Sara and the Search for Normal Read online

  “What?”

  “Star stuff. They create organic compounds like carbon in their cores. They shoot them when they go supernova and the compounds come to planets and they form lots of things, including us.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “I like space. I read Cosmos last year.”

  He frowned and followed my gaze. “Sometimes I do feel small looking up there.”

  “It should make you feel big. Like a time traveler. The starlight you see isn’t from now. It could be from a million years ago. Maybe more. There might have been an alien then, staring up, and if we had the right telescope, we might see it. It would be like seeing a ghost. But just for us. That alien was alive when it was looking up at us. So we are both alive, sort of.”

  He seemed to take that in for a moment. “So … they might see my brother one day, just walking around and playing ball with me in the driveway.”

  “They might.”

  James smiled. Then he turned to me. “When are you going to act crazy?”

  “It’ll be a surprise,” I said, and that made me sad because it was true.

  “Well, feel free at any time. I’m beginning to think it’s just me.”

  We sat there for another minute or two, listening to the breeze.

  “I should probably get going,” I said. “My dad said be back in an hour. Two hours ago.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, though he sounded reluctant. “I guess I better go talk to my mom.”

  “What will you say?” I asked.

  “I love you, I guess. And maybe that my brother is a star and that is just science.”

  I smiled. “That would be a good start.”

  When I got home, I went to my room and took out my rules. The tenets of being a Star Child were lying above them, but I skipped those, opened my old notepad, and started to read.

  This time I stopped on one of them, and read it aloud again and again.

  “Hang out with James again and DO NOT mess it up. Hang out with James again and DO NOT mess it up.”

  Then I crossed it off and smiled. Maybe I was getting better after all.

  * * *

  I was still staring at the rule when my mom poked her head in the door.

  “Sara, we should go soon. You don’t want to be late for the birthday party!”

  My stomach knotted itself up into a pretzel. Well, I said I was getting better.

  Now it was time to put that to the test.

  CHAPTER 13 HAPPY BIRTHDAY

  Erin lived in a squat little house about fifteen minutes from mine. She said her family moved a lot into rentals, and that she never got too attached to anywhere. The house seemed perfect for that role: white siding, brown door, square lawn. It looked like a million other houses in the neighborhood.

  My mom was supposed to drive me, but when my dad found out I was going to a birthday party, he insisted that he go instead. He didn’t seem to approve. And now that we were in the driveway, he looked nervous. He kept looking at the house and me and the house again.

  “You sure you want to go?” he asked.

  He had both hands on the wheel, as if he was ready to drive away.

  “No,” I admitted.

  My stomach was still clenched up, like someone had put it in a vise. I was making so much progress. Even a few weeks ago I couldn’t have imagined going to someone’s house for a birthday party. But now I realized just how quick it had been.

  What if a Game started out of nowhere? False Alarm. Strong Girl. The Danger Game would be the worst of all in a house full of strangers. I had one of my nails between my teeth before I realized it, and my dad reached out and drew my hand away, squeezing it gently. He hated when I chewed them and always grimaced when he saw the nubs. He held my hand in his.

  “You want to go get ice cream instead?” he said, smiling. “Just send Erin a text.”

  I hesitated. I wanted to go with him instead. It was safer.

  But I thought back to sitting with James today. To that moment of reading my rules and feeling normal, and all of that was because I was trying new things. And I didn’t think it was normal to skip a birthday party to go get ice cream with my dad. So I just opened the car door.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He frowned, only reluctantly letting go. “Call me if you want to leave.”

  “I will.”

  I went to the front door alone. My throat was so dry I doubted I could talk to anyone even if I wasn’t mostly mute.

  “I am getting better,” I whispered.

  I pressed the doorbell and managed a smile when a woman opened it up. She had the same auburn hair and dark eyes and even pale freckles as Erin.

  “Sara,” she said, “so nice to finally meet you. Come on in.”

  She waved to my father, and he backed down the driveway very slowly, looking ready to leap out at a moment’s notice. Then the door was closed, I could hear voices, and it was too late.

  “I’ll get Erin,” she said. “We are going to do the cake soon. I’ll take your coat, dear.”

  She seemed nice. I was expecting an older chatty Erin, but she spoke slow and soft, and almost seemed shy. I was trying to breathe deeply without her noticing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. My hands were fidgeting nervously at my waist.

  “Erin!” she called, starting down the hallway toward the voices.

  The move was still clearly in progress. As Erin had promised, there were boxes in the corners, and very few pictures on the walls. There was a family photo, though, and I saw Erin when she was little, full eyebrows and lashes, same lopsided smile. Her father was in a uniform with a beret, standing sternly to the left of the picture, arms rigidly at his side.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to find a man descending. It was him. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but somehow he still looked just as stern as he had in the family photo. His hair was black and cropped short, his face smooth but angled and hard like a statue.

  He stopped at the base of the stairs and smiled.

  “You’re the shy one, right? Sara?”

  I nodded.

  He extended a hand, and I shook it, forcing a smile. His grip was very firm.

  “Nice for Erin to have a friend,” he said. “It’s always tough to move around so much.”

