than being thirteen. It was a lot closer to driving and earning my own money and just being, you know, independent.
But now all of a sudden I was twelve. Twelve! How could I be twelve? I felt like such a little kid! Twelve-year-olds don't do the things I'd been doing for the past year. They're too… young. This meant I'd been sneaking up the fire escape since I was eleven? What kind of insane mother did I have?
I stumbled across the Highrise lawn, jaywalked Broadway, and burst through the Pup Parlor door.
“What's wrong?” Vera asked when she saw my face. She put down a dog brush and hurried over. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“No!” I said, shaking all over. “I'm… I'm…”
She put her arm around me. “You're what, dear?”
“I'm… I'm…” I felt like I was choking.
Meg was there now, too. So was Holly.
I looked from one to the other to the other. “I'm…
“Sammy, it's okay,” Holly whispered. “Just say it.”
“I'm…” They all hung on the word until I burst into tears, crying, “twelve!”
“You're … twelve?” Vera asked, and her arm loosened around my shoulders.
I nodded.
“What?” Meg said.
Tears were springing out everywhere.
“I don't understand,” Vera said. “Aren't you supposed to be twelve?”
“No!” I cried, and I actually stamped my foot. “I'm supposed to be thirteen! I'm supposed to be turning fourteen tomorrow!”
“But…” they all said, then asked, “Tomorrow?”
“Yes! They held me back in kindergarten! Why? Because my mom told everyone I was five when I was only four! Only she never told me that! Not until today! Happy birthday, Samantha! And oh, by the way, I've been lying to you for eight years.” I flung back tears. “Why am I surprised? Why am I even surprised? I hate her I hate her I hate her!”
Vera wrapped me in her arms and said, “There, there,” as I bawled into her shoulder.
“Oh man,” Holly said. “Your mom sure knows how to mess with your head.”
“But you don't hate her,” Vera said gently. “You're just hurt.”
I pulled away and said, “And Grams! She's known all along.”
Vera sighed. “I'm so sorry.”
I needed air. Lots of air. I dried my face and said, “I'm going for a walk. I've got to get out of here.”
“I'm going with you,” Holly said. And Meg and Vera nodded like, Absolutely! Go!
So I tore out of there, going who-knows-where, with Holly trailing along trying to make me feel better, saying stuff like, “So look at the bright side—you didn't flunk kindergarten,” and “You're the same person you always were—it doesn't really matter,” and “Hey! Get your grandmother to make it up to you by telling your mother that she's a couple of years older than she really is. That'll freak her out good!”
I almost smiled at that last one. My mom's such an age-aphobic that it would be a great thing to pull. But I was too mad to actually smile. I wanted to hit something. Kick something. Smash something to bits.
Instead, I started looking in trash cans.
“Are we looking for cats?” Holly asked.
“Yeah, I guess. I just want to stop thinking about my stupid mom and her stupid stunts.”
Holly shrugged. “Well, if dead cats will help you do that, I hope we find some.”
I laughed. Then I laughed again. Then I looked at her and said, “Am I being that pathetic?”
“No!” she said. “I don't blame you a bit.”
“But for you to be hoping we find dead cats…”
“Well, you know what I mean. And I have been thinking about it all day.”
“Yeah?”
“The look on Mr. T's and Snowball's faces… I don't know… it's just been haunting me.”
So we stopped talking about my stupid mother, cut down a service alley, and started looking in trash cans for real. And before too long we found ourselves coming up to the propped-open back door of Maynard's Market.
There was a faded yellow El Camino parked out back, so we knew that Maynard's loser son, T.J., was working the counter. And just our luck, T.J. spotted us. “Hey!” he yelled as I pushed open his trash lid. “What do you garbage girls think you're doing?”
“Lookin' for dead bodies,” I threw back with a glare.
“Well, that'll be yours if you don't scram!”
Now, for T.J. that was a really good comeback, so I actually appreciated the humor in it. “Hey,” I said with a grin, “good one, Teej.”
He pushed between me and his trash and slammed the lid down. “Get lost, ya hear me? I'm sicka youse.”
