chapter 28

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere important. Just out with a couple of friends.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you had any friends. No, that didn’t come out right. Sorry. Well, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t mean anything. It’s no big deal. Just a couple of people I met in class. Decided I need to branch out a little.”

“Oh. Well, do I know them?”

“Oh, probably. You seem to know everyone. I can’t remember their names. You know how I am with names.”

“Yeah, you do suck at names. I don’t think you even know everyone here yet!” She laughs at me and looks at me with trusting eyes. I feel guilty for a second, but it’s really for her own good. After all, Grace was so totally mean to Rhiannon that it’s better for her not to know that she’s one of the people I’m going to see. I know she’d be all worried and bent out of shape if she knew I was hanging with Grace and Tom. Rhiannon is from a different world, kid-wise, and she thinks kids like Grace are dangerous or something. What Rhiannon has never figured out is that I am a hell of a lot more dangerous than any kid she knows. When I want to be.

“Anyway, did you tell Mom you’re going out? She needs to know where everyone is all the time.”

“Yeah, I told her.” Lie number two. I’ve always been really good at lying. Someone told me once it’s because my eyes are so dark that no one can read what I’m thinking. Not sure if that was a compliment. Probably not. I give Rhiannon what I hope is a reassuring smile and head downstairs. It’s just before eight, which I know is the time Ms. K is busy fighting to put the superbrats to bed. Mr. K always helps her, so I know the coast is clear. By the time they finish that, they usually take some quiet time and leave the older kids on our own in our rooms to do homework or whatever. They’ll never even notice I’m gone. I hope.

I know it might have been easier to just try the same lie on Ms. K that I did on Rhiannon, but I’m not sure it would work on her. She has this weird, like, ESP thing when it comes to lying. I watch her catch the other kids at it all of the time. She gets really bent out of shape when someone lies. Goes on about trust and honesty and other such garbage. Since neither trust or honesty ranks very high on my list of important things, I decide it’s not worth the potential hassle when I can just sneak out and back in without her noticing. I hope.

I get to the dumpster a couple of minutes after eight. Tom and Grace are there with the other guys who still don’t have names inside my head. Tom looks happy to see me. Grace does not.

“Let’s go then,” Tom says as I walk up. Not wasting any time on conversation. That’s a nice change. Everyone turns to pile into an old car that looks like the wheels might fall off if we drive too fast. I hesitate for just a second, wondering if I should just head back to the house before Rhiannon accidentally tells Ms. K that I went out. Maybe I should have risked the honesty lecture and just told Ms. K I was going over to a friend’s house.

Too late now. I’m not going to worry about it. All I’m doing is trying to find a good time. I earned it. I let Cecilia tell me the big family secret so she could get it off her chest and plaster it onto mine. Now I know that my mother is a bigger loser than I could have even imagined and that I don’t need to wonder about my brother any more because he isn’t really my brother. He’s my mother’s son. And I’m just me.

I’ve been a good little girl at school, and I did the stupid testing and even sat through the meeting from hell. I totally deserve some time off the sunshine-and-roses train. I climb into the back seat and squeeze between the two nameless guys. Grace smiles at me from the front seat, a “see, I’m sitting with Tom and you’re not” kind of smile. I smile back an “I don’t care what you do” kind of smile.

We take off at top speed, which is probably not all that fast seeing as the car is a reject from the junk yard. The car still feels pretty shaky, and I would tell Tom to slow down except that the guys without names would probably shove me out onto the road if I did and laugh at me as I roll away into the ditch.

We head downtown. Not that this town is really big enough to have an uptown and a downtown, but there’s a set of railway tracks that separates the town in half. People always say they live uptown, which is above the tracks, or downtown, which is below. The Kerrys live uptown. The party is obviously downtown. How exciting. I get to see how the other half lives. Ha ha. Funny Sadie.

Not even sure why we’re driving because everything in this town is walkable. I don’t figure Tom for a Pepsi drinker, either, so his driving is probably kind of dicey. On the other hand, the drive is short. He probably knows his way around town with his eyes shut.

We get to the party in about three minutes. This is a good thing because the nameless guys are also apparently showerless guys. I’m pretty happy to get out and breathe in the semi-fresh air. We’re at a house on a dead-end street. It’s a pretty small-looking house with an unbelievable number of bodies crammed into it. It looks like one of those world-record things where ten people try to squeeze into an old Volkswagen bug car. I swear there’re like a hundred kids squished into a house that’s made for a family of three.

Pretty obvious that the family isn’t home. No evidence of a parent of any description, which makes sense. Wouldn’t be much of a party with a mom or a dad hovering around.

Tom and Grace are already in the house. The nameless guys have disappeared, and I’m standing by myself beside the rusted-out car wondering what I’m doing here. I mean, I know what to do at a party. I’ve been to lots of them in other places I’ve lived. It was a party like this that got me kicked out of my last foster home.

It was all so stupid. The other fostergirl in my house and I were totally bored on a Friday night and decided to find something to do. We managed to find a party and headed over at around ten thirty or so. We weren’t supposed to be out past eleven, but that never stopped us. We had ways of sneaking out and sneaking back in. Our pseudomom wasn’t too bright; or maybe she just didn’t care. Never was sure which. Didn’t matter.

Everyone at the party was already pretty out of it by the time we got there. We each had a couple of drinks, but we couldn’t catch up to everyone else. A little while after we got there, a couple of completely wasted guys decided to start hassling us, getting all gropey and disgusting. One of them grabbed Janey and tried to force her into a bedroom. He was so out of it he probably couldn’t have done much to her anyway, but she got scared and started to scream. Her screaming just disappeared into the music so no one heard her but me. No one would have done anything even if they had heard her. No one cared. Except me. I’ve never had much use for guys in general, and I don’t put up with guys who hassle girls. I didn’t even think about it. I just grabbed a knife out of the kitchen and used it to let the jerk know he had to make other plans.

I didn’t actually stab him, though I would have if he hadn’t backed down. Which he did immediately because, like most guys I’ve met, he was a total coward on top of being a jerkwad. A couple of other kids saw me threaten him and decided to get all panicky and called the cops. Unbelievable. Everyone there was underage and either drunk or stoned, and these babes call the cops! Anyway, I got arrested, even though the guy was trying to rape my friend.

I ended up with probation. First offense. That they knew about. Extenuating circumstances. Whatever. Released to Cecilia who had to make her phone calls to find me a new place because my pseudofamily didn’t want trouble in their happy home. Exit Sadie.

Strange to think that Buffy and I actually had something in common after all.

“Hey, aren’t you coming in?” Tom has actually come back out of the sardine can to find me. Which would seem nice, but I know he’s just trying to play me. That’s cool. I can handle players. I just have to find the kitchen.

“Sure. Just wasn’t sure where I would fit. Seems a little tight in there.” He laughs like I said something brilliantly funny.

“Small house, big crowd. It’s all good. Lots to drink inside. You look thirsty. Come on.” He leads the way and the crowd kind of parts to let us through. Tom’s super tall and kind of big all over, and people notice him when he walks. I just truck along inside his shadow and no one notices me. Story of my life.

“Beer? Rye? What’s your pleasure?” He gestures at a table full of bottles.

“How’d they afford all this?”

“Oh, it’s a BYOB and then they just throw it all together.”

“I didn’t bring anything.”

“That’s cool. No one knows the difference. Help yourself.”

Haven’t had a drink since I moved here. Been turning into a nun. I mix myself a rye and coke in a plastic cup and sip it. It actually tastes gross, but I drink it anyway. Tom sucks back a beer or two and then drifts off into the mess of bodies so they can worship him close up.

I just kind of stay in a corner and watch. I don’t really know anyone and don’t really want to. I recognize a face or two. I’m surprised to see the Eddy of Rhiannon’s dreams over on the other side of the room. Guess he isn’t the one for her after all. I don’t think anyone who would fit with Rhiannon would be at a place like this.

Don’t know what that says about me.

“This party blows. There’s another one back uptown. Let’s check it out.” Grace and Tom suddenly materialize in front of me. Not sure how they found me. Not sure Grace even wanted to. No one else was paying any attention to me, and I thought I had managed to become invisible again.

I go with them because I don’t really have much choice. I still don’t know this reject town well enough to find my street after dark. I don’t really want to go to another pathetic excuse for a party, but I don’t want to give Grace the satisfaction of thinking I’m a loser because I ask to go home. So, we squish ourselves back into the rusted rat trap, which doesn’t feel as crowded now after standing in that house, and start to creak our way back across town.

It doesn’t take long to head toward the tracks again. Close enough that speed doesn’t matter. Probably could have walked, but I guess I’m just lazy. I can hear a train making that obnoxious warning sound that bellows through town about ten times a day. I seem to remember actually kind of liking trains at some point in my life. I think I liked to imagine where they came from and where they were going, back when I still let myself imagine things. I kind of remember liking it when a car I was in had to wait for a train to go by so I could look at the train cars and wonder what was in them and make up stories about the families inside.

I don’t make up stories any more. And I don’t think I like trains. They make too much noise.

We’re heading for the bridge. There’s a long way around that takes you under the train instead of in front of it. I wonder what Tom’s going to do. We’re obviously still heading in the direction of the whistle. He’s moving pretty fast, at least as fast as this heap can move. Too fast to turn at the bridge, so he must be staying on the main road.

We’re coming up on the crossing and I’m watching for the train. I can see it coming across the bridge and I sit back, waiting for Tom to stop.

“Go for it!” Nameless Guy Number One yells in my ear. What’s he talking about?

“Totally!” Tom yells back from the front seat and the car kind of jerks forward, trying to speed itself up.

By the time my brain registers what’s about to happen, it’s too late. All I can hear is the impossible sound of the train hitting the car as it pushes us down the tracks and down off the bridge in a grinding, screaming mass of tangled-up metal and people. I can hear horrible screams as we actually fall off the bridge onto the road below.

The last thing I remember is realizing that the screams are coming from me.