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  A Gutsy Girl Book

  Home Free

  SHARON JENNINGS

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Jennings, Sharon

  Home free / by Sharon Jennings.

  (The gutsy girl series)

  ISBN 978-1-897187-55-5

  I. Tide. II. Series: Gutsy girl series

  PS8569.E563 H64 2009 jC813’.54 C2009-900730-4

  Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Jennings

  Edited by Doris Rawson

  Designed by Melissa Kaita

  Cover by Gillian Newland

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

  Published by

  SECOND STORY PRESS

  20 Maud Street, Suite 401

  Toronto, ON M5V 2M5

  www.secondstorypress.ca

  For Nancy Meloshe, my redhead

  Author’s Note

  I am in the Writing Club at school. I didn’t think I’d ever get to be in the Writing Club, but I can’t tell you why because that’s part of my story.

  Now that it’s November, Miss Gowdy says it’s time to write something long. A book, Miss Gowdy said. She said it can be about something that happened to us. Or we can make it up. Or we can do a little of both, which is what lots of writers do, Miss Gowdy says. They embellish the truth a little to make it better or maybe a little worse. My mother said writers tell lies. But I like the word embellish. It sounds like what you do with icing on a plain old white cake.

  I am going to tell a story about me, and I think I’ll embellish it a bit but I won’t tell where. I am also going to tell some things that I’ll probably get in trouble for, but Miss Gowdy says lots of writers get in trouble and it’s an honorable thing. Miss Gowdy says some writers even go to jail. I hope I don’t have to go to jail, but I’ll probably get sent to my room.

  I asked Miss Gowdy where I should start my story and she said at the beginning, but she didn’t mean when I was born. She said not to confuse my story with my life.

  I thought my story, not my life, started with meeting Cassandra this past summer, but then I realized it started when I first heard about Cassandra last June. So I backed it up a bit more, and I put in the part about peeing my pants by accident, even though I will probably get in trouble for telling that. But Miss Gowdy says writers have to look for patterns, and I seem to have a pattern of peeing by accident, with or without my pants on. Now I am jumping ahead, something else Miss Gowdy warned us about.

  Miss Gowdy also says I should stop writing my Author’s Note and just start the author part.

  Chapter 1

  I was two blocks from home and I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I started to run, but the jiggling made it worse. I squeezed as hard as I could, but then I was walking like Frankenstein’s monster. Hur-ry hur-ry hur-ry, I thought over and over until I was up the steps and at my front door.

  It was locked.

  Pee trickled down my legs. I couldn’t stop it. I just couldn’t squeeze anymore. I stared at my shoes and was surprised at how slowly the puddle was forming. When you squeeze really hard for so long, pee doesn’t gush, I found out.

  My mother opened the door. She looked at me and then she saw the puddle and then she looked like she was eating a wormy apple.

  “What on earth …” she said.

  I toed off my runners and peeled off my socks, using only one finger, and I even took off my shorts, but not my underpants. Mom held the door open and said to go wash.

  At the bathroom, I turned around. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “And why would I want to tell anyone an eleven-year-old girl pees her pants?”

  “Please promise. Don’t tell anybody.”

  “I promise,” she said.

  But when I came out of the bathroom, I heard her on the phone. I heard her say, “What a mess.”

  I felt something click inside me, like when the shutter closes in a camera. I got to the kitchen just as Mom hung up the phone.

  “So what happened to you?” She put my lunch down in front of me.

  “Mr. Morgan shooed us all out fast, and I had to go since recess. I thought I could hold it.”

  “Why didn’t you go after recess?”

  “We had the test,” I reminded her. But I could tell that only reminded her about the math test we’d had the day before.

  “And what about the math test?” she asked, just like I knew she would. “Did you get it back?”

  I nodded.

  “And?”

  “And I got ninety-three.”

  “Ninety-three,” she repeated. I knew there was more. I waited.

  “Did you get the highest mark?”

