Impossible Things (6 page)

“What are you smiling about?” Amber spat.

The butterflies in my stomach felt more like small birds, crashing around wildly. I ignored them and grinned widely, just to annoy her.

Felicia cleared her throat. “Umm, shall we start by brainstorming ideas? I can take notes if you want.”

Amber was quick to pounce. “Who died and appointed you group leader?”

“Sorry,” Felicia muttered, looking down at the desk. There was a long silence. Nathan looked like he was trying to be invisible. Felicia had picked up her pen and started doodling on the margins of her paper. Amber was staring at me.

“What?”

Amber smiled at me. Not her usual smirk but something that resembled an actual smile. “Can you believe her nerve? She's like the last person we'd want as group leader. I mean, I can't even understand her, her accent is so weird.”

This was freaking me out. Amber being mean I could handle, but Amber smiling at me was scary. It slowly dawned on me that she was looking to me for support. Apparently she had decided that while Cathidy Thilver might be a bit of a freak, Felicia was even more of a loser.

Too bad for Amber. I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Amber's mouth fell open slightly. Inside my stomach, the birds turned back into butterflies and folded up their wings. “Felicia sounds fine to me,” I said. “I think her accent is cool.” I turned to Felicia and grinned. “You're from New Zealand, right?”

Felicia nodded gratefully and pushed her heavy dark hair off her face. “I am. I lived in Auckland. We moved to Canada two years ago. I still have lots of family back there.”

I'd never heard her say so much all at once.

There was a moment's silence, and then Nathan broke in shyly, “I like her accent too. And I think she'd be a good group leader.” He grinned at me and Felicia, his skinny face lighting up.

An odd expression flickered across Amber's face. Disconcerted. If I didn't know better, I'd say she looked afraid. For once, she was at a loss for words.

I cleared my throat and turned to the others. “So shall we brainstorm then? Like Felicia suggested?” I chewed on the end of my pen and tried to think about the assignment. “It seems to me that whether this is a good time to live in totally depends on who you are. Like, if you're a kid in Afghanistan or Iraq, now is not so good. But if you're black and live in the States, now is probably better than a hundred years ago.”

“Mmm. But still not so good,” Nathan pointed out. “And Canada isn't that different.”

I looked at him in surprise. I'd never heard him voice an opinion before. “True enough,” I acknowledged.

Felicia tapped her pen on the table. “We're not supposed to debate it,” she pointed out. “We just have to argue that now is better.”

Amber hadn't said a word. I snuck a sideways peek at her. “What do you think, Amber?”

She shrugged uncertainly. “I guess now is okay.”

“Riigght,” I drawled. “Words of wisdom from Amber, who thinks now is okay.”

Amber flushed and turned her face away. I felt a heady surge of power, an odd exhilaration. Then I looked at Amber again and a wave of shame swept over me. I bit my lip. “Umm, Amber? I didn't mean that. I'm thorry.
Sorry
.”

She looked right at me and gave me a tiny almost-smile. “It's okay. It's okay, Cassidy.”

Cassidy.
Not Cathidy. Cassidy.

That afternoon, Ms. Allyson had blocked off some time for us to work on our art projects. The contest deadline was only two weeks away, and I hadn't even started. Actually, that's not quite true: all I had done was start. Over and over. Start one thing, mess it up, toss it out, start another. I couldn't seem to figure out what I wanted to do.

Who Are We?
I sighed. What the heck did that mean? I pulled out my notes and read over what Ms. Allyson had said.
Writing can be a way to learn about ourselves, to uncover what lies beneath the surface…like a tool an archeologist uses to uncover a treasure buried deep in the earth
. Well, I wasn't convinced there were any treasures to unearth, but maybe writing would at least be something to do. I couldn't face too many more crumpled up paintings and squashed clay sculptures.

I picked up my pen and flipped to a new section of my notebook. In bold letters, I wrote:
Who is Cassidy Silver?

