Puddin'(23)

“Oh, can’t you?” She rests her fists firmly on her hips. “You did this. You had every chance of making it to Nationals. I would have loved nothing more than to see my daughter follow in my footsteps. You could’ve been a legacy.”

Where’s my tearful mother now? Suddenly this has nothing to do with me.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she continues, “but in this house we do not commit crimes and expect things to go back to normal. There will be consequences, and one of yours is that you are grounded from the dance team until further notice. I will always be a Shamrock, but above all, I am a mother.” She holds a finger up to stop me from responding. “And I will arrange for you to apologize to the vice principal, the principal, and later on, the school board. We will apologize to the owner of the gym as well. That is your punishment. For now. Until we hear more from Sheriff Bell. And for the record,” she adds, “I know exactly what kind of daughter I raised, and whoever you are right now is not it.”

I push past the both of them to stomp up the stairs. All the tears I’d tried to hold back are falling freely now. Mascara burns my eyes and runs down my cheeks.

Mama follows me, stopping at the bottom step. “Phone,” she says.

I turn on the landing and throw the dumb thing down the stairs.





Millie


Seven


Me, my mom, Inga, and Uncle Vernon all sit around my mother’s breakfast bar on Saturday morning with the twins in their carriers on the counter. The moment one of them stops crying, the other starts, like they’re tagging each other in and out of the ring.

My mother coos at a sobbing Luka. “He does that howl you would do when you were a baby, Vernon. Just crocodile tears. It’s a wonder you never fried your vocal cords.”

“Ah,” Inga says, “so this is his fault. I was a good baby, you know. Slept and ate. Slept and ate. I was a dream. But no, they had to inherit their father’s temperament.”

“Okay,” I say. “Y’all eat and I’ll entertain the twins.”

Neither Inga nor Vernon argues at that. The two of them pick sparingly at my mother’s oatmeal and topping selection while I make ridiculous faces at Nikolai and Luka as I bounce their carriers back and forth.

The gym has been closed to the public since Wednesday, when I showed up to find the place a complete wreck. Since then I’ve felt inexplicably anxious. It’s not that I feel unsafe, but I feel . . . out of sorts.

“Have they figured out what they’re doing with the girl Millie caught on camera?” my mom asks.

“We have,” says Vernon, using that voice he so often uses with my mother. It’s that you-won’t-like-this-but-you-can’t-change-it voice.

“We!” exclaims Inga. “More like he! I had no part in this decision.” Both Nikolai and Luka sob in unison. Inga circles around to them, relieving me of my brief duties. “I know, babies. Your father is a spineless do-gooder.”

“Thanks,” says Vernon. “I’m sure they’ll respect me for life now.”

“Do something respectable,” she says. “Earn respect. Simple.”

He sighs. “I offered to let the girl work off the damages at the gym.”

“What!” My voice surprises even me. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, but did you just say that Callie Reyes would be working at the gym?”

Mom turns away from her waffle maker. “Oh, Vernon, you don’t even need help at the gym. It’s not like she’ll be saving you any money.”

He shrugs. “The girl didn’t act alone, okay? I spent a lot of years getting into trouble. Maybe if someone would’ve given me a shot like this, I would’ve gotten to the finish line a little sooner.”

Mom and Inga shake their heads. I do, too.

Positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts.

But this is going to be—

Positive thoughts, I remind myself. Positive thoughts.

Nope. Hard as I try, I just can’t imagine a world where the next few months working with Callie aren’t miserable. Maybe Callie isn’t the biggest bully in school, but she’s not what I would call nice either.

It will only be as bad as you allow it to be, a small voice inside me says.

But the voice is too small to affect my growing sense of doom.





Callie


Eight


I didn’t realize how chaotic my world was until this weekend. Keith locked my cell phone away in the safe where he keeps his hunting rifles. I thought that was tragic, but then my mom locked me out of all the computers in the house, changed the Wi-Fi password, and added parental controls so that all I can watch is the History Channel. Somehow that last thing was what pissed me off the most. And that was only Friday.

I spent all evening Friday pacing my room like a prison yard. I knew my necklace gave me away, but it’s just a simple C necklace. Someone must have tipped off the sheriff. It was Melissa. That was something I had absolutely no doubt about.

By Saturday afternoon, I’m wondering what the rest of the team knows and how they’ve reacted. Surely more of them will come forward once they know I got caught. I mean, if everyone just owns up, they can’t disband the whole team. Sam wouldn’t let that happen. I wish I could just get a text out to her. At the very least I would tell her not to trust Melissa.