Chapter 17 #2
“Mom had a few boyfriends. She probably dumped him for someone else.” I skim a few more lines and then read aloud again.
“He told me the nickname has spread through the football team. Everyone is calling him Buzz. Wow. I can’t believe my influence has spread through Ashworth Academy.
Someone pinch me.” I lower the diary as my mouth hangs open. “What?”
“Your mom was dating someone who went to Ashworth Academy?” Kai questions. “Did you know she knew anyone from our school?”
I shake my head, bewildered. “No way. I know she did everything she could to get us to Victoria Falls. Aunt Maddy said they didn’t know anyone until Grams took us in.”
“Maybe your aunt didn’t know about this guy,” Kai suggests. “Maybe your mom kept him a secret.”
My stomach wobbles with worry. “Oh boy. What if this guy is some kind of sick low life?”
“Read on,” Kai urges. “We don’t know anything yet.”
I sit the book on my lap, close my eyes and breathe out. “This is why I haven’t read this yet.” I open my eyes and my vision of Kai is blurry. “I’m so scared of finding out what my mom hid from us.”
Kai gets up from the bed and moves across the room. He takes the diary and sets it on the desk. He plucks me at the elbows, encouraging me to stand.
As I stand in front of him, he rubs my back and says, “You don’t need to do this right now. Like you said, you’ve got a million things going on. You don’t need to pile this on too.”
My breath comes out shaky as I lean my head against Kai’s chest. “I just wish it wasn’t some massive secret. Couldn’t she have told Maddy? Then I’d know if I should be scared or not.”
“Maddy was a kid back then.”
I rub my temples and sigh. “My head really freaking hurts.”
Kai takes a step back, propping me up by the shoulders. “Do you need another nap?”
I smile. “Maybe reading my American history textbook will put me right to sleep.”
A soft laugh hums out of Kai and he edges back to the doorway. “I’ll leave you to it. Hit me up before you go reading the diary again. Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Catch ya,” he says with a wave. He disappears out the door and soon his rapid footsteps thunder down the stairs.
I slump onto the desk chair and move Mom’s diary to the side. I shudder at the thought of my dad hurting my mom. I just wish I already knew what went down. Maybe if she were here, she would’ve already told me. Oh geez, Mom, I wish you were here.
“Meow.”
I jolt in my seat, turning to the door where Alfred wanders in, waving his thick fluffy tail in the air.
“What are you doing here?” My legs tense as he moves my way, meowing again. “Oh no you don’t. Stay back.”
Alfred meows and rubs himself against my legs. I wince as he purrs, vibrating against my legs.
“Eww.” I squirm. “Get away from me.”
Alfred brushes his ginger fur against me one more time and then waddles over to the bed. In one fluid motion, he leaps onto the bed. He pads around the center of the bed cover and plonks himself down in a half moon shape.
“Thanks a lot,” I muttered to the cat. “Those sheets were just washed.”
I turn back around on the chair and pull my laptop toward me on the desk. I keep telling everyone I need to knuckle down and get this done, but saying it is a heck of a lot easier than doing it.
An hour into my essay draft, there’s a knock on the doorframe. I turn to see Milo poking his head in.
“Hey, is Alfie in here?” he asks.
I huff, throwing a thumb back at the bed. “Yeah. He made himself at home over there.”
Milo walks in, planting the baby carrier onto the carpet. “Gandalf’s stressing me out, so I need some kitty time.”
“I’d rather deal with the baby than the cat,” I murmur.
“What’s your problem with Alfred?” Milo asks, scratching the cat under his chin. “What’d he ever do to you?”
“I just don’t like him,” I say, wincing. “Can you get him off the bed?”
“It’s a bit hard to break his routine. He knows he’s always allowed to be here,” Milo says, brushing the fur along Alfred’s body. “Usually, you guys are out on the couch making a racket with the TV blaring. It’s your fault he comes in here to hide.”
“Ugh. Well, if it’s my fault, shouldn’t he be hiding now?”
Milo smirks. “It was quieter with you than hanging with me and crying Gandalf.”
I turn to the baby carrier and sneak a peek at Gandalf. “What did he want now?”
“I fed and changed him,” Milo replies, walking back to the baby carrier. “I’m guessing it’s sleep time.”
“Did you burp him?”
“Yeah, but nothing happened.”
“Remember what the guide said? Sometimes it takes ages.”
Milo picks up Gandalf and rests him against his chest. “Maybe he doesn’t need to be burped every time.”
I stare at him with tired eyes. “No, he does. You need to persevere.”
Milo groans, patting the baby’s back. “So boring.”
“Get a grip. At least it’s not three a.m.”
I turn back to the desk and Milo asks, “What are you working on?”
“My history paper.”
“How are you doing with memorizing the dates?”
“Huh? I’m not. I’m just writing them down as they come up in my essay.”
“You know how Mr. Duncan likes to give pop quizzes,” Milo says, bouncing Gandalf as he pats his back. “You need to know the dates, important document names, and the figures in power.”
I groan, collapsing against the chair as I look up at the ceiling. “I can’t handle all this crap in my head. Every teacher wants me to memorize endless notes. When does it end? I can’t do this.”
“Hey, hey,” Milo coos, getting off the bed and edging closer. “Don’t spiral. You already have all your information for your paper. Maybe if we just go through it one paragraph at a time, it’ll be easier to digest.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I say, defeatedly. “I just want to finish the paper and move onto the next subject.”
“But history is one of the classes you need the grade boost the most,” Milo says with concern. “You know, acing a few pop quizzes will be beneficial.”