“Of youse, T.J.? Youse?”
“Shaddup! I said scram!”
“We're scrammin', we're scrammin'.” Then I Terminatored him with, “But we'll be back.”
When we got to the sidewalk, Holly said, “Man, he's even uptight about his garbage.”
“So where do you want to go now?”
Holly shrugged. “Maybe Mr. T and Snowball were the only two cats.”
I shook my head. “If you had two dead cats, would you go through all that trouble?”
“But you said—”
“Well, I'm revising my theory I mean two cats, okay, dump them in the same bin. Cover them up, no one'll know. But more than two cats, you'd want to spread them around. Reduce the risk of someone getting suspicious.”
Holly sighed. “You're not ready to call it quits yet, are you?”
“I'm not ready to go home,” I grumbled.
“All right,” she said. “One more block.”
So we dug through the trash of a travel agency.
Nothing.
We dug through the trash of a bank.
Nothing.
We tried a bridal shop and a jewelry store and a Mexican restaurant.
Nothing.
Everywhere we went, we were striking out. And by the time we were down to a carpet store, a restaurant, and a tattoo parlor, believe me, I was totally sick of digging through garbage.
“Want to just skip it?” I asked, but Holly said, “Might as well finish the block.”
So we checked out the Kojo Buffet Dumpster, and the minute Holly opened the lid, we both jumped back. “Oh gross!” Holly cried. “It sure smells like something's dead in there!”
I held my breath as I poked through rotten vegetables and fish heads, and brought the verdict in early. “Nothing!”
“Pee-yew!” Holly said, lowering the lid.
“Okay, how about I do Tiny's and you do the carpet place? I've had about enough of this.”
“Fine by me,” Holly said.
Tiny's Tattoo Parlor had the opposite sort of trash as the Kojo Buffet. It was tidy trash. All in white bags with knotted red drawstrings. It was a cinch to go through, too. I pulled out one sack, then the next, then the next. They were all light and just… tidy.
And I was about to say, Nothing here, only when I pulled up the fourth sack, well, I did sort of a mental double take. There wasn't a cat under it or anything, but all the other sacks in Tiny's trash had been light.
This one was heavy.
And okay, I didn't think it was a cat, because I'd already carried around a cat in a sack twice and pretty much knew what that felt like.
But still, I was curious. So I worked open the knot and s
pread apart the sides. And in a flash I knew—there was a sicko on the loose in Santa Martina.
“Hey, Holly!” I called, but then she called, “Bingo!”
“What?”
“I found one!” She waved me over to the carpet-store trash bin. “Come here!”
I closed the sack and hauled it over to where Holly was proudly pointing out a dead cat. “We weren't crazy after all!”
Hers was a big cat. Dark gray. Smooth coat. White paws. Well fed. And even though there was dried blood on it and chunks of fur were missing, you could tell it had once been a real handsome cat.
“What's the tag say?”
Holly turned it and read, “Prince.” Then she noticed my trash sack. “What's that?”
“Two cats.”
“Two?”
“Yup. And it's not a pretty sight.”
She checked them out and said, “They look heavy. We'd better get a different trash bag for Prince.”
So we emptied one of the tidy sacks from the tattoo parlor, and we'd just worked it around Prince when a guy in a blood-stained apron came out of the Kojo Buffet.
Now, this guy's apron was bad enough, but when he started coming at us, shouting, “Hey, you girls there! What you doing?” and waving a cleaver in the air, well, Holly and I shot a look at each other, grabbed our sacks, and ran.
Holly and I ducked down the first driveway we came to and charged toward Main Street as fast as we could. I figured that once we got out in the open we'd be safe, but when I looked over my shoulder the guy with the cleaver was still chasing us, and gaining.
“Aaarrh!” came out of my throat, because with his bloody apron and his gleaming knife, the guy looked demented.
So there I am, running for my life with two dead cats swung over my shoulder, when all of a sudden I realize that there's a car pacing alongside me. It's not right next to me or anything, but I can tell it's there, kind of hovering behind me. And when I glance over my shoulder, who do I see?
Officer Borsch.