The next morning, Amelia’s eyes felt like they had sand in them. She’d been way too hyper to sleep when she had finally got back to bed. Excited and worried at the same time. Duke didn’t know her mother.
She walked along their street, past houses of all different sizes and colors. Most of their neighbors had at least some garden area, and their grass was mowed. Diane had run over a rock and broken their lawn mower, so their lawn looked like a hayfield. It was embarrassing.
Maybe that was why their neighbors ignored them. Or maybe it was just that kind of neighborhood. Diane said most of the people here worked all day and were busy. Maybe, thought Amelia.
She and her mom had been living here for almost a year, and they didn’t know one person. Not even the woman next door, who was always weeding her garden but who hadn’t even looked up a week ago when Amelia said hello. A couple from India lived on the other side, and she saw them sometimes, getting into their silver car. The man wore jeans, but the woman always dressed in a colorful sari. The Indian couple’s house was the last one on their street, which dead-ended at a chain-link fence behind a high school.
In their old neighborhood, the houses were nicer. Most of the families had lived there a long time, and they all knew Amelia. Her best friend, Starla, had been only three doors away, and they had practically lived at each other’s houses.
Halfway down the street, Amelia stopped to admire the red sports car that had appeared a few weeks ago in the driveway of a small green house. She had never seen a car that was so bright and shiny, like a mirror, with so much glittering chrome. She had told her friend Liam last week that it was probably a Ferrari, and he had said, Do you have any idea how much Ferraris cost? Then he’d raced over after school to check it out.
Get your cars straight, Amelia, he’d said. It’s a Mustang.
But he was impressed, Amelia could tell, and they had both walked around it and peered in the windows. Then the front door of the house had burst open, and a skinny guy in jeans with holes in the knees and a stud in his lip had yelled at them, Get away! Don’t put your fingerprints on it! Don’t even breathe on it!
Amelia had fled to the safety of the street, but Liam had sauntered away, yelling over his shoulder, Okay, okay, dude. Yeesh!
GET LOST, PUNK! the guy hollered, and Liam had stopped sauntering and broken into a jog.
Nice neighborhood, he’d muttered.
This morning, Amelia spotted a bucket by the back door of the car. It looked like the bucket was full of polishing rags, and she started to run in case the skinny guy came out and screamed again. She ran the two blocks to Hastings Street, crossed at a light and walked three more blocks to her school. She found her friends, Roshni and Liam, sitting in the sun with their backs against the outside gym wall. Roshni was reading a People magazine. Liam had earbuds jammed in his ears, and his eyes were closed.
“Bonjour!” Amelia dumped her backpack on the ground and slid down the wall beside them.
“Bon voyage,” Roshni said, flipping pages without looking up.
Liam yanked out his earbuds. “What?”
“We’re speaking French,” Roshni said.
“We rented the apartment!” Amelia burst out.
Roshni closed her magazine. “You’re kidding! Who to?”
“Gabriella and Duke. Gabriella’s from Paris! She’s a real French person!”
“How can you be a fake French person?” Liam said.
Amelia ignored him. “They are very cool. Very cool. They moved in yesterday.” A wide smile spread across her face.
“Gah!” Liam leaped up as if he were going to run away. “When are you going to do something about that tooth? You are seriously scary!”
“Shut up, Liam,” Roshni said. “And sit down. What’s so cool about them?”
Amelia opened her mouth. She was about to say, They have a SNAKE! Wait, not one snake! Lots of snakes! And an iguana and a tortoise and rats and this bird—
But she clamped her mouth shut. She’d promised Duke she could keep a secret. Did he mean from just her mom, or did he mean from everybody?
“Well?” Roshni demanded.
“They’re just really neat,” Amelia said. Whoops. Big mistake bringing this up, especially with someone like Roshni. “Gabriella’s French.”
Roshni’s eyes narrowed. “You already said that. And you hate French.”
“I don’t hate French. I just hate the way Mrs. Pearson teaches it.”
“Right.” Roshni dug in her backpack and pulled out a well-worn Star magazine.
