A Lucky Turn , livre ebook

AuthorHouse - Carrie Wright-Christopher

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71 pages

English

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A Lucky Turn details a struggling teen's attempt to suffer through her mother’s madness while beginning a friendship, gaining a pet, and surviving middle school.
Fourteen -year-old Sarah has a problem. Her mother is emotionally unbalanced. This distressing family secret has already been a deterrent for her at her middle school and in her life in general. Alexis, former companion and confidante, has moved away, and Sarah feels friendless and alone with no one she can trust. Into her life comes Casey. He encourages Sarah to share her difficulties and illustrates the importance of being both courageous and forthright. Sarah gains many insights from her new ally, and she eventually realizes that true friends often reveal themselves through their good will, open-mindedness, and strength of character. Her new canine companion is another welcome addition, giving her the affection, attachment, and unconditional love she has always craved. A Lucky Turn combines the realm of psychological fiction with the endurance of the human spirit, telling the tale of separate journeys toward self-awareness and inner well-being.

Sujets

Imaginaire

Fantasy

Young Adult Fiction

Informations

Publié par	AuthorHouse
Date de parution	19 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665564915
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A LUCKY TURN

Carrie Wright - Christopher

AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 833-262-8899

© 2022 Carrie Wright - Christopher. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/19/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6492-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6493-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-6491-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For Amy Norris-Wenzel, Judi Boylan, and Carrie Teega rden,
emotionally giving souls who began educatin g me
on the value of friendships many meaningful years ago
and who continue to enlighten me to this day.
Thank you for being my t ribe.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
“Y our mother is crazy.”
I felt my stomach clench like a fist. Jen Brauer’s words unexpectedly hissed in my ear as she placed herself strategically behind me. Suddenly, I was caught between a rock and a hard place; my eyes became fixed on Jen’s harsh reflection as I inserted my coins into the vending machine outside the middle-school cafeteria.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to be casual, though my heartbeat had suddenly increased by about ten beats per second. The vending machine deposited my bottled water with a loud ker-chunk, and I grabbed it, shoving it into my book-bag, attempting to ignore the awkwardness of the moment.
“I saw your mother in the library last week,” Jen began, falling in line with me as I walked down the hall, cringing inside. I knew what was coming.
“She was screaming at the clerk because she owed a big fine, and they wouldn’t let her take out a book. She kept yelling that she had rights, and that she paid taxes. All kinds of crazy stuff.” Jen eyed me with contrived pity. “I almost didn’t tell you, but I decided that you should know.”
As Jen began to relay still more details of the encounter, I swallowed hard. I had heard all about it from Mom when she had gotten home from the library. She had ranted and raved about it for two hours, and then paced for another hour before she was calm enough to sit down and be rational. Still, she was unable to sleep that night, and as I lay in bed I could hear her moving around and talking softly to herself. When I had gotten up the next morning, she had pounced on me, handing me letters that she had written to everyone from the library board to the mayor. I had tried to convince her not to send them, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I had waited until her attention was focused on something else—I didn’t have long to wait, because she jumped from topic to topic in an unending stream—and then threw the letters away. She had looked for them for a few minutes, but then switched to a tirade about my father.
It had gone on like that almost incessantly for a week. She hardly ever stopped talking and pacing, never relaxing. She seemed to have an abundance of energy, and from what I could see, she wasn’t sleeping much at night.
It was bad enough for me to go through that scene with Mom, but why did Jen Brauer have to see her lose control? Everyone knew Jen was a gossip.
In my embarrassment, I endured Jen’s account of the details of my mother’s behavior and then flinched as she said how sorry she was for me, having to put up with a mother “like that.” I didn’t believe she was sorry for a second. I knew better.
“I feel sorry for you , Jen,” I countered in an attempt to salvage my dignity. I stopped outside the ladies’ restroom, grasped my book bag to my chest like a shield, and gave Jen Brauer my parting shot, hoping that my words would unsettle her as much as her words had been a troubling nightmare for me. “Spreading stories about other people is about as low as you can get. It’s obvious you have too much time on your hands.”
