I ran to my house.

Now Berkeley and Sadie and Jane were over by Melody eating her cookies, which are bribes I’d figured out. Maybe Dad had hired Melody to bribe us. To sit on the porch and look sad and tell us about horseflies. Maybe everyone in this trailer court was in on it. Maybe they were trying to trap us and make us think we could never leave and that our lives were stuck. Maybe the whole thing was a sting operation and Bart was right. I should’ve been more careful and I should’ve been on the lookout and my parents were both in on it actually and they were trying to ruin my life and it was working.

“Berkeley!” I said.

She came over. “Melody is going to help with the circus. She said she talked to you about it. She can do the unicycle.”

“Berk. I have to go. We have to go.”

“Where?”

Where. Where. Where.

“I don’t know but I’ll take care of you, okay. We’ll figure it out.”

Berk stared at me.

“Come on. We have to hurry,” I said, trying to drag her along.

She pulled away. “We can’t leave,” she said.

I didn’t have time to explain. How could I explain? She wouldn’t understand.

“We’re going,” I said.

She still wouldn’t move.

“Dad’s back. He’s going to take care of us. We can’t leave.”

“He’s not going to take care of us,” I said. “He’s a jerk and he only cares about himself and he left us, Berk. He left us and Mom.”

Her face went white. “He’s back,” she said, her voice small.

I should have stopped but I didn’t. I didn’t. I said, “He left us once and he’ll leave us again. He doesn’t care about us.”

She didn’t move. Frozen in place. “What about the circus?” she whispered.

The stupid circus. The stupid stupid circus.

“There’s not going to be a circus, okay? I made it up. There’s no circus. No circus.”

She sat on the ground then. Sat there and I couldn’t do it. I could not do it.

I went inside. I slammed the door.

Got my bag. Threw in some clothes. Some paper and pens. My notebook. All the rest of the Oreos and a bag of Doritos. The Steve Fossett memoir that I needed to renew at the library and all the money I had in the world which was sixteen dollars and forty-two cents from using the metal detector and which I was saving for Las Vegas in case they needed money for gas and I also grabbed thirty-six Nickle City tickets which could get me candy if I got desperate.

Then I ran back outside.

Berk still sat there and I was sorry but I would figure it out later.

“I’ll come back for you,” I said. “I promise.”

Tears were running down her face and my heart was breaking but I had to go. I had to go.

No more.

And then here they came.

Mom and Dad walking around the corner.

Talking to Delilah.

Taking their sweet time.

The funny thing, Mom was wearing the most beautiful white sundress flowing down to her ankles. Her hair loose and, though she was acting upset, you could tell that now that Dad was back, now that he was walking by her side, she was lit up again.

I wanted to scream.

And Dad, he seemed like he was in charge. A big large and in-charge man.

The two of them almost glowing in the light from the lowering sun.

Barf on a stick.

I turned to find my bike.

“Olivia!” Dad yelled.

I ran faster.

“Olivia!”

I got on the bike, threw my backpack on, and took off for the bike trail.

“Livy!”

He was probably getting his bike. Or maybe just running or maybe he’d stopped to get a latte.

Either way, before either of them could do a thing, I was gone.

~

I left my sister.