  I took a big bite of sandwich, just so I didn’t have to answer. Just so I could keep her waiting. I swallowed and shook my head. “No.”

  “So who got the highest mark?”

  This was really silly because my mother knew if it wasn’t me then it was my future husband-to-be, David. So I lied. “Debbie,” I said, and took a big gulp of milk.

  “Debbie?” my mother asked. “Debbie Oldman?” The shock on her face was so funny I choked, and milk came out my nose.

  Mother crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “You’re telling stories!” she said. “Debbie Oldman never gets anything but Cs. What’s going on here, Lee? You pee your pants like a baby, and now you’re lying.”

  “You lied, too,” I blurted.

  “I beg your pardon?” But she didn’t mean she hadn’t heard me. When my mother says “I beg your pardon,” I know I’m in trouble.

  “You told someone about me peeing. I heard you say, ‘What a mess’.”

  “For your information, Miss Nosy, I was talking to Mrs. Fergus about something else.”

  “What?” I asked, not believing her. “What else is a mess?”

  My mother just sniffed. My mother sniffs a lot when she’s about to say something about somebody, and she thinks she’s better than the somebody she’s going to say something about.

  Sniff.

  “Mrs. Fergus is letting her cousin’s daughter stay with her this coming summer.”

  “What’s so messy about that?” I wanted to know.

  “The girl’s parents are dead. She’s been living with someone else, and it hasn’t worked out.”

  It took me a minute to follow all this. Then I shouted, “She’s an orphan!”

  “Lee! What a thing to say.”

  “But she is. How old is she?”

  “Your age.”

  This was the best day of my life! Or maybe the second-best day. The best day would be when I met the orphan. An orphan my age moving in next door was beyond my wildest aspirations!

  “Lee! Answer me when I speak to you.”

  I heard my mother, but I didn’t hear her. “What?”

  “Pardon.”

  “What?”

  “Lee. A young lady says ‘pardon.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, you didn’t answer my question. Who beat you on the test?”

  “David. He got ninety-eight. I came second.”

  “Second. He beat you by five marks.”

  I didn’t answer.

  My mother sighed. “Well, let’s hope you did better on today’s test.”

  “Today was composition. I always get the highest mark.”

  “Lee. You know that pride goeth before a fall.”

  “But it’s not pride. It’s the truth. I always get the highest mark on composition. And that’s because when I grow up
I’m going to be …” But I saw the look in my mother’s eyes. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “The highest mark for making things up. Don’t go getting a swelled head about that.”

  She smiled as she turned away, and I knew she would brag about my marks to Mrs. Petovsky, who would then brag back about Linda’s end-of-year piano recital. I had overheard them before, usually at night, when I could hide in my secret spot. They didn’t know I was there in the bushes, and they said all kinds of things that I just knew I wasn’t supposed to hear. They’d lean on the fence after the supper dishes were done and compare notes on the day. Mostly they talked about us kids. And the other moms, of course. (And especially so-called Mrs. Harris.)

  But I am digressing, which is wrong, but Miss Gowdy says writers digress all the time, so I think that must mean I’m a writer.

  “What does digress mean?” I asked her. (Miss Gowdy that is.)

  “It means you’ve wandered off from your main point,” she said.

  So my main point right now in Chapter 1 is the orphan.

  “What’s the orphan’s name?” I asked my mother.

  Sniff. “Cassandra Jovanovich.” Sniff.

  Two sniffs! My mother really did not like all this for some reason. I wanted to find out why.

  Chapter 2

  I hurried back to school that day. I had to tell everyone about the orphan, Cassandra Jovanovich.

  They were playing yogi.

  And Kathy was with them.

  It was her turn and she was at waist. She was so busy yelling at the enders that maybe she didn’t see me. I backed up a foot, then another foot, then another foot, and then she turned around. I know she saw me, but it was as if she didn’t see me. She just looked right through me like I wasn’t there.