Ms. Allyson walked behind me and paused for a moment. “That,” she said in a low voice, “is a very good place to start.” She rested her hand briefly on my shoulder, and suddenly I missed my mom more than ever. Maybe tonight I'd try to talk to her. Maybe. I chewed on my pen for a moment; then I started to write.

Cassidy Silver misses her mom. Cassidy Silver wonders how you talk to someone who doesn't have time to listen.
I thought about that for a moment. It wasn't quite fair.
Okay, sometimes she has time to listen, but how can I complain about my trivial little problems when she spends all day talking to people who have cancer or are suicidal or drug addicted or whatever? I always imagine she must be wondering how her kid ended up so self-centered and petty.
I broke off. This wasn't really about who I was. Or was it?

Unlike her brilliant family,
I wrote,
Cassidy Silver has no amazing talents.
I stared at the words for a moment and a slow smile spread across my face. I was going to learn telekinesis, and you couldn't get much more amazing than that.

Ten

Ever since I'd had Victoria over to my place, she'd been saying she should invite me over to hers. A few days later, she finally did.

“Mom and Dad want to meet you,” she said. She looked uncomfortable. “So, if you want to come over, you can. But you don't have to. We could go to your place.”

I was dying to go: I'd been practicing telekinesis every day, and I still hadn't had any success. Maybe another lesson would help. Still, it sounded like she was only inviting me because her parents told her to. “Do you want me to come?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

I frowned. “Gosh, do you think you could sound a little less enthusiastic?”

We were sitting at our desks in the back row, waiting for class to start. Victoria lowered her voice and leaned closer. “Sorry. I want to see you after school. It's just… well, it's kind of complicated. My parents don't get along that well and they're not a heap of fun to be around. Plus, they'll ask you too many questions. They always do that.”

“It'll be just the four of us then?” I asked, remembering how she'd avoided Ben's question about siblings.

She nodded, looking surprised. “Of course. Who else would be there?”

“I don't know. Just wondering. Anyway, I would like to come, and don't worry about your parents.” I made a face. “At least they're both there.”

Victoria lived farther from school than I did, and in the opposite direction—toward town rather than away from it. After school we cut through the yard toward the bus stop, pulling our hats down firmly over our ears as the cold wind whipped tiny flecks of icy snow against our faces. Ben had already left with Sydney. Apparently Sydney had been given a science kit for Christmas, and she and Ben were going to spend the rest of the day extracting
DNA
from a kiwi fruit.

“So, you think we could work on the telekinesis thing again?” I asked.

“Course we can.”

“Cool. I was thinking, maybe if I—” I stopped dead. “Hey, there's that guy again. See, by the bus stop?” I pointed. “He's the one I told you about, remember? The guy who was here the other day?”

Victoria grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a nearby Dumpster. “Shhh,” she whispered urgently.

I remembered how strangely Victoria had reacted when I mentioned him before. “What is it? Do you know him?”

“I don't want him to see me, okay? So, let's just wait here. Maybe he'll leave.”

I squatted behind the Dumpster and watched the man. He was talking with the kids who were waiting for their bus. Beside me, Victoria was so still I thought she must be holding her breath.

“What's wrong?” I whispered. “Who is he?”

She shook her head and motioned to me to be quiet.

I remembered Ben's question again, and how Victoria had dropped the glass to avoid answering it. I bent even closer so that my mouth was right next to her ear. “Is he your brother?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. Then she nodded silently. The school bus pulled into view, driving slowly on the icy road. I started to get up, but Victoria grabbed me and pulled me back down.

“Come on,” I whispered. “We'll miss the bus.”

She looked all wobbly, like she might start to cry. “We'll have to walk. I can't let him see me.”

I studied the guy. Her brother. It seemed so unlikely. He must be at least ten years older and he sure didn't look like the kind of guy I'd want for a big brother. Obviously not the kind Victoria wanted either, judging by her reaction.

The kids all trooped single file onto the bus, and the bus slowly pulled away, its wheels spinning slightly in the snow. Victoria's brother headed down the sidewalk, away from the school. He had gone about half a block and was starting to disappear in the blowing snow when he ducked into a small red car parked by the curb. Then, skidding slightly, the car pulled out and disappeared around the corner.

