Authors: Wendy Dunham
Hope Girl
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
All Scripture verses are taken from The Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. (
www.Lockman.org
)
Cover by Writely Designed
Published in association with William K. Jensen Literary Agency, 119 Bampton Court, Eugene, Oregon 97404.
HOPE GIRL
Copyright © 2016 Wendy Dunham
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-6495-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6496-8 (eBook)
All rights reserved.
No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and non-commercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author's and publisher's rights is strictly prohibited.
For my children,
and to anyone who turns the pages of this book,
I wish you hope.
Contents
10. Caskets and Wedding Dresses
27. Letter from Sparrow Harbor
Enjoy Another Great Book by Wendy Dunham
I'm ever grateful to Barb Sherrill, Peggy Wright, and all the wonderful staff at Harvest House. Thank you for bringing River's story to life.
And to my amazing agent, Ruth Samsel of William K. Jensen Literary Agency, thank you for taking me under your wing.
M
y name is River Starling, and I've been alive for almost thirteen years. All my life I've been told that I was adopted, and then six months later (when I was two), my adoptive parents abandoned me. That's when my grandmother took me in.
If there's one word that describes her, it's eccentric (odd, bizarre, and deviating from normal forms of behavior). One time she saved seven hundred Berry Burst Drink Mix labels just to get a free glass pitcher in the mail. But aside from being eccentric, she has a big heart. She also waddles when she walks (that's because she had polio when she was little). But we love each other. She calls me “Sugar Pie,” and I call her “Gram.” Everyone else calls her Mrs. Nuthatch.
I thought we were doing just fine living in Pennsylvania, when one day (about five weeks ago), Gram said she “heard the wind” and that we needed to follow it. That's when we packed everything and moved to Birdsong, West Virginia.
My first day at Birdsong Middle School wasn't like I expected. Right away I was assigned to a school project with a kid named William (eventually I called him Billy). He dressed different than others, and his right arm hung at his side like a dead trout on a fishing rope. At the time I didn't know it was because his arm got injured at birth. I thought for sure he was the class dork. It didn't take long for me and Billy to become best friends.
Billy's family (the Whippoorwills) became like my family. His dad's a pastor, and his mom loved me like her own. She didn't need
another kid since she already had sevenâBilly, Nathan, Daniel, Bethany, Hannah, Rebecca, and Forrest (I call them the little Whippoorwills).
Billy and I made a birding place for our school project (which is a nature park that attracts birds). We built it along the banks of the Meadowlark River. We planted flowers and hung birdfeeders and bird houses. Billy's Uncle Jay, who's a photographer, came all the way from Kentucky to help us take pictures for our presentation. He let me call him Uncle Jay too.
Billy said Uncle Jay used to be married and that he and his wife had a little girl. The sad thing is she was abductedâstolen right out from under his nose. After that, his wife left him. But even after twelve years, Billy said Uncle Jay still carries a picture of his wife and daughter in his walletâa picture he took the day she was stolen.
One day when Billy and I were working at the birding place, Robert Killdeer, the town bully, came by and started bothering us. I didn't know him, but Billy did. He's the kid who threw the rock through the church's stained glass window and made Billy promise not to tell. One time Robert even brought his BB gun to the birding place and killed a whole bunch of birds⦠even a bluebird, Billy's favorite.
Then one afternoon, when the school year was almost over, Billy asked me to go to the birding place with him. But I did something with Gram instead, so Billy went alone. That was when Robert Killdeer showed up and pushed Billy over the riverbank. If I'd gone with Billy, I could have saved him.
After Billy died, Uncle Jay showed me and Gram the picture he's carried in his wallet all these years. I took one look at his little girl and couldn't believe it. She looked exactly like the picture of me that Gram keeps on her dresserâthe picture she took the day I was adopted. In both pictures the little girls are wearing a white and yellow checkered dress and a silver necklace with a dangling heart
charm. They even had the same brown curly hair. When I realized what that meant, I got real dizzy, then everything went blank. The next thing I knew, Uncle Jay (who I now call Dad) was sitting beside me, holding a cold cloth on my head.
Monday July 4, 1983
7:30 a.m.
Dear Diary,
Yesterday I met my dad. Most kids don't have to wait twelve years for that to happen. But I did. And for me, that's basically a lifetime (considering I'm almost thirteen).
I thought meeting my parents would be dramatic, kind of like in the moviesâwith music playing in the background, they see me from a distance and run to me. My dad lifts me up and twirls me around. Then he turns to my mom (who I haven't met) and says to her, “Isn't she beautiful?”