The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

in the sixties. Painted yellow or pink, with rusted stairwells and fancy names like Capri, Palm Court or Tropicana Bay. I circled round each block, checking out the flickering neon signs.

Finally, I settled on the Capri Motel, a pale pink cube with open balconies on each floor and a dried up, cracked shell of a pool surrounded with wire fencing. It sat next to the offices of Godfather Bail Bonds, a sooty brick structure with broken shutters, the mustard yellow block of Kaiser and Siegel, Attorneys at Law and the Hidden Treasures Pawnshop. Finally, three pickup trucks were parked outside a long, low one-story white building with red shutters that boasted, Strippers Nude Daily. Every hour. Girls, Girls, Girls.

I remembered. There’d been no placements available, so after Donna was arrested, we ended up at the Capri just half a mile from the mall.

“I’m hungry,” I’d said, staring at the faded forest scenes hanging on the dull yellow walls. Birdie glared at me. She was back hanging out with Loni a lot more, and had picked up her language and her screw you attitude.

“For crying out loud, now you’re whining too. I told you I’ll go get us some food. Just sit tight and keep quiet.”

After she stomped out, I took stock of the situation. I had a dollar in my pocket, so I went down to the vending machine in the front lobby and bought a chocolate bar. I filled a plastic water cup and sat down on a flea-bitten plaid couch to eat my supper. As darkness fell, people emerged. Night creatures afraid of the sun. A man opened a door on the second floor and shoved a girl inside by the scruff of her neck. Two drunk guys staggered up to the third floor and almost fell backwards down the stairs. My stomach felt queasy. This was not a safe place. I had to get back up to our room and barricade the door.

I let myself in and switched on the TV. At least we had entertainment. Half an hour later someone bashed on the door. I froze. Until I heard the faint sounds of Birdie’s voice and a whole lot of giggling in the background.

“Pizza delivery,” she squealed, breaking up into a fit of laughter. I could tell from her slurred words she’d been drinking. She burst in with Loni and Duane. A couple of other older kids I didn’t recognize slouched in behind them.

“Pizza partay,” shrieked Birdie. She was drunk or high, sashaying around the place, pulling open drawers and flicking the remote.

Loni opened a pizza box and a fragrant scent of cheese flooded the room.

I was so hungry I’d have turned somersaults and begged on my hands and knees for a slice of that pizza, but when Loni slapped a huge piece of pizza onto a napkin and took a big bite, that was the signal for us to dive on the three boxes and stuff our faces. I dropped a piece on the carpet and lunged for it too late. When I picked it up the cheesy side was coated with hairs and dust. I was about to throw it in the garbage and reach for another piece when Loni slammed the box shut and stuck her face into mine.

“Don’t think of wasting it, bitch,” she spat. “Clean it off and eat it.”

I looked over at Birdie, but she was helping Duane open a twelve pack of beer, so I picked off the hairs and tried to forget what might really be lurking among the fibers of that disgusting carpet.

Then Birdie said she was thirsty, and Duane fed her some beer from his bottle. Everyone laughed when she guzzled too fast and it fizzed out of her nose, but she was so thirsty she wanted more and soon everyone was chugging beer except me. I sat watching them sling beer over the carpet and bedspread. At one point Birdie puked into the garbage can and Duane passed out under the coffee table. I slunk into a corner and helped myself to more slices of pizza.

After all the food was gone, Loni said it was time to quit this shithole and find somewhere more chill to spend the evening. Birdie piled up the empty boxes and said she was going too. By that time, I was too full and tired to object, so they grabbed Duane by his jacket collar and dragged him out. Besides, I had the luxury of my own bed and I was soon curled up in front of a movie.

When I woke the next day, Birdie wasn’t there. The place stunk of stale beer and the door had a hole in it where someone had tried to punch it in from the outside. My eyes burned and my head pounded. I couldn’t deal with any more crap so I called our social worker and she showed up an hour later to drive me back to her office. Birdie arrived an hour later, picked up at the mall for panhandling visitors at the entrance.

19

Guy still hadn’t called so I drove to the mall and headed to the older section. During the week the downtown office workers crammed in for lunch or afternoon shopping, but at the weekend you could’ve thrown a boomerang the full length of the hallways and not clipped anyone’s head. The stores were empty. In their place drug dealers, junkies and burnouts sat by the fountain or huddled on the benches and balconies as if they finally had room to conduct some serious business. Occasional groups of shell-shocked tourists wandered through, checked out the scene and soon scurried towards the nearest exit doors, barely taking a second to look behind them at the sad human circus that cranked along from morning till night.

Fifteen years ago, I’d been one of those dull-eyed dropouts. Birdie, Loni, Duane and I hung out there all the time. Or rather Birdie, Loni and Duane hung out and I sloped along behind them like