  She turned away and said something, but I couldn’t hear her. Then the others laughed and looked over at me.

  Nancy waved and yelled, “Lee, come on. Take a turn.” She held up her arm and pulled on the elastic just as Kathy jumped. Which made Kathy touch. Which made Kathy furious.

  “Doesn’t count! Doesn’t count!” she shouted.

  Now I was visible. All of a sudden, Kathy could see me. She came right up to me with her fists on her hips. “What are you staring at? You did that on purpose! Made me touch!”

  Then she pushed me. The others came running over. “Leave her alone, Kathy,” Susan said. “She didn’t do anything.”

  But Kathy pushed me again. I wish I could embellish this part. I wish I could tell you I pushed her back and she never bothered me again. But everyone knows what happened.

  I stumbled back a bit and tripped and fell down. Kathy stood over me, staring, making fists like she was going to hit me. Then she just stopped, dropped her fists, and gave me the once-over.

  “You changed your clothes. Why? Pee your pants?” Kathy laughed and everyone else laughed and I thought I did a good job laughing too, but I guess not. Kathy suddenly stopped laughing and gave a funny little smirk. (That’s what my mother calls it when she doesn’t like the way I’m smiling. “Wipe that smirk off your face,” she says.)

  “That’s it! You peed your pants. You are a baby. I was right.” Then she just turned and walked away. Linda White and Paula went with her, but Nancy and Susan helped me up.

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s a witch.”

  “I hate her. She’s just mean.”

  I watched Kathy go over and talk to other kids and point back at me.

  All afternoon in class everyone made fun of me. We had spelling and whenever anyone had to spell a word with the letter P in it, they’d say P really slowly like Peeeeeeeeee and look at me, and everyone else would snicker.

  Except David. That’s why I’m pretty sure he knows he’s going to marry me one day. You can’t make fun of your future bride.

  But the rest of them were horrible and I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to take my slate – of course, these are the Sixties and we don’t use slates these days – and break it over someone’s head, just like Anne Shirley did to Gilbert Blythe.

  It wasn’t fair. Kathy wasn’t even in my class, but it didn’t matter.

  Then at recess the kids in Kathy’s room said she talked about me. They were having novel discussion – they got to do The Wind in the Willows – and when they talked about being bossy, Kathy said there was this girl named Lee Mets who was really bossy and stupid. They said she spoke about me as if I was some stranger nobody knew. The teacher told her that was enough and to sit down, but it was too late.

  The only thing that helped was thinking Kathy was just like Josie Pye who tormented Anne Shirley. And I resolved to myself that Kathy would be my affliction to bear until the end of my days.

  So I didn’t tell anybody about my orphan after all. The orphan would be my special friend. Tough titties for everyone else! That’s what Kathy used to say – tough titties! (Don’t tell my mother.)

  But this is not a story about Kathy. I shall speak her name no more.

  Chapter 3

  Lots of kids live on my street. I usually don’t play with most of them because they’re heaps younger or older. But last June, when the sky stayed light forever, we all started getting together for hide-and-seek. It was fun with so many kids, but mostly I just liked being out till it finally got dark.

  Sometimes I’d sneak away from the game and hide in my secret spot. It’s in the corner of my backyard, between our cedar hedge and Mrs. Petovsky’s bramble bushes and Mrs. Carol’s fence, and there’s a sort of little clearing in the middle of everything just big enough for me. I’d lie on the grass and look up through my “sky window” and see the stars and think about what our minister read from the Bible about the heavens and the earth and about dividing the light from the dark. I’d get all shivery down my back just like the time I snuck into the Sanctuary when it was all dark and there wasn’t anyone there. The Sanctuary with a capital S is the part of the church you go to on Sundays to sing and pray and listen to the minister. I snuck in one time when it wasn’t for church, and I felt like I was full of electricity. And I just knew I wasn’t alone in there, let me tell you! It was spooky, but not scary-spooky. That’s how I felt looking at the stars.

