Connection (Le Garde) by Emily Ann Ward Read Free Book Online Page B

something to watch.
    “ It’s pouring out there,” I said needlessly as the rain slashed against the windows.
    “ I hate the rain,” Allie said. “I was going to go to the park with Mackenzie.” She pouted and started complaining about Ginger flipping the channels. Ginger ignored her, alternating between a Lifetime movie and a raunchy MTV show.
    “ You’re not supposed to be watching that,” I told Ginger as I walked into the kitchen, which was a small room off to the side.
    Ginger huffed. “Mom is way too strict. All my friends watch this.”
    “ Just change it. Allie’s only eight.”
    Ginger glared at me, but she changed the channel. I opened the fridge and closed it just as quickly. I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t even think about food after what just happened. I looked at Ginger and Allie for a moment, wondering if anything odd had ever happened to them. I was eight when I met Aaron. Would Allie meet someone like him soon? Someone whose feelings she’d know even though he didn’t speak them, someone whose knowledge she gained just by standing next to him, someone she could speak French with?
    Whenever Mom was home, we spoke in French instead of English. When my dad left seven years ago, Mom went through a small phase where she spoke strictly English, saying she needed to perfect it to get a better job. We eased back into French a few months later, though.
    She also taught us bits and pieces of Lingala, but it’d been more than a decade since she’d spoken it since my dad only knew French and English. She hadn’t spoken to her family in years. She left before the violence started, but for a little while she was trying to raise money to bring them over from DR Congo. Her parents died in the first war when I was only two, and she lost contact with her sister a couple years ago. Nobody knew if she was alive or if she’d just been displaced.
    That was why Mom was so protective over us—we were really the only family she had left. Whenever I talked about going over to Central Africa to help teach French or English or help with literacy projects, she asked me why I couldn’t be a teacher here in America.
    I left the kitchen with a sigh. I needed to do my homework. Anything to get my mind off of Aaron.
    Mom got home an hour and a half later, and she told my sisters to turn off the TV and do their homework while we got dinner ready. “Will you start peeling the yams?” she asked.
    I went to the kitchen and started. Mom joined me a few moments later, changed out of her work clothes. She worked at the DMV, and she hated the blouses she had to wear. She sighed as she took out the rice.
    “ How was your day?” I asked in French.
    “ Okay,” she said. “Yours?”
    “ Okay,” I echoed.
    What if I told her about Aaron? What would she say? She’d probably tell me to go to bed because I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Or call up the priest and ask him to pray over me. Maybe those weren’t such bad ideas.
     
    * * *
     
    The next day, I was midway through Yearbook when my phone rang. Ms. Friars was a pretty relaxed teacher, but even she didn’t like us talking on the phone in class. I saw it was Melissa and texted her. Obviously I was in class. Why was she calling?
    She texted back, I have the chicken pox! Call me asap!
    I groaned.
    “ What is it?” Steven asked, leaning toward me from his computer.
    “ It’s Melissa, she has chicken pox!” I said.
    Steven laughed. “Chicken pox? She’s a little old to be getting chicken pox, isn’t she?”
    I saved my work on the volleyball page, then asked Ms. Friars if I could go to the bathroom. I called Melissa and, sure enough, chicken pox . She probably wouldn’t be able to do the duet with me at the Spring concert. Mr. Boyd was going to panic. And probably take it out on me.
    Next class period, I walked into Band. The classroom was covered in portraits of musicians through the years. Mr. Boyd also taught weird electives like History of Rock Music. He was cool