  It wasn’t a question, so I just stared at him, deciding belatedly on another smile.

  “You’re perfect for her,” he continued, sighing. “The girl never stops talking.”

  “Hey, Sara!”

  Erin appeared at his side. She deftly moved around him, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the stairs. “I have to show her my room, Dad. Just call us down for the cake. Thanks!”

  She pulled me upstairs and into a small bedroom. It too had some unpacked boxes, but the walls were covered with so many posters that I had to search to find a patch of beige paint. The posters ranged from One Direction to Star Wars to Sailor Moon, all well-worn and crinkled.

  “I couldn’t decide on a theme,” she said, flopping onto the bed. “So I went with pop culture madness. Dad said no more Ryan Gosling shirtless ones. Ugh, my family is exhausting. My brother is so spoiled. It’s all ‘Kyle, you’ve grown’ and ‘how’s football going?’ ”

  “I hate football,” I murmured.

  She sat up. “Same. Well, we’re going to have to sing to little Mr. Perfect soon, but first I must hear about the park. Was James there? Did you two talk? Did he profess his love for you?”

  “No,” I said, sitting down at her desk. It was covered in papers and drawings, and I fought the urge to organize it. I wasn’t overly neat, but this was chaotic. “Well, yes, yes, and no.”

  “Rats. What did you talk about?”

  “His dead brother.”

  “Romantic,” she said. “But that explains Dr. Ring. Poor guy. Is he crazy like us?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s just grieving.”

  “Shame,” she said. “He could have joined our clique. We could have
used a boy.”

  I was happy he wasn’t like us, but I didn’t want to say that. I just turned to her desk and looked over the scattered papers. Drawings of battle scenes. Homework. And, of course, a whole lot of stars. She scribbled them into most margins, even on the homework.

  She wandered over, picking up one of the drawings. “Terrible, I know. But I spend a stupid amount of time by myself in here, so I need a hobby.” She smiled. “What’s yours?”

  I thought about that. “Reading. Writing. Pretending I’m a warrior queen.”

  “Naturally.” She sat down on the desk and looked at me. “So … did you hold hands?”

  “No!” I said. “He is a friend. Maybe. I don’t know. I guess he is just a park friend.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I hesitated. I thought I had moved on, but maybe I wasn’t quite over it.

  “I don’t think he really wants to be seen with me.”

  She was silent for a moment. She can really glare when she wants to.

  “That’s not cool.”

  I flushed. “Just for now. Once I am a little more normal—”

  “Normal? ” she said, throwing her hands up. “What does that mean? Did he say that?”

  “No, of course not,” I said, looking at the door. She was basically shouting. I lowered my voice. “Normal behavior. Most people don’t understand Sara breaks. They don’t know that I might freak out for no reason.” I picked up a drawing. “They would laugh about Star Children.”

  Erin took the paper from me, scowling. “That’s their problem.”

  “It’s our problem,” I corrected her. “We’re trying to be more normal, remember? That’s why we go to see Dr. Ring.”

  “I do not go to Dr. Ring to be normal,” she said. “I go to manage my disorder.”

  “That’s the same as trying to be normal,” I insisted.

  Of course she wanted to be normal. That was the whole point.

  Her eyes flashed. “I thought we agreed we were Star Children.”

  She went back to the bed to sit down. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong this time. It was fun to pretend to be Star Children. But it was pretend. A placeholder.

  But as I turned around and saw Erin holding her sheet of paper, I was suddenly less sure. She was staring down at it. Her eyes looked glassy, and I realized that maybe it was only pretend to me. There really were a lot of printouts on her desk. There were a lot of stars in the margins. Maybe she really did believe in this. Maybe she needed to. Was it really my job to ruin that fantasy for her?

  I sat down beside her. Pretend or not, I thought the three tenets made a lot of sense.

  And tenet number two was that Star Children always help each other.

  “We are,” I said, taking the sheet from her. “But we can’t go telling all the Muggles.”

  She paused. “We’re really mixing source material here.”

  “Star Children can do what they want,” I replied simply. “We are brilliant, after all.”

  She turned and hugged me, giving me a face full of auburn hair that I had to spit out.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I guess you can have your gift, then.”

  “What gift?”

  She jumped up and retrieved something out of a desk drawer, giggling the whole way. It was a bracelet with little golden charms—stars. It still had a tag on it, but she plucked it off.

  “I bought this last week,” she said excitedly. “Well, I bought two of them. Wrist.”

  I stuck my wrist out, and she wrapped it around and clasped it there, grinning.

  “Star Child,” she whispered. “Let me get mine.”

  As she went to put on her own, I lifted the bracelet and stared at it, biting my lip and feeling a strange rush of emotion. It was silly. Stupid, even. But no one had ever really given me a gift, except for my mom and dad.

  I shook my wrist and let the stars catch the light.

  “Well?” she said, showing off her matching bracelet.

  “I love it.”

  “Are you getting teary?” she asked.

  “No—”

  “Ugh, you are going to make me cry! I love us. We’re brilliant and fabulous and hot.”

  “Erin!” someone called up the stairs. “Cake time!”