I turned to Victoria. Her face crumpled and she started crying: shoulder-shaking, breath-gasping sobs. I put my arm around her a bit awkwardly and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Do you want to tell me what's going on? How come you don't want him to see you?”

“Let's wait here for a moment to be sure he's gone, okay?” She managed to stop crying, gulped a bit and rubbed her eyes with her gray mittens. “Then I guess we're going to have to walk home. It's kind of a long way.”

“Okay, fine. We'll walk. I don't care, as long as you fill me in.”

Victoria sighed. “His name's Rick. He's my dad's son from his first marriage—my half-brother.”

“He's a lot older than you.”

“Ten years. He's twenty-two.” She stood. “Let's start walking. I'm freezing.”

I straightened up gratefully and stomped my feet against the hard ground, trying to get the feeling back into my toes.

Victoria kept talking, fast, as if she'd been bottling it all up for a long time. “Rick's always had problems. By the time I started grade one, he'd dropped out of high school. He started getting in trouble, breaking into houses and stealing cars. Mom and Dad used to fight about it all the time.”

“So he lived with you?”

“Just weekends and holidays with us. He and my mom never got along.” She glanced sideways at me. “Dad blames himself. He thinks the divorce is why Rick's so messed up.”

Lots of kids have divorced parents, I thought. Mostly they didn't steal cars or break into houses. “What do you think?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

She pushed her hat down more firmly on her head and was quiet for a moment. “I don't know why Rick does the stuff he does.” She shrugged. “He probably doesn't even know.”

“So why don't you want to see him?”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her mitten, shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and stared at the ground. “He knows about me being telekinetic,” she said, her voice low. “Back when I was a kid, he used to get me to do stuff for him. He'd make it like a game.”

A shiver ran down my back. “What kind of stuff?”

“Pretty harmless stuff at first. You know, playing jokes on people. Like he'd get me to make someone's hat fall off over and over, or make their fly come unzipped. Rick would laugh his head off, and I guess I liked the attention.” She shrugged. “I was maybe five or six when it started, I don't remember.”

“That doesn't sound so bad.” Actually it sounded pretty funny. I thought of Amber and wished Victoria would still do tricks like that.

“No, but then we started doing other things. He'd point out the wallet in someone's back pocket and tell me to slide it out real slowly, so the guy wouldn't even notice. I'd let it drop to the ground. We'd wait until the guy walked around the corner, and then Rick would pick it up.”

“Stealing,” I said flatly. “He used you to steal?”

She nodded. “I didn't even know it was wrong when we started, but by the time I was in third grade, we were stealing all kinds of stuff. Cameras, iPods, those charity cash boxes at grocery stores, women's purses.” She looked sideways at me. “I knew it was wrong by then.”

“But you kept doing it?”

“I guess you probably think that's awful.”

I hesitated. “Couldn't you have told your mom?”

There was a long pause. “My mom isn't always that easy to talk to,” she said at last. “And I didn't want to get in trouble, you know? Like I said, I knew it was wrong.”

I didn't say anything.

“I looked up to him, you know? He made everything fun.” Victoria's mouth tightened. “Then we got caught,” she whispered. “I was eight. Rick was almost eighteen. He got charged with theft. My parents had a big fight. I could hear them from my room. And the next day they told Rick he couldn't stay with us anymore.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, for a while it was good. We didn't see much of him for a couple of years.” She bit her bottom lip and stared down at the ground. “I've never told anyone before.”

“I'm glad you told me,” I said. “I'm glad you trust me.” I meant it, but as soon as I said the words I felt a tiny niggling doubt. She trusted me, but I didn't quite trust her. I couldn't shake this feeling there was something she wasn't telling me. And I still wasn't sure I believed in telekinesis.

Eleven

Victoria's house was bigger and newer than mine: a square box with a double garage and a big evergreen tree on the front lawn. She let us into a glossy front hall—all glass-paneled doors and marble floors—and I tried not to stare. I untied my boots, slipped them off and lined them up neatly with the rows of shoes on the mat.