The Truth According to Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig (books to read for self improvement txt) 📕

off the bus but I don’t see his car in the driveway. He stopped working after the kidnapping so that he could take care of me. Maybe he is at another doctor’s appointment. He goes to the doctor’s all the time now.

I want to tell him that I need to talk with Patrice again. Just on the phone. I need to talk with Patrice now so that she will tell the social workers that Gloria gets mad and hits. I need to tell her that they can’t leave her alone with my Baby Doll.

The bus pulls away behind me. I go inside. I put my backpack down in my room and go to the stairs. And listen.

I hear my Forever Mom’s door close.

I don’t want to go up there but I have to. My Forever Dad said it’s for the best if I just leave my Forever Mom alone. But I have to ask someone to call Patrice. My Baby Doll isn’t safe.

I walk up the stairs as quiet as I can. I stop in front of the door to the bedroom. I knock.

She doesn’t say Come on in or Wait just a minute or anything. I don’t hear any sound at all.

So I open the door.

She is on the bed holding Baby Wendy. Her eyes are thin slits. “Ginny, get out of here!” she growls.

“But I need to—”

“Now!”

I take a deep breath. I have to stay calm. “I need to—” I say again but this time she interrupts me.

With a yell.

“Ginny, get the hell out of here! Stay away from me and my baby!”

So I close my eyes and yell back, “I need to talk with Patrice!”

Then I hear Baby Wendy crying. Right there in front of me.

I step forward. I know how to help a crying baby.

My Forever Mom jumps up fast.

I back up.

But the crying is getting louder so I start saying, “Ush, ush, ush.” I put out my hands to pick up the baby.

Something hits my face. It knocks me onto the floor.

The crying gets softer. It is far away. My head hurts and I hear footsteps. I hear the front door shut. I get up on my knees. My Forever Mom is gone and Baby Wendy is gone and I don’t hear the crying anymore but then I hear the car. When I stand up and look out the window I see it backing up. It backs onto the street and zooms away.

EXACTLY 1:58 IN THE AFTERNOON,

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4TH

It snowed last night. We are at Wagon Hill and I am going sledding with my Forever Dad. I don’t know what time it is exactly because I am wearing gloves and I can’t see my watch. I’m wearing my big sunglasses over my regular glasses and when I get out of the car I say, “I know what you’re thinking—I am the spitting image of Michael Jackson.”

And he says, “You’re right. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Wagon Hill is a lot of fun in the winter because it’s a great place to go sledding. We went sledding here last winter too before my Forever Mom knew she was pregnant. It is the best sledding hill in the world. It is longer than the football field at the high school except it’s slanted. You can go really fast on it. It is extremely distracting which is great because things were a little intense yesterday at the Blue House. That was what my Forever Dad said when he told me we were going sledding. Then I said I had to talk with Patrice and he said he would call her right away. And he did. He even let me talk with her on the phone and she said not to worry, the social workers were already visiting Gloria every day. Even on the weekends. So I was happy. Patrice said she will give me an update when I go to see her on Wednesday and that I should try not to obsess so much about it.

We already went down the hill once and it was great but when you get to the bottom of a hill you have to walk back to the top. There’s no one to bring you back on a bus or to pull you. I ask my Forever Dad if he will pull me back to the top and he says no. There are other dads pulling their kids so I say, “Well why not?”

His breathing is loud. His face is red. “Because you weigh a hundred twenty-five pounds, and those little kids are only four or five years old,” he says.

But I still see lots of kids getting pulled. “This isn’t fair,” I say. “Look at all those kids. They don’t have to walk. This is tedious.”

My Forever Dad keeps walking. The top of the hill is far away. Sometimes he stops to rest and breathe and I see lots of clouds coming out of his mouth. I’d rather be home watching a video or listening to Michael Jackson or reading a book for exactly thirty minutes. Or organizing my backpack for the respite. Walking up the hill is no fun at all. “Can’t you just pick me up in the car or something?” I say. “I’m not having any fun.”

He turns around. “Did we get hot chocolate on the way here?”

“Yes. From Dunkin’ Donuts,” I say. “It was too hot so we said we should probably leave it in the car to cool a little so that it doesn’t burn my tongue.”

“And haven’t you been looking forward to going sledding since summer?”

“Yes.”

“Then can you maybe try to be just a little bit grateful?”

I know that sometimes you have to pretend that you’re grateful or you get hit. But my Forever Parents don’t hit. They say that they don’t believe in it which means I don’t have to pretend. But on Wednesday which was three days ago my Forever Mom hit me when I tried to pick the baby up.