  She pulled me to my feet and linked arms, turning to the bedroom door.

  “Star Children unite,” she muttered. “We are going to need it to cope with my family.”

  * * *

  Everyone stood in a loose circle around the table, lit by the candles on the cake. Erin’s older brother was staring down at it, looking very uninterested in the whole process, and Erin was rolling her eyes while everyone all sang. There were twelve people there aside from me. Some were family, but Erin said most were other soldiers from the base. More than a few of them were looking at me curiously, so I just kept my head down, trying to breathe and pretend no one else was there. But it was a lot of new eyes, and a lot of noise, and I was trying very hard to remember that this was a normal thing. People sing. People get together sometimes. No one wants to hurt you. No one is watching. You are fine. You are fine. I could feel little tingles all over my body, like bursts of static electricity.

  “How old are you now?” one man took up, extending the song.

  I dug my nails into my skin. The wheel was not spinning yet, but it was close. It wasn’t going to be Strong Girl. It was False Alarm or Danger Game, and both were going to be very bad. What did Dr. Ring say? Focus on the moment. Be mindful. Find something to be aware of.

  I stared at her brother, his finger tapping impatiently on the table. His pent-up sighs.

  I imagined him as some petulant prince, bored as his subjects lavished praise on him while his sister plotted to overthrow him. Judging by Erin’s face, it was a definite possibility.

  The song turned into cheers as he blew out the candles. If I could just tolerate a few more minutes, we would go back to Erin’s room and be alone. I could calm down there.

  Her brother forced a smile. “Thank you. Great singing.”

  “It was all me,” the man boasted. “I have the voice of an angel.”

  “Let’s get a family picture!” a woman said, taking out her phone.

  Erin reluctantly fell in beside her brother, framed by their parents. I could see Erin’s discomfort. She was turning a bit from the camera, showing one side, her hands fidgeting … probably fighting the urge to hide her face. To pull out something. I tried to smile at her, sensing that she needed help more than me now. I knew what she was feeling. The urges and the voices that seemed to get louder when everyone else did. The realization they were watching.

  “Let me get one!” someone else insisted.

  Erin tried to step away. “We can share photos. Welcome to the future, people.”

  “I agree,” her brother muttered.

  “Stay still,” her father said.

  His voice seemed to cut over the noise. He wasn’t loud, but he didn’t need to be.

  For some reason, I flinched. So did Erin.

  “I don’t like getting my picture taken—” Erin said, making her way to me.

  His hand was suddenly on her arm. It was so fast I didn’t see it until it was sitting there, fingers wrapped around her bicep. He pulled her back, almost imperceptibly, and she opened her mouth for a second, like she was ready to cry out. But she stopped moving and tried to force a smile.

  “Okay,” she said, stepping back into the photo.

  It felt like a long time. She stood there while four or five different people took photos, wearing a smile that I was sure would melt away the second the photos stopped. Her eyes went to me once and then stayed far away. And mine stayed on those strong fingers. Still grasping.

  No one else seemed to notice. I felt like there were three of us in the room. Erin, her father hurting her, and me, seeing it but saying nothing and wondering if I could.

  When the photos stopped, Erin took two plates of cake and led me back upstairs. She
slammed the door behind us and went right to the bed to eat. I followed slowly, watching her.

  “Everyone needs a photo,” she muttered. “You know how many of them asked me about my eyelashes? ‘Oh, your poor lashes! Are you okay? And your eyebrows? What’s going on?’ ”

  She dug into the cake, shoving big, crumbly bites into her mouth and talking through it.

  “ ‘Nothing, Grandma. I’m just a freak. Thank you for asking.’ Now they can all post it and tag me so extended family can comment too. ‘Oh, is Erin okay? Boy, that brother is handsome!’ ”

  Her eyes were watering now, and I just sat down next to her.

  “We should add another tenet,” I said.

  She wiped her nose. “What?”

  “Never be ashamed of being a Star Child,” I said softly.

  She laughed, wiping her eyes, and we leaned against each other’s shoulders and finished the cake. If nothing else, it was delicious. We stayed up there the rest of the night, talking and laughing and pausing only for her to run down and say good-bye to relatives. It seemed normal.

  But when I left, I was thinking about the fingers, and more so, what they had left behind.

  CHAPTER 14 GOOD-BYE, MS. HUGGER

  Erin and I texted all day Sunday, but I never brought up her father. I wanted to, but I remembered the last time. I was her friend, and it wasn’t my job to make her upset. So by the time Monday morning arrived, I had forgotten about the party—other than the fact that I made it through without an incident. Maybe I was getting better.

  In the afternoon we went to go choose our book of the week. I love our library time, even if the librarian thinks I am a weirdo. We walked in and Mrs. Yeltson just gave me a suspicious look.

  “Something light this week,” Ms. Hugger said. “I have plans over the weekend.”

  I started down the second aisle for the middle grade fiction category, scanning the shelves. Something light … Then I heard the library doors swing open, followed by a wave of voices. I snuck a peek through the shelves and saw that a seventh-grade class was coming in.

  “Fiddlesticks,” I murmured.