Maggie's Page
fiction format for 8-12 year-olds and those who care about them to show how easily a child can get into trouble online.
Read the first two chapters here:
In Real Life Chapter One
You just can’t do this, Dad!” I said. “When will you be back?”
“Really soon,” he said. “I’ll be home in two weeks. I promise.”
I felt as if a huge fist had punched me hard in the stomach. I watched him folding and putting his clothes in the suitcase. I wanted to yell, “No! Stop!” and empty them all out on the floor.
What made him think it was O.K. to just leave me here with them? Paula should take her two little kids and get on a plane, not Dad.
“David, Libby, supper’s ready,” Paula called up the stairs.
“Let’s go, Libby. Everything will be all right, honey. You and I are survivors, remember?”
“I guess so,” I said. I couldn’t believe he would do this to me.
“We’ll talk more later,” he said and gave me a little hug.
“There you two are,” Paula said. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Dad on the cheek.
Paula put some kind of chicken mixture on Jeffrey and Annie’s plates and then passed the casserole dish to me. I shuddered.
Jeffrey, age three, babbled on and on about some kid named Larry at day care as Paula smiled and nodded. If Jeffrey was awake, he was talking. Annie immediately started finger painting in her food. Annie, age two, didn’t talk much, but she was messy to the extreme. What little appetite I had ran from the table and jumped out the front window.
“All packed, David?” Paula asked. “I can still do a load of laundry tonight if you need me to.”
“No, thanks. I think I’m set. I just need to throw a few last minute things in,” Dad said. He took Paula’s hand, and they stared into each others eyes.
I somehow kept from screaming at them all. I pushed food around on my plate while watching a one and a half star movie featuring someone else’s happy, sickening little family.
As I did the dishes, I stared out the window at Jeffrey climbing the ladder and going down the slide over and over again, to the clapping and laughter of Annie, now covered hair to sandals in cherry Popsicle. My father and Paula were holding hands, as usual. Those two were like sappy teenagers at the mall. When my mother was still alive, I couldn’t remember my father constantly holding hands with her like that.
O.K., I thought. Maybe Dad wasn’t quite old enough to be Paula’s father, but Paula certainly wasn’t old enough to be my mother, either! How in the world could he have married her? I stomped upstairs to do my homework.
There was nothing wrong with the way things were before Paula and her kids came along. It was quieter and definitely cleaner. I used to feel like a daughter, not an invisible twelve-year-old. My life was disgusting.
“Computer delivery man,” my father’s voice said from the other side of my bedroom door.
I opened the door to see him standing there with a huge smile. Jeffrey’s little wagon was loaded with a computer monitor, mouse, modem, and printer. Laughing in confusion, I cleared off my desk.
“I thought you should have my old computer for your homework and stuff,” he said as he hooked everything up. “There’s a phone jack connected to the second phone line that I used for work in here, so you should be all set.”
“Wow, Dad!”
“I’ll be taking my new laptop on my trip and have transferred all the files I’ll need for now. There, so what do you think?”
“This is great! Thank you,” I said as I hugged him. “I’ve always thought this computer was so cool. I’m glad you needed to get yourself a laptop.”
He smiled as he turned on the computer.
“Now, you know, you will just have to stay home and teach me all about it. Can’t someone else go on this stupid trip?”
“No, I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “My new promotion includes traveling wherever the company sends me to present my ideas. I’ll bring you back a nice surprise from Chicago.”
Chicago. It might as well have been two million miles away from Mayfair, Massachusetts. I wished my father worked at the First Mayfair Bank or Giovanni’s Market. Fathers should work right down the street and not go hopping on planes to fly miles and miles away.
Fathers should be home every night for supper, just in case you needed them for something.
We worked on the computer for about an hour. Dad left to finish packing, and I got out my homework. I thought of all the things I had learned about computers in school, which was nothing compared to what my friend Eric knew. He was my school’s techno hero. Many kids made him their unofficial tutor when it came to computers and math. I couldn’t wait to get him over to my house so he could teach me amazing things.
On my was downstairs to get a glass of milk and take a break from homework, I saw my father and Paula in my old bedroom with Annie and Jeffrey. They were all sitting on Jeffrey’s bed reading “Go Dog Go” and laughing.
Watching them made me miss my mother more than ever. I loved it when she used to read to me at bedtime. That was the best. It seemed that she had already been gone forever, almost like she had never been with us at all. My whole body felt heavy, weighed down by the big sad of it. I took my glass of milk out to the porch.
The sunset made houses glow orange up and down Blackberry Street. The air smelled green. The only sound was the crickets singing their slow, warm weather song in the evening air. School would be out soon.