  I like the word sanctuary. Miss Gowdy says writers have to like words and I like this one because it sounds mysterious. I asked Miss Gowdy what it means, but this time she took a deep breath and said, “Look it up in the dictionary.” So I did, and it means “a holy place.” In a church it’s the holy place around the altar, and that makes sense because if you look at the word, it has a T exactly in the middle, looking just like a cross. Sanctuary. Anyway, in olden days people could be protected from enemies if they could just get to the altar before being caught. From what I can figure, it was kind of like yelling “Home Free!” when you’re playing hide-and-seek.

  I was glad Miss Gowdy made me look up sanctuary. Now I look up lots of words all the time. If you ask a dictionary, you always get an answer. I wish adults were like dictionaries. I wish my mother would answer all the questions I have to ask. Why couldn’t she just tell me about Cassandra Jovanovich without me having to ask so many questions? She always makes me feel nosy, and I’m glad a dictionary doesn’t.

  Cassandra Jovanovich. “Cas-san-dra,” I said again, counting on my fingers. Three syllables. “Jo-van-o-vich.” Four syllables. It wasn’t fair. I wondered if she called herself Cassandra. Or she might be Cass or Cassie or C.J. I am only Lee Mets. Two syllables. Of course, I am really Leanna, but nobody calls me that, not even if I ask. And I asked a lot after reading Anne of Green Gables, and I read Anne of Green Gables lots. I borrowed it from the bookmobile at least once a month. Anne Shirley really wanted to be called Cordelia Fitzgerald because she thought her own name didn’t have much oomph to it. I thought about calling myself L.M., just like the writer L.M. Montgomery, but it sounded stupid, like I had got to the part in the alphabet where you go elemenopee. I tried it once when the school nurse asked my name. I said, “Ell Em,” and she thought I was sa
ying “Ellen” with a stuffed-up nose.

  And Cassandra Jovanovich was an orphan.

  All of the best stories are about orphans. There’s Anne of Green Gables and Mary Lennox of the Secret Garden. That last one isn’t the real title, but it should be. Orphans always get to be of somewhere. I tried this out at school this year. I told Mr. Morgan that I was Leanna of Westlawn Avenue, but he said, “Don’t be stupid.” If I were an orphan, I’d like to be Leanna of the Castle or Leanna of Mountain Valley. I feel very sorry for Jane Eyre. She’s an orphan with a name like mine and isn’t of anything, either.

  Sometimes I pretended I was an orphan and I was adopted. If my mother and father weren’t my real parents then I could make up lots of stuff about who my real parents were. Even that they were still alive and rich and royal and would come to get me one day when it was safe. Like the Little Princess who turned out not to be an orphan. This is what I did at night when my parents (so-called) wouldn’t let me read in bed and made me turn out the light. I made up stories about my real parents.

  I hoped Cassandra Jovanovich would be like book orphans. I hoped she’d have lots of imagination. Maybe she’d even be a writer, like me. Maybe we could write books together and become each other’s muse. That’s another word Miss Gowdy told us. It’s some sort of spirit that whispers good ideas in your ear.

  I hoped we could be best friends because after Kathy did you-know-what, I didn’t have a best friend anymore. But more than that, I hoped we could be kindred spirits. That’s what Anne Shirley called some people, the people she just felt an instant connection to, as if there was some electricity between them. Once Anne Shirley called her best friend her bosom friend, but I wouldn’t want to do that. My mother won’t let me say the word bosom and I don’t want to get Cassandra Jovanovich and me in trouble.

  I didn’t have any kindred spirits my own age. I knew Miss Gowdy was one as soon as I met her, and I knew Mrs. McMillan, who teaches Sunday School, was a kindred spirit, too. But I wanted a kindred spirit who was a friend I could play with. I once had high hopes for Kathy, but that didn’t work out.