The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance by Catherine Ryan Hyde Read Free Book Online Page A

but it sounded boring. It was like my nerves were all bare and everything around me was touching them.
    I looked around for money, but my piggy bank was empty. Once I had almost thirty dollars in there. I dug around in my top drawer, thinking maybe I still had a two-dollar bill or some quarters or something. Way in the back I found the three silver dollars from my dad. He gave them to me when I was only three years old. About a week before he died. I quick put them back.
    I tried to do something else, or think about something else, but about five minutes later I was on the long walk down to the store with those silver dollars. My stomach felt weird. I was trying not to think at all.
    I got a cheap bottle of wine and put it on the counter and then I stood there with those dollars squeezed in my hand. I guess I still had time to change my mind.
    “You want that or don't you?” the guy said.
    I grabbed the wine and put the dollars on the counter and ran home.
    In the morning my stomach felt real heavy and squirrelly just getting up for school. Mom wasn't up, so I poured a little of her gin into my thermos of orange juice, and then I put water in the gin bottle, so it filled up just right. After all, the less gin and the more water she drank, the better. It wouldn't kill her to cut down a little.
    Since Bill left, things had only gotten worse with her. It's like she was right in front of my eyes but she didn't exist. Itwas like living alone. I even wrote to Nanny, telling her that Mom hadn't gotten better at all. She didn't write back for a long time, and when she did she said that grown-up problems were hard, and I should try to be patient. And she said Bill was fine, and he missed me, like I didn't know that already.
    I had my own locker at school, and I went back between classes and drank some of the orange juice, and it made the day a lot easier, except it was gone before lunch. It seemed a lot harder to be at school when it was gone, so I left early and rode around on my bike, looking for that right place to be, even though I pretty much knew by then that I'd never find it.
    I guess I just figured any day was a good day if it went away and got me one day closer to leaving forever.
    One day, while we were waiting to go, I fell asleep in Mr. Werther's art class. I didn't think it was such a big deal, but I guess he did. He told me to wait and talk to him after class. Maybe I fell asleep again, or something close to it, because the bell rang and I remember being really surprised.
    I went straight for my locker. I guess I forgot about Mr. Werther. My orange juice was almost gone, and it was only the start of third period. I was just about to toss down the last of it when I saw Mr. Werther standing there watching me. As soon as I saw him I remembered how he told me to stay after class, but it was a little too late by then.
    He reached his hand out for the thermos and I gave it to him. Maybe there was a better thing to do at that point, but I couldn't think of it. My brain was working kind of slow.
    He smelled it, and then took a little of the orange juice onhis finger and tasted it. I expected him to be real mad, but he had a look on his face like he felt sorry for me. I hadn't expected that, and somehow it seemed a lot worse.
    The principal said, “This is pretty serious. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
    I said, “No, sir.” I wasn't even sure what kind of anything he had in mind. I wasn't sure what people think you're supposed to say when they ask stuff like that.
    He sighed. Then he said, “Your mother will have to come down. We'll schedule a special parental meeting to discuss this situation. And there's an automatic three-day suspension. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. But I only said that because I knew I was supposed to. I didn't understand. I never understood anybody when they talked. I felt like I was in a country where everybody spoke a different language. And not all of a sudden,