Time to change the subject fast. “Is that a new iPod?” Amelia said to Liam.
Liam pulled out his earbuds again. “What?”
“A new iPod?”
“Yeah.”
“What was wrong with the old one?”
Liam shrugged. “This one can do more stuff. Dad got it for me.”
Liam’s parents were divorced, which was a lot more final than the situation with Amelia’s parents, who were separated. Liam’s dad was rich and bought him stuff all the time.
“Oh, wow,” Roshni said. “Lindsay Lohan is back in jail.”
“Who cares?” Amelia said. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little bit too obsessed with celebrities?”
“Pardon me? I’m obsessed? I’m obsessed? This coming from you, who only talks about Camp Fly Away, like, all day long?”
“Camp Soar Like an Eagle.” That was unfair. She didn’t talk about it that much. She’d found the camp on the Internet. It was about three hundred miles away from Vancouver, somewhere in the Cariboo. There was a climbing wall and a sweat lodge, and they took you mountain climbing. She checked every day, and there were still a few openings.
“Speaking of Camp Whatever,” Liam said, “what did your dad say?”
“He said no. It’s mega expensive.”
The bell rang, and Roshni shoved her magazines into her backpack. “I say you’re hiding something about those people who took your apartment,” she said unexpectedly. “Nice, Amelia.”
Amelia felt her cheeks turn red. “I’m not.”
She and Starla had never argued as much as she and Roshni did. She missed Starla, but whenever they tried to get together it ended up being so complicated, organizing rides and working around all the stuff they had to do, that it never happened. She sighed. It was hot already. She should have worn a tank top instead of this stupid sweatshirt. She felt as prickly as a hedgehog.
When Amelia got home from school, Diane was in her bedroom, on the phone. It was Friday, Diane’s day off because she worked on Saturdays. Amelia poured herself a glass of milk. She could hear her mom yelling from all the way down the hall.
“I don’t care if the twins want to join hockey and the roof needs new shingles! I’d appreciate some child support!”
Amelia winced.
“It’s called postpartum depression. Deal with it!”
Silence.
Amelia sighed. Dad sounded broke. No way he was going to change his mind and fork out the money for Camp Soar Like an Eagle.
“Oh, sweetie!” Diane said from the doorway. “I didn’t know you were home. I hope you didn’t hear all that.”
Diane had read a book about kids and divorce when she and Amelia’s dad split up. She’d promised Amelia she would never bad-mouth her father to her or make her a pawn in their fights, even if worse came to worst and they ended up getting a divorce. (Amelia didn’t want to even go there.) Most of the time, Diane had stuck to it.
“That’s okay.” Amelia pointed to a brand-new blender sitting on the counter. “Where’d that come from?”
“An amazing sale at London Drugs. Half price!”
Diane was into making green smoothies full of healthy things like broccoli and spinach. The new blender looked great. Very high-tech.
“I thought I’d give the old one to Gabriella. I know it only has one speed that works, but she might be able to use it. I wonder if they’re married,” Diane added as she lifted the old blender down from the cupboard above the fridge.
“What?”
“I wonder if they’re married.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t matter. And I’m not criticizing them. I’m just wondering.”
“You sound like you’re going to criticize them. People live together these days, Mom. They don’t have to get married.”
“I’m well aware of that, Amelia.”
Her dad and Candice. How could she be so dumb? “Sorry,” Amelia mumbled.
“Nothing to be sorry about. I’ll pop down with this now. I saw Gabriella come in just after lunch.”
“No!” Amelia said. “I’ll take it!”
“I want to look at the apartment. Make sure everything’s okay.”
“You can’t. I mean, it’s fine! Everything’s fine. I’m going to see Gabriella anyway. There’s something I want to ask her in my French homework—”
“You’re babbling, Amelia Jane.”
Amelia sealed her lips.
“Okay. You go,” her mother said. “But tell her if she doesn’t want the blender my feelings won’t be hurt. It can go to the thrift store.”
“Right.” Amelia fled with the blender. Keeping this secret was turning out to be a nightmare.