I had always counted the days to summer vacation until now. This summer was practically ruined before it started. With my father gone away on trips, I would be alone with Paula and the kids a lot. The only thing that might save my sanity was having my best friends Eric and Sally living right next door.
I went back inside to work on my homework. I needed to write a report on the history of the automobile. A completely boring project, but a very good distraction.
The knock on my bedroom door woke me up. A thin yellow light shone in under my window shade.
“My cab to the airport is here, honey,” my father said as he opened the door. I need to run.”
I jumped out of bed with tears in my eyes. I ran to my father and hugged him as hard as I could. “Please, Dad, don’t go,” I said with a sob.
He kissed me on the top of my head. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It felt like an ugly, frantic dream.
“I’ll be back very soon, honey. Be a good girl, K?” he said.
The cab driver honked the horn. I ran down the stairs in time to watch my father kiss Paula and the kids. He hurried out the door and down the front steps. Paula had Annie on her hip with Jeffrey holding her hand and yelling “good-bye, Daddy” over and over. I watched the taxi pull away, turn into a yellow dot, and disappear.
I dragged myself back up the stairs and cried out loud in the shower. He was my daddy, not Jeffrey or Annie’s. Dad had never been away overnight. What would I do without him? I was actually glad it was a school day. I wouldn’t have time for the big sad.
Like a robot, I brushed my curly brown hair into the usual long braid. I put on jeans and my favorite Manny Ramirez tee shirt. Manny in person that morning wouldn’t have been enough to make me smile.
Downstairs I went, stupidly wishing my father would be sitting at his place at the table with his coffee and newspaper. Instead, Annie was decorating the table with scrambled eggs, and Jeffrey was telling his stuffed rabbit what he would be doing all day.
Paula came out of the kitchen in a cute little green silk dress, her reddish brown hair pulled up on top of her head. Several earrings dangled and sparkled. She smelled like lilacs. Paula’s name should have been Britney or Paris something.
“Good morning, Libby. Can I make you some eggs?” Paula asked. “Or I could make French toast. It wouldn’t take long at all.”
“No thanks. I’m really not hungry. I have to leave for school now. Then this afternoon I’m going to watch Sally’s softball game with Eric. So,” I said with a shrug, “I guess I won’t be home until supper time.”
“O.K., well, have a good day, then,” Paula said as she turned around to pick Annie’s empty egg plate from the floor and zip up Jeffrey’s Spiderman jacket.
I grabbed my back pack, went out the front door, and headed for Eric and Sally’s house.
Chapter Two
Eric came out the door. He was a blond version of everyone’s favorite wizard, but instead of a wand and cape, he carried a mechanical pencil and wore a “Got Geek?” tee shirt.
“Good morning,” I said. “Where’s Sally?”
“You really need to ask?” he asked with a laugh.
Eric and I looked straight up the Yellow Birch tree we were standing under. Sally smiled and waved at us as she climbed down the branches.
“She’s part monkey,” Eric said. “She has to be.”
I laughed. The rumor is as soon as she learned how to crawl, Sally headed out the front door and right up a tree.
Sally jumped down. I picked a thin, greenish-brown twig out of one of her ponytails. When I moved to Blackberry Street nine years before, Sally had been just a little baby, and Eric had been three, same as I was. Our parents became close friends, like family, and we always did things together.
When my mother died five years ago, all that changed. I don’t think Eric and Sally’s parents had ever really spent much time with Paula. In fact, except for when my father had introduced them at the wedding, they may not have been around Paula or the kids at all.
“Did I see a taxi at your house early this morning?” Eric asked as he adjusted his backpack on his shoulder.
“Yeah, Dad had to go away to Chicago on a business trip. He’ll be gone for two whole weeks! I still can’t believe it.”
We walked for a while without saying anything. Suddenly, without my permission, my inner drama queen burst out.
“Ya know, it stinks that Dad will be gone like this. Jeffrey never stops talking. Never! Sometimes I can’t stand it. Annie’s mission is to make the biggest mess possible with whatever she can reach.”
“Wow,” Sally said.
“Having Paula for a mother is like having a baby-sitter who never goes home. Sometimes when she tells me to do something, I just feel like laughing at her. Dad will probably need to travel pretty often with his new job. It was just me and Dad for five years. I hate this guys. I just hate it,” I said.
After a long silence, Eric said, “That’s really tough, Lib.” Sally nodded.
How could I have expected them to understand how awful this was for me? I mean, how could they? Eric and Sally had lived in the same house their whole lives with the same two parents. Their mother didn’t get sick, die, and get replaced with some kind of fashion model.
