Secret Star by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online

want—”
    â€œMr. Mathis, please. Just tell me where—”
    â€œNo!” The color rushed back to Daddy’s face, and he heaved himself up in his chair and roared. “You back off! I don’t want you bothering Tess with this nonsense.”
    She had hardly ever in her life sided against him, but this was one time. “Daddy,” she told him, “I need to know too.”
    â€œNo, you don’t!” He swung his chair toward her almost like a threat. “No, you don’t, Tess!”
    â€œJust tell me where you lived before you came here,” Kam said, keeping the volume down. “Tell me where I might find him, that’s all.”
    â€œI’m telling you nothing! Nothing!” Daddy reared forward in his wheelchair, his face so flushed even his bald spot was red. “You get out of here!”
    Kamo swallowed hard, gripped the edge of the sink and didn’t move.
    â€œGet out and stay out! I don’t want you bothering my daughter.”
    Tess was getting frightened. Not that Daddy would hurt anybody, even though he was yelling— Why should it scare me? But it did.
    â€œGet out of here! Now!”
    It was like—an echo, a voice she had heard before, roaring—in a nightmare that turned walls to tissue. Tess stood with the kitchen floor solidly under her big feet, and she knew every splotch on the linoleum, and the grease-freckled walls were not really billowing like sheets in a high wind, but—they had been—somewhere—
    â€œThis is my house! Get out of my house!”
    There had been another house—not like this one, all one flat cluttered story without any steps even at the front and back doors, but a—a house with stairs, a big house where a half-grown girl had crouched on the tall stairs and peeked down through the white spindle railing—
    â€œGet—out—”
    Daddy’s shouting turned to gasping. His face turned from red to putty pale, and he sank down in his chair. Tess could see him sweating. Could see how his hands shook as they clutched at Ernestine’s wheels.
    â€œDaddy!” She got herself moving and hurried toward him.
    â€œMy pills,” he whispered, and then he yelled it, his voice hoarse. “Tess, get my pills!”
    His heart medicine—it had to be on the junked-up kitchen counter somewhere, but she couldn’t think where. She sent dishes clattering, trying to find it. Kam turned to help.
    â€œGo away,” she snapped, panicked and angry—at him, at herself, for asking stupid questions that could kill Daddy, give him a heart attack. “Do what he says, get out!”
    She didn’t look, just heard the door close as Kamo left.
    â€œOkay, Daddy.” At last she found the pills and got the bottle open. She gave him two. “Just relax.” She dipped him a glass of drinking water from the covered bucket that sat by the sink. After the pills took effect and Daddy’s breathing quieted down and his shaking stopped and his color was better, he just sat in his chair. Slack, like he’d been beaten up. Tess would have french-fried herself sooner than ask him any more questions. She offered to heat up supper but he didn’t want any. He said he wasn’t hungry. Neither was she.
    That evening the house was gloomy in the dim candlelight and far too quiet. Tess missed having the TV turned on even though the guns on TV shows usually drove her right out of the room. She didn’t mind worms or snakes or any of the usual girly-screamy things but she hated guns—they made her gut squirm. Guns, and gunfire. And the sound of guns on stupid cop shows. That evening, though, she would have been grateful for some stupid cop show for Daddy to watch, because of the silence. It wasn’t like they were fighting, but—this was why she hardly ever went against Daddy, because he was all she had. Without him she was alone, a speck spinning in the