Chapter 17
Ava
This was going to be the best birthday yet.
Mom and I stood in front of the cake mixes, pondering the perfect flavor for my Sweet Sixteen cake.
“I think it should be pink!” I said.
“Anything my baby girl wants,” Mom said. “We could get strawberry, which already comes in pink. Or we could get a vanilla one and add food coloring.”
“I like vanilla best, but food coloring is expensive,” I said. “We only have forty dollars to spend, and we would waste a whole dollar on the color.”
“You already ran the numbers?”
I glanced through the basket. This was one of my strengths. “Eight ninety-six, ten forty-two…” I slid my hands over the boxes and jars. “Actually, we should have a few dollars to spare. We could get the pink!”
“Done,” Mom said, dropping the vanilla cake mix and the bottle of food coloring into the basket. “You’re so good with figures!”
She cupped my chin to look into my eyes. I saw the joy there. I was glad I made her so happy. We were a team. We could create a feast from two potatoes and a leek. Our time in the kitchen, making the most of our meager food supply, was one of the best parts of each day.
“I’m so proud of what a resourceful, level-headed girl you’ve become this time.”
“This time?”
Mom’s smile froze, and my belly quaked. I’d said something wrong. I spoke quickly to fix it. “Should I see if I can find some fruit on sale? If we save some money there, we might be able to get ice cream!”
Mom’s smile returned. “That’s a good idea. I’ll go to the frozen section. There’s a nice store brand.”
“I’ll meet you there!” I scurried toward the produce. We’d budgeted six dollars for fruit and vegetables. Surely I could find things on sale for less than that.
I passed the bulletin board near the front door, and a sign caught my eye.
Are you sixteen? Be a stocker at Shelfmart!
I was sixteen! I could be a stocker!
Earn up to $15 an hour.
Fifteen dollars an hour! That was four cake mixes! Two tubs of ice cream! Every hour!
We could buy more food. Get new clothes. Watch more movies than the four we had. I saw the titles in racks at the store. I loved how Mom laughed when the Munchkins showed up in The Wizard of Oz. There had to be more movies that could make her laugh.
A girl not much older than me walked up to the board and stapled a flier in an empty spot. She wore one of the red Shelfmart shirts. Her badge read “Natalia.”
“Need some help?” she asked.
I pointed to the sign. “What’s a stocker?”
“That’s the people who unpack the deliveries and put the food on the shelves.”
“Oh, I could do that!”
Natalia waved toward a tall man who stood behind the customer service counter. “Go talk to Frank. He’s desperate for someone.”
She pulled a paper out of one of the big envelopes hanging on the board. “You’ll need an application. You can fill out this one, or you can do it online.”
Online. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I’d ask Frank.
I took the paper and headed for the counter. No one was waiting, and Mom was way over in frozen foods, so I was safe to talk to him. What a surprise this would be if I got a job. She’d be so happy!
When I arrived at the counter, Frank leaned over with a big grin beneath a fuzzy mustache. “Hey, are you turning that in?”
I set it on the counter. “I haven’t filled it out yet.”
“How old are you?”
“I turned sixteen today.”
His smile grew bigger. “Well, happy birthday!”
“Thank you. I think I could be a stocker.”
“You in school?” Frank asked.
“I’m homeschooled.”
“So you could work this shift right now?”
Wow. That was fast. “You mean right this very minute?”
Frank laughed. “No. I mean weekday mornings. I’m struggling to find someone for this shift.”
“Sure.”
Frank rubbed his mustache with his thumb. “I assume you haven’t had a job before.”
“No. But I’m responsible. Ask all the flowers I keep alive despite the summer heat.”
He laughed again. I liked him. He was like a big, funny teddy bear.
He slid the paper back toward me. “I tell you what. Fill out this application and bring it back on Monday. And don’t forget your ID for the tax forms. Since you just turned sixteen, I assume you don’t have a driver’s license. You have a permit?”
I thought fast. “Not yet. My mom will drive me. Or I can walk.”
“Good. Bring your Social Security card and birth certificate.”
I had no idea what those were, but Mom surely would.
“So I’m hired?”
“Sure. We’ll try you out. See how it goes.”
“Wow! Thank you!”
Frank laughed again. “See you Monday at eight sharp. Have a good birthday.”
I backed away, holding the application to my chest. I had a job! Mom would be so proud.
I raced to the produce section, grabbed the cheapest apples I could find plus a bundle of spinach, and hurried to frozen foods, folding up the paper to hide in my pocket.
Mom’s face looked hard, like the soldiers in The Sound of Music. “What took so long?”
