“My last foster mother liked me to read,” I muttered, daring to glare back at her.
“Oh my, let me guess—she probably told you that you were smart.” Nancy Spaulding made her eyes wide, smiling viciously at me. “Oh, how intelligent. She probably told you that you have a ‘bright future’,” didn’t she?” she sing-songed.
I frowned uncertainly. Actually, Auntie Amelia had told me things like that, many times. “You just keep reading, child,” she’d say. “You’re gonna go places in this world when you get older—just wait and see.”
“I can tell by your face that she did.” Nancy Spaulding’s own face still wore that nasty, vicious smile but now her eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, let’s clear something up right now—you’re not smart and you’re not special. And you’re not in my house to read! You’re here to earn your keep, you stupid girl! If you don’t get that through your thick head awfully quick, you’re going to be very, very sorry! Now get back to the house!”
She pointed at the main house and then turned to stomp back to it herself. Unfortunately, she tripped on the ball of sheets and the blanket I had bundled up and fell, right on the dirty barn floor.
“What is this?” she shrieked, grabbing at the tangle of dirty bedclothes that had wrapped themselves around her feet. Looking around, she saw the bare foam pallet that was my new “bed.” “Oh, I see what it is.” Getting to her feet, she kicked at the sheets. “You were trying to sneak these into the house for some reason, weren’t you?” she demanded.
“I wanted to wash them,” I muttered. “They’re dirty.”
“Didn’t I tell you that the fosters’ clothes are only to be washed on Saturday nights and that the washing machine and dryer must be thoroughly cleaned afterwards?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me you’re so stupid you already forgot that! I told you not one hour ago!”
“But the sheets are dirty,” I repeated. Both my mother and Auntie Amelia had been tidy housekeepers—I’d never been asked to sleep on filthy, unwashed sheets before and I didn’t want to now.
“Yes, they’re dirty because you disgusting little fosters are dirty,” Nancy Spaulding spat at me. “And now they’re going to be dirtier!”
Grabbing the bundle of bedclothes, she dumped them fully onto the filthy wooden floor of the barn which was covered in old straw, dust, dirt, and the grime of who knew how many years. Stamping back and forth on them, she rubbed them into the dirt, until the light blue fabric of the sheets was gray with grime.
“There!” she said, when the sheets and the ragged blanket were about a hundred times dirtier than they had been before. “You’ll sleep on those for an entire week to teach you a lesson. And because of your defiance, you will forgo dinner tonight and breakfast and lunch tomorrow too.”
“What?” I gasped. “But…but I haven’t eaten anything today already.”
I hadn’t had the heart to eat any kind of breakfast or lunch on the day of Auntie Amelia’s funeral. But I was a growing girl and grief or not, I was beginning to feel a rumbling in my very empty stomach. But Nancy Spaulding had absolutely no sympathy.
“Good!” she snapped. “Now get into the house and do your job. If I have to speak to you again, you’ll be missing your meals for a week!”
Then she turned and stomped back into the big house, leaving me to follow behind her in a kind of daze of anger, hurt, and humiliation.
NINE
I spent the rest of that miserable day in the laundry room, washing, drying, ironing, and folding the Spaulding family’s clothing to perfection. I wanted to do something nasty in retaliation, like taking the Sharpie marker I found in Nancy Spaulding’s skirt pocket and writing all over her white clothes.
But I didn’t dare to. I was in a bad position—possibly the worst one I’d ever been in my entire life—and I didn’t dare to do anything that would get me into further trouble.
Around six o’clock, Minh came to get me for dinner.
“I’m not allowed to eat tonight,” I said dully when she came. “I’m not allowed to have anything until tomorrow at dinner—Ms. Nancy says so.”
“Oh no—I was afraid something like that might happen. She gets real mean with new kids until they do what she says.” Minh gave me a sympathetic look. “But I’m afraid you still have to come. Everyone had to—even kids on food restriction. And afterwards, I’ll try to give you a piece of my bread if I can get some.”
“Thanks.” I felt tears stinging my eyes at her kind words and tried to blink them back. I had never been treated the way the Spauldings were treating me—like I was lower than dirt below their feet. But at least there was one person who cared—even if it was just a girl younger than myself who was stuck in the same terrible position I was.