Two small children didn’t move into Eric and Sally’s house one day and take over one of their bedrooms, just because it could hold all their little kid stuff: enough to fill and entire mall. No way Eric and Sally could help me with this one. I wondered if there was anyone anywhere who could.
“Hey, Libby, are you going to the Muskrats game after school?” Sally asked.
“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it. Did you find out if you will be pitching today?”
“Yeah, I am. The manager wants to see how I’ll do out there. Mom and Dad can’t make it. I need to see your two faces in the stands,” Sally said.
“Count on it,” I said.
“Don’t let me down! I mean it! I really need you two there,” Sally said.
“We’ll be there, Sal,” Eric said and punched her in the arm.
“I’m really nervous,” Sally said. “They don’t usually let girls pitch.”
“You can do it, Sally,” I said.
“Don’t worry your little monkey head over it, O.K.?” Eric said and patted her on the back.
I handed in my report on automobiles. Personally, I thought it was beyond boring but knew Mr. Esters would like it because it was full of facts.
The only class Eric and I had together was math. This was a wonderful gift for me. I had to force math into my unwilling brain. My father was the same way. He learned to get by and tells me I will, too. Eric was excellent in helping me with homework and studying for tests. He could really make me get it.
That week we were working on converting common fractions to decimals and decimals to percentages. I would be able to figure all that out with Eric’s help, but would never be able to understand why anyone should need to spend that much time thinking about any kind of math. Give me a good writing assignment, however, and I was one happy Libby.
The day went by fast. I was right: no time for the big sad. Eric and I left for the park to get good seats for Sally’s pitching debut. It made sense to me that Sally would be good at throwing the ball with the workout her little arms got scrambling up and down trees everyday.
“Wow! Did you see that?” Eric said as he sat down again.
“That’s our Sally,” I said. “This is great!” I couldn’t stop giggling.
Three poor batters struck out in nine pitches in the first inning. One left crying. Second inning was just the same. Sally looked as if she had been born on the mound. It was amazing how someone as little as Sally could look so huge out there.
“Oh, no!” Eric said as he jumped up again.
It was Sally’s third inning, and a guy finally got a hit. The ball popped up. I stood there and held my breath. On the run, Sally got there before anyone in the outfield could and caught the ball like a pro. I imagined Sally someday as the first female Red Sox player, respected and known all over the league.
We couldn’t believe it. Sally was only allowed to pitch three innings. What kind of a rule was that? It would have made much more sense to have kept Sally out there.
The Muskrat fans stood up and cheered, “Sal-lee! Sal-lee!” as she left the field.
Even though the Muskrats lost the game, we were still excited about it as we walked home. The closer we got to Blackberry Street, though, the more I felt it. By the time I got to my house, the big blue sad had drifted down and wrapped around me like a cold, dripping wet blanket.
When I walked in the house, Paula, Jeffrey, and Annie were already eating. I washed my hands and sat down at the table. I felt like crying just seeing my father’s empty chair.
“Did you have a good day, Libby?” Paula asked as she passed the pizza and salad. “How was Sally’s softball game?”
“It was an all right day. We lost the game, but Sally’s pitching was just amaz—”
“Mama! You know what?” Jeffrey asked in a loud voice.
Obviously, this was something that couldn’t wait. It was actually O.K., though. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I watched Paula who was somehow able to listen to Jeffrey, wash Annie’s hands before she got pizza sauce in her hair, and talk on the phone about work at the same time.
Paula walked in the kitchen to get a phone number for the person on the line. The minute she did, Jeffrey reached in front of me for the salad dressing and knocked over a full glass of milk in my lap. The milk was cold. I jumped up with a little scream.
Annie started to cry. Jeffrey ran into the kitchen and got me a towel. I started to wipe myself off, but stopped suddenly when I saw the pizza sauce all over the towel. Paula came back in, picked Annie up, and tried to calm her down. Annie just kept on crying, while Jeffrey talked steadily in a loud voice as he wiped up the milk on the floor with the pizza sauce towel.
“I live in a zoo,” I said under my breath. I trudged up to my room to peel off my cold, milky clothes.
I sat at my desk in my pajamas, brushing my hair. It would be a while before Paula, Jeffrey, or Annie noticed I wasn’t in the dining room anymore. The three of them were a family there in their noisy, messy little world. I was just another person who happened to live in their house.
I turned on the computer. On line, I stared at my father’s start page. He said I could type any question, word, or phrase I wanted to in the search space to get answers. Maybe there was someone out there who would listen to me.
I typed in “lonely girl.”
