The Original Ginny Moon. Benjamin Ludwig

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СКАЧАТЬ caught me and when I came to this new school at my new Forever House my new Forever Parents said I can’t go on the internet, ever, because they need to keep me safe. Then Maura said that both she and Brian love me and that the internet just isn’t safe. Just isn’t safe because we know you’re looking for Gloria is what she really meant even though she didn’t say that last part.

      And my Forever Mom is right because Gloria is back at the apartment with my Baby Doll. I don’t know what town the apartment is in. I need to know if she found my Baby Doll or if it’s been too long and now I’m too late. If I’m not too late I need to pick it up out of the suitcase fast and take excellent care of it again because Gloria sometimes goes away for days and days. Plus she has a lot of man-friends come over. And she gets mad and hits. Plus Donald, when he’s in town. I really wish I could be here more often, but I can’t, Crystal with a C used to say to me when I told her the things Gloria was doing. So make sure you take excellent care of your Baby Doll, just like your mom says. She’ll always be your little baby, no matter what.

      I come up out of my brain and start picking at my fingers.

      Larry walks in. He puts his backpack down on a desk and leans his arm braces against the wall and sits. Arm braces are like crutches except they attach to your body. They make Larry look like a grasshopper. Larry has brown hair and brown eyes. My eyes are green. Plus he sings all the time and doesn’t like math the way I do. “Hey, babe,” he says.

      So I say, “Larry, I am not a babe. I am thirteen years old. Don’t you know that yet? This is tedious.”

      Tedious means when you say something over and over and people get irritated like when Patrice used to tell me all the time that I was a little like a baby doll myself when I was in the apartment with Gloria. That was what she said when I tried to tell her that I needed to go check on it. She didn’t understand at all.

      Larry stretches out his arms and yawns. “Man, am I tired. It’s been a long, long day,” he says. “I have to stay until my mom picks me up to go to my sister’s volleyball practice.”

      “You should do your homework while you wait,” I say because that’s what Mrs. Lomos told me to do. I take out my language arts book and turn to page 57 which has a poem on it by Edgar Allan Poe.

      “Nah,” says Larry. “I’m going to check my Facebook. I just got one yesterday.”

      He gets up and puts his arms in his arm braces again and goes to the computer. My eyes follow him.

      “Do you have a Facebook?” Larry says when he gets to the computer. Without turning. He types.

      I look down at my hands. “No,” I say.

      “Then, babe, you’ve got to get one.” He looks at me. “Here, let me show you. All the cool kids are on it, you dig?” Larry says you dig? all the time. I think you dig? is mostly an expression.

      “I’m not allowed to use the internet without an adult,” I say.

      “Right. I remember,” says Larry. “Why won’t your parents let you?”

      “Because Gloria is on the internet.”

      “Who’s Gloria?”

      “Gloria is my Birth Mom. I used to live with her.”

      Then I stop talking.

      “Is she easy to find?” says Larry.

      I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I tried to find her three times on the internet when I was in different Forever Homes but I keep getting interrupted.”

      “What’s her name again?” says Larry.

      “Gloria,” I say. I feel myself stand up. I feel excited and ready because I know Larry is going to help me.

      “Gloria what?”

      I lean forward and look at him sideways over the top of my glasses. I push my hair out of my face but it falls back. I wish I had a scrunchie. “Gloria LeBlanc,” I say. It’s been a long time since I said the name LeBlanc with my mouth. Because that is what my name used to be. It’s like I left the original me behind when I came to live with my new Forever Parents. With Brian and Maura Moon. My name is Ginny Moon now but there are still parts of the original me left.

      So it is like I turned into the original Ginny Moon.

      “Spell it,” says Larry so I do. Larry types and then he steps away and points to the chair. I sit.

      And I see her.

      Gloria, who hit me and gave me hugs afterward and cried. Gloria, who left me alone all the time in the apartment but gave me fancy drinks when we sat on the couch watching monster movies, who said she was a smart cookie no matter what anyone says because she passed the GED with flying colors which in my brain made me see a parade of girls in pretty skirts twirling batons with streamers and cheering.

      Gloria, the second-scariest person I know.

      Gloria, my Birth Mom.

      Gloria’s shirt and hair are mostly different but at least she has pictures of Maine coons all over the page. And Gloria still has glasses and is really, really skinny like me. I haven’t seen her or talked with her since I was nine years old. That was when the police came and she said, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Ginny!” I’m thirteen years old right now but I’ll turn fourteen on September 18th which after today is in nine days because:

      Plus nine is how old I was when the first Forever started. The two months cancel each other out, mostly.

      “Babe?” says Larry.

      He is talking to me. I come up out of my brain. “What?” I say.

      “Do you want to see if she’s around to chat?”

      I am excited. Because chat means talk.

      Larry points to part of the screen. “Here,” he says. “Just click here.”

      So I click and then I see a place where I can type.

      “Type what you want to say to her,” says Larry. “Just say hi and ask her a question.”

      I don’t want to say hi. Instead I type the question that I keep asking everyone and that no one ever, ever, ever understands:

      Did you find my Baby Doll?

      And then I wait.

      “You have to click Send,” says Larry.

      But I don’t really hear him because the pictures of the police and Gloria and the kitchen are moving so fast that I can’t see anything else. I am going deep in my brain again. I see Gloria with her face squished against the wall and the police holding her there. I see the broken-down door and the light coming in from outside and two cats running out. I don’t remember which ones.

      “Here,” I hear Larry say. “I’ll click it for you.”

      In front of me I see the arrow move СКАЧАТЬ