Wrecked - Hardcover

Frank, E. R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689873832 ISBN 13: 9780689873836

Verlag: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Dear anyone who cared about Cameron,I was the driver of the "other" car.The police and my mother and father and plenty of people are saying that I didn't kill her. But I know I did. That's what her parents must believe. And my brother, Jack. He always sees what's true. I want to tell him how sorry I am about the accident. I want to say a lot of things to him and to everybody. Like how Cameron was smart and beautiful and kind in a way that isn't all that common in high school. Like how much Jack loved her and how sometimes I can hear him crying through the wall at night. I want to say how bad everything can get.In one split second.Upside down and shattered.Just like that.Wrecked.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

E. R. Frank is the author of two highly praised novels for Atheneum: America and Friction. Her first novel was Life Is Funny, winner of the Teen People Book Club NEXT Award for YA Fiction and was also a top-ten ALA 2001 Quick Pick.

In addition to being writer, E. R. Frank is also a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. She works with adults and adolescents and specializes in trauma.

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Wrecked

By E. R. Frank

Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books

Copyright © 2005 E. R. Frank
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0689873832

Before

The day I killed my brother's girlfriend started with me handpicking leaves off our front lawn.

"Did you lose an earring, Anna?" Mrs. Caldwell called. She was wearing navy blue sweats with white racing stripes up the sides.

"Um," I called back. "Yeah." She stepped onto our brick pathway, probably to help me look.

"Oh," I said, loud, before Mrs. Caldwell could get too close. "Got it." I held my hand high in the air, as if I was showing her something I'd found. She nodded and then turned around right as my brother, Jack, backed the Honda out of our garage, music blasting.

"You want to help?" I called. I mean, he could have helped.

"Nope." He let the car roll slowly backward. "Sorry." He didn't sound sorry. But still. I guess I wouldn't have helped either. He cranked the music up even louder.

"What is that?" I shouted. He's always listening to bands nobody's heard of.

"Barking Duck!" Which is what it sounded like.

"Do you like it?" he asked, turning the volume down.

"Very funny," I said. "And don't forget, I have the Honda tonight."

"You won't need it if you don't finish the lawn."

And then he left me there, picking up crunchy brown leaves the size of hair clips. Picking them up, one by one, and dropping them into a plastic grocery store bag. Exactly the way my father had insisted. Not raking, because that might damage the grass. Not leaf blowing, because the noise was too loud and the gas smelled. Not watching some crew, because why should my father hire other people to do his lawn work when he had two perfectly able-bodied teenagers?

My mom poked her head out our front door, holding my cell. Damn. I thought I had it clipped to my back pocket. "It just rang." She had the top flipped up. "I think it was Ellen."

I blew out a big breath of air and straightened.

"Do you want company?" She has a bad back, so it went without saying that she wasn't going to help.

"No, I don't want company," I snapped. "I want not to do this."

"Is it such a big deal?" My mom handed me the cell.

"It's ridiculous, Mom." I put a lot of emphasis on the dic of ridiculous.

"Well," she said. Then she went back into the house.

I picked up two more leaves and dropped them with the others. And then something weird happened. I didn't plan it. I hadn't even been thinking about it. But all of a sudden I opened the plastic grocery bag, turned it upside down, and dragged it through the air. I watched the leaves scatter sideways and then spiral downward toward the wispy blades peeking up from where my father had made Jack sprinkle seed last weekend. How do they say it? In one fell swoop. Well, in one fell swoop I dumped out all those leaves I'd been so stupidly gathering up. Just dumped them right out.

I remember that moment as clear as the accident. Sometimes clearer. Who knows why.

Chapter One

We're at Ellen's. She's flattening her brown hair, slicking it back into one long ponytail.

"It's too early to leave," she's saying. "Things won't get going until at least twelve."

"Well, it's twelve now," I tell her. "And we're still not ready."

"You want to call Lisa and them, and see where they are?"

I dial, and some guy answers. "What's up?" There's giggling in the background.

"Seth!" the giggler goes. I think it might be Lisa. "Give it back!"