I pout hard. “Milo, I don’t wanna.”
“You didn’t choke in class when Mr. Duncan asked you about the Bill of Rights,” Milo says with growing confidence. “Jamie, you’ve already got this. Back yourself.”
I get off the chair and pace between the desk and the bed. “I’m just sick of this. I feel like I’m doing so much work but only forming a dent in everything that’s due. Kai already gave me a hard time about not hanging at the skatepark, and I just wish I was there.”
“Hey, don’t let Kai derail your progress.”
“I’m not. I just want to grab my blades and get out of this house.” I move over to one of my bags and pull down the zipper, revealing the rollerblades. “I packed them like an idiot. Your mom won’t let me take them out because Aunt Maddy doesn’t want me wasting time.”
“Would getting on them help clear your head?”
“I guess.”
Milo grins. “Then you should grab them and we should head out.”
I give him a dubious look. “You want to go to the skatepark with me?”
Milo laughs. “No. How about the backyard? Get on the rollerblades and I’ll fire questions at you. Maybe the change of scenery and having something else to do will help clear everything else out of your mind.”
I grab the blades. “Do you think it’ll work?”
“Whenever I’m trying to solve a hard math problem, I grab a stress ball and walk around the house. Somehow, it helps me find the answer.”
“Well, I’m pumped to get these bad boys on. But Kai was already annoyed that we were playing Shadow Quest together. I think he’d boil over if he saw me wearing my blades and hanging out with you.”
Milo shakes his head. “Kai left.”
I almost drop my rollerblades, fumbling to keep hold of them. “What?”
“Yeah, he left a while ago,” Milo says, hanging his thumb over his shoulder. “I think he’s with Tabitha.”
My mouth hangs open and there’s a stabbing pain in my heart.
He knew I was dealing with a lot and panicking over the snippet I read in Mom’s diary.
And then he left me to be with her. How could he just take off like that?
Oh, and I will be so angry if he breathes a word about the diary to Tabitha.
I still can’t believe he just blurted it out in the cafeteria that day.
I grab my phone and send Kai a quick text, explicitly telling him to keep the diary a secret between us. I put down the phone and let out a frustrated sigh.
“Okay,” I say, bundling the rollerblades under my arms. “Let’s do this.”
When we get downstairs, Milo’s parents are busy in the kitchen, while the grandparents read on the couch. We sneak outside so Mrs. Nelson doesn’t lecture me about going back to the desk. If this works, maybe she’ll cut me some slack during my stay. Crazier things have happened.
Once I’m strapped in, nervousness ripples through me. “I feel like I’ll blank on this stuff. I marked up the textbook, but that was only so I could quickly jot down my notes for the essay.”
“Come on. You know this stuff.” Milo sways Gandalf in his arms, trying to lull him to sleep. “You’re not dumb. You’ve just never seen it as important before.”
Mom’s diary floats around my head. She was so excited about something she made up had gathered traction at Ashworth Academy. Aunt Maddy has told me so many stories about Mom dreaming about that school, wishing she and Maddy could’ve enrolled. I can’t let Mom’s dream die.
“My mom worked her butt off so I could go to this school. I won’t let her down just because I can’t be bothered to do the work.” I blade along the paved path lining the porch, stretching my fingers as I glide. “Hit me with it.”
“Okay, when was the industrial revolution?”
“1876 to early 1900s.”
“And what did it come off the back of?”
“The Civil War.”
“Which started when?”
I blank. I take two stretches of the porch, back and forth, before it hits me. “1861.”
“Nice,” Milo cheers, pacing along the patio as he bounces Gandalf in his arms. “And what are three things that came from the industrial revolution?”
“Umm, the railroads.” I take a few more glides along the pavement as I think back to my essay talking points. “Immigration…”
“You got it,” Milo whispers.
“I dunno,” I say, shrugging my palms upward as I blade past Milo. “Industry expansion? Like factories and machinery, and longer working hours.”
“For pulling it off the top of your head, I think that’s a good answer,” Milo replies. “You just might want to put it more eloquently in your paper.”
“Hey, at least I could remember something.”
“You remember heaps, Jamie. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Give me another one,” I say, gaining speed on my rollerblades. “I’m feeling on fire at the moment.”
“Should I have had you on rollerblades for all your tutoring sessions?” Milo jokes.
“You could try them, if you want.”
“Oh, no way. After how well I went at learning soccer and that video game, I think I’ll pass.”
Milo quizzes me on colonial settlement and the Great Depression. Some facts come to me right away, but many I fumble and need him to prompt the answers.
Milo stops asking questions when his head tilts side to side, checking on Gandalf. “I think he’s asleep,” he whispers.
“But I didn’t hear a burp.”
Milo’s eyebrows rise as he looks down at me from the porch. “Who cares? He’s asleep.”
“You cut a corner. Now he won’t sleep through.”
“You had him one night and suddenly you’re an expert?”
I sit against the porch to take off my rollerblades. “Stop arguing and put him in his carrier. Or he really will wake up.”
I gather my rollerblades and follow Milo inside.
“Thank you for making me do that,” I tell him. “It was really fun to have an excuse to get back on my rollerblades.”
“No sweat,” Milo says with an adorably infectious smile. “I’m glad I could prove you know this stuff.”
My heart flutters. “I can’t believe how much you have my back in this. You don’t have to be helping me, you know.”
He nods. “I know. But I wanted to help.”
I’m dumbfounded. “Why?”
Milo shrugs and walks ahead with the baby. “Because I like you.”