My Abnormal Life
Lee McClain

CHAPTER ONE

     Okay, so maybe it wasn't such a great idea, convincing my retarded sister Danielle to hide in the back of an Ethan Allen furniture truck.
     But as I hunched on the bottom porch step of a strange house in a strange town on a damp January day, it was the best escape plan I could manage.
    Nothing had gone right since social services had stuck their collective noses into our lives one week ago. This was the worst yet. I'd been told to wait outside while Dani got settled in her new home.
    Without me.
    That was when I saw the truck and heard the furniture movers complaining that their next stop was all the way in the middle of Pittsburgh.
    Where me, Dani, and Mom lived. Hmmmm.
     The seed of my big idea planted itself in my mind, and I stood up and strolled closer to the truck, keeping my eyes down, making myself as invisible as I could.
     Behind me, the door to Dani's new home burst open and a guy my age slammed out onto the front porch. "Don't pay any attention to what I want, you never do!" he yelled.
     The door closed behind him.
     Even I, Miss Zero Experience, could see the boy was sexy. He had these broad, powerful shoulders and dark brown hair that curled over the sheepskin collar of his coat.
     And, oh my gosh, his eyes. I mean, I have brown eyes, but like everything else about me, they're ordinary and forgettable.
    This boy's brown eyes looked like melted chocolate. They drooped down at the outside corners, like he was just a little bit sleepy. But there was nothing sleepy about the athletic way he took the porch steps in one leap and strode down the walk.
    I hadn't been this close to a good-looking boy in forever. Mostly I'd just watched them out our apartment window, or on T.V. So I got a disloyal flash of thinking, "Hey, maybe it won't be so bad in this town" as I watched him come toward me.
     "Why can't you people solve your own problems?" he yelled in my direction.
     My warm, fuzzy feeling evaporated. "Us people? Excuse me?" I marched toward him, ready to fight. I may be short but I'm strong.
     His cell phone rang, and he turned away like I wasn't even there. "Yeah?" he said into it. "Oh, just another Little Orphan Annie my folks have taken in. I was supposed to be home to, quote, make her feel welcome, but I'm bailin'."
     "We're not orphans," I protested to his broad back.
    Just at that moment, Dani came out onto the porch. She was crying with her mouth wide open, loud wails that reached into my chest and hooked my heart.
     I ran up the steps and wrapped my arms around her. "Hey, it's okay," I said, even though it wasn't. I stroked her tangled, light-brown hair and patted her bony back.
     Her wails slowed, then stopped. "I not stay here," she said, her voice shaky. "I stay you."
     My point exactly. I looked up at the screen door of the house, where our social worker Fred and the new foster mom stood watching.
     "You can visit each other," Fred said.
     "After she has a few days to settle in." The foster mom crossed her arms over her chest. Her chin was pointy like a witch. "You need to tell her it's okay for her to stay here."
     "You want me to lie?" I said it quietly so that Dani, whose head was now buried in my shoulder, wouldn't hear.
     The foster mom's lips tightened. "Say your goodbyes," she said. "Fred, we need to nail down some details."
     The two of them disappeared back into the house.
     Dani clung to me. "I stay you," she repeated over and over.
     Her words tore at my heart, and what made it worse was that it was all my fault. If I hadn't tried to shoplift food from a new store whose owner I didn't know, the police would never have found out how Dani, Mom and I were living.
     Stupid, stupid, stupid.
     It was bad enough being taken away from Mom, not to mention my apartment and my neighborhood and everything I knew. But I'd thought Dani and I could stay together. Putting us in separate homes in the same small town was the brainstorm of our counselors at St. Helen's Home for Girls.
     After knowing us for all of one week, they'd decided I was overly responsible and prematurely adult. And they thought Dani, at eight, was too attached to me.
     Well, duh. What choice did we have?
     And what was so bad about being responsible and attached?
     So now, just because I'd answered some questions wrong in their interviews, I couldn't stay with Dani and help her get used to a new place. She'd be on her own, and she did not handle change well.
     My Grandma's words came back to me: "You're this baby's guardian angel," she'd said when Dani was born with Down Syndrome. "With the Good Lord's help, you have to keep her safe, whatever your mother and father do."
     Well, Gram, I thought, looking up toward heaven, you better tell the Good Lord to step in quick.
     Dani wrapped herself around me like a monkey, and I carried her down the porch stairs.
     And there sat the truck, open and unattended. The back of it was half full of furniture. The delivery guys were inside the next-door neighbors' house.
     "Hey Dani," I said, "want to play a game?" She lifted her head. "What game?"
     I dug a used tissue out of my jeans pocket and wiped her nose. "See that truck?" I said. "We're gonna play hide-and-seek in it."
     "We going 'way?" she asked.
     Sometimes Dani was smarter than she looked. "That's right," I said, glancing back at the still-empty doorway of Dani's new foster home. "We're gonna go away. Hold on."
     I scrambled up the ramp that led into the back of the truck and looked around. There were a couple of big dressers we could hide behind, and some green padded blankets to pull over the top of us. Perfect!
     "Hey," said a voice outside the truck.
     I froze.
     "Are you crazy? What're you doing?"
     Slowly, I turned around.
     It was Mr. Sexy. "I gotta go," he said into his cell phone, and stuffed it in the pocket of his windbreaker. "Get outta there," he said to me. "Any minute now, they're going to shut this truck and drive off. You can't play in there."
     I put Dani down but kept my hands on her shoulders to soothe her. "We're not playing," I said.
     He came closer, hoisting himself up to sit on the back of the truck. "My Mom's gonna kill you. She's super safety conscious."
     "Look, just get out of here before somebody sees you," I hissed. "We're taking care of our own problems, okay? We're trying to go back home."
    "You're stowing away?" He sounded the slightest bit impressed.
     "It dark in here," Dani said.
     "I know. We're playing cave." It was a game we played whenever the lights got turned off at home.
     Dani started to cry. "I no like cave!"
     I sighed. "Look," I said, kneeling down to face her, "we're going to go for a ride in this truck. A long ride, but I'll be right here with you all the time. And when it opens up again, we'll be back home."
     "Are you out of your mind?" asked the boy.
     "Just get out of here so nobody sees you," I snapped. "This isn't your business."
     "Brian!" a woman's voice called. "Did you see where Dani and her sister went?"
     I heard more people coming this way. "Off the truck, kid," said a male voice. "We're heading out."
     I put my hands together to pantomime a prayer to Brian. And then I had to focus on Dani. "Come on, down here," I whispered, and pulled her behind the biggest dresser with me. "Look, we'll put this blanket over us. Be real quiet!"
     A big sliding door came down, blocking all the light from the back of the truck.
     The engine rumbled to life.