"Is Lisa there?" I ask.

Ellen and I are sort of between groups right now. Last year we hung out a lot with this other Anna, and Katy and Slater and Kevin and Trace. But the other Anna switched schools, and Katy and Slater started wearing black lipstick and shaving their heads and telling us we were conformists, and Kevin and Trace started dating each other and never hanging out with anybody else, and things just sort of dissolved from there.

"Give it!" I hear Lisa shouting over her own giggles.

"What's going on?" Ellen asks.

"I think it's Seth. That guy who wears the sleeve," I say. A sleeve is this thing that looks sort of like a combination of a glove with no finger coverage and a sock that fits all the way up to your elbow. Other than the sleeve, Seth's pretty cute.

"Oh," Ellen goes. "Sleev-eth."

"Listen," I tell the phone. "Could you put Lisa on?" I try to sound sarcastic and bossy, but I'm not so good at that. Ellen is slightly better at it than I am. Neither of us is nearly as masterful as the Ashleys. Which is fine, because we have no desire to be complete bitches. Just to know how when necessary.

"Who's this?" Seth asks.

"Who is it?" I hear Lisa say.

"Give her the phone, man," some other guy complains.

"This is Anna," I say. "Ask Lisa if she's going to the party at Wayne's."

"Yeah." It's still Seth. "We're going. Is this Anna Lawson?"

I cover the phone with my hand. "Ellen," I whisper. "Sleev-eth knows who I am."

"Good," she goes.

"How do you know who I am?" I ask into the cell.

"It's me," Lisa says. I guess Sleev-eth gave hers back. "We're leaving in fifteen minutes."

"Us too," I say. "Ellen's taking forever to do her hair."

"I am not," Ellen goes. "Ask if they have beer." Ellen's developed a taste for alcohol lately. I haven't. I don't like beer, for one thing. For another, I do like knowing what's going on.

"Do you guys have beer?" I ask.

"Yeah, plus Jack Daniel's."

"They've got Jack Daniel's," I tell Ellen.

"Where did they get that?"

"Anna?" It's Sleev-eth again.

"Seth!" I hear Lisa scream. Then the signal goes dead.

I flip down my phone. Ellen tugs at her ponytail and then turns from her mirror to look at me.

"You don't want to go, do you," she says.

"Yeah I do."

"You wanted to bitch some more about your father and then see Rocky Horror."

"Maybe. But it's too late." Rocky Horror always starts at midnight.

"I kind of like parties now," Ellen tells me. Neither of us used to. Last year we would go to the mall instead. Or to Top Hats, our favorite diner. We thought parties were stupid up until about a month ago.

"I like parties too," I lie.

"No you don't. You always nurse a beer and stay in one place the whole time."

I don't know what to say to that. Ellen's been my best friend since we were nine. She knows me better than anybody. Really, anybody.

"You don't like me anymore," I sulk. "You're going to get in with the Ashleys and break them up and be one of their best friends and dump me." I'm only half kidding.

"Don't be stupid," she goes. "I just want to have some fun."

"Well, I do too," I say.

"Since when?"

"Since today."

"Oh, yeah?" she asks. "Do I have your dad to thank for that?"

"Whoever you want to thank," I tell her. "But I'm going to have fun flirting with Sleev-eth. And I'm going to have fun drinking."

She's always said I'm more of a stoner than a drinker, if I ever had the guts to do either. I've always said it's not about guts. It's just that I don't want to do drugs because if I got caught or something bad happened, my father would kill me. That's where Ellen usually rolls her eyes, and I wonder if she actually knows me better than I know me, and then I get nervous if I don't switch the subject in my head.

"Well, don't have too much fun," Ellen's warning me now, "because one of us has to be able to drive."

"Okay," I say. "Then, I'll just flirt."

"Good," Ellen goes. "Let's leaf now."

"Ha," I tell her.

Wayne's house is sort of like mine. Old and big with a huge front and back lawn. Which makes me think about my father and the fight we had before I left.

"You will not leave this house...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0689873832
• ISBN 13: 9780689873836
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar