The Opposite Of Tidy by Carrie Mac Read Free Book Online Page A

wish that.
    “So the money is going to Darfur,” he was saying when Junie broke out of her thoughts. “Not because my parents are there. Well, sort of, I guess, if I’m beinghonest. But more because it’s the cause we decided to support.”
    “Right.” Why had he stopped in the first place? What did he really want with her? Or Tab?
    “And the teachers’ union is going to match whatever we make, so it’s double what we can get out of the bottle drive.”
    “Cool.” Junie glanced back at Tabitha. Still with the glare. Tabitha added a cocked eyebrow for good measure. Junie returned her fractured attention to her so-called conversation. Wade didn’t seem to notice her lack of attention. He just kept talking.
    “You wouldn’t believe what we went through to make that happen. Apparently, the teachers’ union never does that.”
    “Really.”
    It was Tabitha’s fault that Junie couldn’t talk to Wade like a real, functioning person would. Her glare was so loud that it drowned out everything else. Junie could hardly hear what Wade was saying because of the pounding disapproval coming from the back seat.
    When they got to the school, Tabitha slammed out of the van and waited until after Wade said goodbye and went ahead of them into the building before she turned on Junie.
    “How could you?”
    “You know exactly how.” Junie hitched her backpack up on one shoulder and started walking. “You, out of everyone in the whole world, know how.”
    “Come on, Junie.” Tabitha caught up to her. “Your own parents?”
    “Exactly.”
    “You can’t just let him go on thinking that you don’t know them, that they’re not your very own mother and father.”
    “I don’t need a reminder of that fact, thank you.” Junie had Art first period, and Tabitha had Physics, so this couldn’t go on forever, thankfully.
    “Apparently you do. You’ve got one mother and one father and you just betrayed them both. What have they ever done to you?”
    Junie stopped in her tracks and stared at her best friend in disbelief. “Seriously?”
    Tabitha gave her head a little shake. “Sorry. Okay. Not fair.”
    “Thank you.”
    And then the bell rang. As Junie headed for Art, she heard Tabitha call after her. “We’re not done with this, Juniper Rawley.”
    Junie turned. “You sound like my mother.”
    “There are worse things!” Tabitha added for good measure.
    But were there? Her mother was definitely one of the Worst Things right now. She hadn’t always been this bad. Junie remembered when she was little, and her mother would make cupcakes for her whole class on her birthday, and come along on field trips, and help out in her classroom on special days. Sure, it seemed like it cost her way more effort than the average mom, but she did it anyway. She’d make costumes for the school plays and come to all her soccer practices and take her out to lunch for aspecial mother-daughter day at least once a month. But even while she was busy being Supermom on the outside, everything was piling up at home. Even then. And it had slowly got worse, year by year. And her mother had got fatter, year by year, as if her weight reflected the sheer mass she’d hoarded and collected and squirrelled away since Junie was little. There were pictures from back then, ones where the rooms looked almost normal on Christmas Day or Junie’s first few birthdays. The house was cluttered, but in a warm, homey kind of way. Not like now. By the time her fifth birthday rolled around, the house was bad enough that her mother booked the community room at the nearby library and held the party there. Junie had not had a birthday party at home since. After fourth grade, she didn’t have a party at all. Just her and Tabitha at Tabitha’s house, with pizza and cake and more than a couple of presents from Mrs. D. to make up for the sad state of affairs.
    In Art class, Junie glanced down at her sketchbook. Forty-five minutes had passed, and all she had to show for