I made my escape, pushing myself through the door to the girls’ lavatory while blinking back hot tears of embarrassment and humiliation. Glancing in the direction of the stalls, I saw that I was alone. I leaned my head against the cold, tiled wall and let the tears come.
Leaving my temporary safe zone, I forced myself out through the restroom door and into the rush of students who were scurrying through the hallway and heading for the exit. Relieved that this miserable school day was at an end, I shoved open the heavy door and walked quickly out into the warmth of an early fall day. I was free from Jen’s false sympathy, free from having to face anyone else who may have been at the library last week. How many others had seen my mother make a spectacle of herself? How many had heard Jen’s retelling of it?
I sighed and thought of Alex. I really had no friends, none I could count on, since she had left. A few acquaintances were all I could claim at the moment. And if a story like this got around, it could very well ruin my chances of making any new friends.
Why couldn’t I have a normal mother, like Alex’s? Her mother would have paid the fine without any kind of scene at all. Sometimes my mother just didn’t seem to have any control.
Alexis Moraz had been my best friend all through grade school. She knew my mother was “different,” but I could always count on Alex to simply listen with a few kind words intended to cheer me up whenever Mom was acting crazy … which was too often for comfort. Alex had moved two years before, around the time of my parent’s divorce. If only she hadn’t moved from Connecticut to California. Why couldn’t she have moved someplace close by? San Diego was more than five hours away by plane, or so my father said: practically a whole continent away.
I hadn’t spoken to her in about four months. At first, we had talked often, but now … it just wasn’t the same. Alex would have understood how embarrassed I was when Jen made that crack about feeling sorry for me.
Who was Jen to talk anyway? I tried to tell myself that she just liked to get under my skin, and that it didn’t matter what she said. But in the back of my mind, I knew that it did matter. The truth always mattered.
Dolan Middle School was at my back, and I had briskly walked a full two blocks when I heard a boy’s voice calling my name. I stopped, took a deep breath, and turned.
The new kid from my last-period, eighth-grade English class was running clumsily up the street holding his book bag and a slim spiral notebook in his arms. I would have greeted him if I could have gotten it past the lump in my throat that had been there since I had left the school.
He was taller than me and lanky, with brown hair that looked as though it needed to be cut. His jeans were torn at the knee and someone had apparently tried to sew them without much skill.
He was slightly out of breath from running but still smiling as he reached me, shifting his book bag to his shoulder and holding the spiral notebook out to me.
“You left this in English class,” he explained as I took the book from his hand. I recognized from the amateur graffiti on the notebook cover that it was my scribble book.
“I stayed behind to ask Mrs. Confrey a question about the homework, and she noticed it on your desk. I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but I saw you ahead of me and figured I’d catch up.” He smiled amiably at me and we stood for a few seconds. What was he waiting for, a reward?
“Thanks,” I said, not returning his smile. I began to walk, more slowly this time, and he paced along beside me. A few uncomfortably long seconds went by without a word between us. It occurred to me that I was not being very friendly, but at the moment, I really didn’t care. We just walked along in silence, together but not really together.
I was thinking that maybe I could write Alex about the events of my not-so-perfect day in my not-anywhere-near-perfect life. It was safer to send an email than to call, safer because the last time I had called her from the house phone, Mom had screamed a tirade when she had gotten the phone bill. Of course, she didn’t see anything wrong with spending huge amounts of time on the phone herself. In the past, she had literally spent hours on the phone talking to practically everyone she knew, but if I made one long-distance phone call, forget it. It was incredibly unfair.
I felt tears threaten, and suddenly a loose thread on the sleeve of my jacket absorbed my attention. I let my own brown hair fall over my face as I picked at the thread.
I quickly wiped my eyes, hoping the new kid wouldn’t notice.
I suppressed a sigh as he introduced himself. “My name’s Casey, by the way. Casey Teegarden,” I looked at him blankly. “From English class.”
I nodded. “Sarah. But I guess you know that already.”
He smiled again, a rather lopsided grin that lit up his whole face. Then he stopped smiling, his blue eyes suddenly showing concern.
“Are you OK? You look a little …”
“Yes,