I swallowed. I had never lied to her before. “I was looking for fruit that was cheap enough to help us get ice cream.”
Mom looked into my eyes for a moment. I held up the bag of apples.
Her face relaxed. “They look good. And see, the ice cream is on sale, too.”
“Wow. For my birthday!”
“It’s a sign.”
We placed our treasures in the cart and rolled our way to the checkout line.
I’d done it.
That evening, Mom came out of the kitchen with my pink cake. On top was a tiny ceramic unicorn.
“I love it!” I said. “It’s like a cake and a present in one.”
“I know!” Mom said. “And since you love unicorns so much, I knew it would make you smile.” She kissed the top of my head. “Happy sweet sixteen, my darling.”
I waited until she sliced the pieces of cake and set them on the table. After a few bites, I decided to spring the news on her.
“Mom, I did something today that I think will help us buy more things.”
“Did you find more coupons?”
“Even better. I got a job application at Shelfmart, and I talked to the manager, and he said I could start working on Monday!”
I couldn’t wait to see her reaction.
But her face contorted into anger.
“Ava, what were you thinking?” she cried. “You can’t work a job!”
“Why can’t I?”
Mom stared at the table for a moment. Her foot tapped the floor. “Darling, you have a condition. You’re sick.”
“I am?” I asked. “What’s wrong with me?” Did I need a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down? Would I die like the mother of the von Trapp children in The Sound of Music? My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t breathe. Was I dying already?
Mom looked around the room, as if she was searching for the answer.
“Mom? Am I dying?”
“No!” she said, and her voice sounded high, like a squeaky toy I’d seen a dog chewing in a shopping cart once. “No, no, darling. You aren’t dying.”
“Then what is it?”
She held onto my hand, squeezing it tightly. Her face looked like the man who pretended to be the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. He had the same panic in his voice when he told Dorothy and her friends to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
He was like Mom.
My heart sank. If she was a lie like the wizard was a lie, then what would I do? I didn’t have a lion or a scarecrow or a tin man to help me. Not even a dog. I didn’t have anybody but her.
“You have something called seizures,” Mom said finally. “One minute you’re fine, and the next minute you fall down and go unconscious. It’s happened since you were small.”
Fear curled in my belly, hot and heavy. This sounded very bad. “Why haven’t you told me before?”
“Because it hasn’t happened in a while.”
“If it doesn’t happen anymore, then I can start working.”
That expression came over her again. Don’t look behind the curtain.
“No, no,” she said. “It doesn’t happen because I keep your life very easy and simple. At the store—it would be too much. You can’t do it. You just can’t.”
She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Darling, we’re doing fine. We don’t have a lot, but we have a house and food and clothes. We have each other. It’s a good life.”
I didn’t believe her. Dorothy got to go on an adventure. So did Mary Poppins. Why couldn’t I?
This job was supposed to be mine. Frank said I could start on Monday. I wasn’t afraid like the Cowardly Lion. Why was Mom?
“I thought it would help,” I said. “I thought you’d be happy.”
“Of course I’m happy, darling. What a brave, thoughtful girl you are. But it’s not possible for you to work. You need to be at home with me. Where you’re safe.”
“But what will I tell Frank?”
“You’ll tell him your mother said no. You’re sorry, but you can’t do it.”
I returned to my cake, but I couldn’t make a single bite go down.
Mom had something to hide. I could see it in how she looked around.
There was something hidden behind her curtain.
I needed to find out the truth.
So, I did a terrible thing that night. It was wicked, like when the nuns took the parts out of the car in The Sound of Music. But I did it anyway.
I made Mom go to sleep.
When I had trouble at night with my whirring thoughts, Mom would give me a pill from the cabinet. It always worked on me within minutes.
I couldn’t make her take the pill without her knowing, so I had to find a way to make her take it secretly.
I asked to watch two movies that night for my birthday. While It’s a Wonderful Life played, I went to the kitchen to make some tea.
I found the pills and dropped one in the hot liquid to see if it would dissolve like the cubes of sugar. It floated to the top and changed color. I stirred and stirred, but it didn’t dissolve.
I took it back out and tried to cut it up with a knife. This worked a little, shaving off small bits. I got out a spoon. I used the back of it to smash the pill. It crumbled into dust.
I was wicked. So wicked. Worse than the witch who made Dorothy sleep in the poppies.
I put the dust of the sleepy pill into her tea. I didn’t know if it would work. But it was worth a try.
I gave her the mug and waited until ZuZu said the ringing of the bell meant an angel had gotten wings. Mom was clearly sleepy.