One Harper managed to keep it together until she saw the dead chickens. Dead chickens. At least half a dozen of them, hung from their feet on a clothesline, pegged out with clothespins of all things, behind an otherwise normal- looking brick farmhouse on the corner of the road. Why the chickens were the end of it for her, Harper didn''t know, but they were. She burst into sobs. Loud, ragged, heartbroken sobs. It was not the first time she''d cried, but it felt like the first time, all over again. Her mother saw the chickens too.
Her pale face drained of what little color it had. She pulled their car and the little U-Haul trailer they were towing to the side of the road. Put the car in park. Wrapped her arms around Harper, rocked her back and forth. "I''m sorry, I''m sorry, I''m sorry," she said. Harper tried to stop crying. "It''s not your fault." "It''s my fault we came here," her mother said.
"Maybe we should have stayed in Knoxville." "No," Harper said. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her T-shirt. "No." Though she''d never seen dead chickens in a yard in Knoxville. Her mom took a deep breath. "I''m sure there''s a reason they''re on a clothesline. This is farm country, you know? Though technically we''re still inside the Sommer Springs city limits.
" Harper glanced out the side window at the chicken house. Other than the dead birds, it looked pretty normal. Flowers in a bed near the door, rockers on the porch, a chicken coop in the backyard -- with plenty of squawking chickens still inside it. Harper felt sorry for them. Welcome to Sommer Springs, Tennessee , she thought, where chickens watch their friends die and wonder if they''re next! Her stomach flopped sideways. They''d already driven through what passed as Sommer Springs''s downtown. It had been exactly six blocks long, without a highway or shopping center or Starbucks in sight. Knoxville, where they''d come from, was a real city, a normal city where they''d lived in a normal subdivision among people who didn''t hang butchered birds in their yard for all the world to see.
Harper''s best friend, Cat, who had lived across the street from them in Knoxville, wouldn''t have cried over the dead chickens. She''d have made a joke, about chickens trapped in a chicken horror movie maybe, and probably it would have been funny, and Harper might even have laughed. Harper and her mom had not only moved away from Knoxville. They had also, specifically, moved away from Cat--from Cat, Cat''s house, and especially Cat''s mom. And Harper''s dad. Nothing about Harper''s life felt normal now. She wondered if it ever would again. "This house we''re going to is temporary, " her mother said, for maybe the fiftieth time.
" Once all the papers are signed and the dust has cleared, we''ll buy a place, in a neighborhood like before. I had to find somewhere to rent that would let us bring Harvey." In the back seat of their Hyundai, their dog, Harvey, heard his name. He lifted his head and thumped his tail. Harvey was a Great Pyrenees; he weighed more than Harper did. They couldn''t have left Harvey behind. Harper swallowed and wiped her eyes again. "It''s fine," she said.
"I''m sorry." "Don''t be sorry," said her mom. She took a deep breath. "It''s hard right now. We''ll get through it." It would be hard forever. It would never not be hard. Three and a half weeks ago, in late August, on a Wednesday, Harper''s mom had gotten sick with a stomach bug and gone home from her job as a hospital nurse at lunchtime.
She''d found Harper''s dad''s car, which should have been at work along with Harper''s dad, in the driveway of the house across the street. Cat''s house. Curious, Harper''s mom had walked across the street and rung the doorbell and what she''d found--the reason Harper''s dad was there--had been like a bomb. It blew their family to pieces. All that was something Harper learned later. When she got home from school that day, her parents were both home, in their bedroom, talking in angry voices behind a firmly shut door. When they opened it, they told Harper they both loved her and nothing was her fault, and the details were all between grown-ups and they would handle it. And also, they were getting a divorce.
That last part had been like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head. She gasped, and then she cried, and then she couldn''t stop crying even though both her parents consoled her. No one wants their parents to divorce. Only Cat would understand how awful Harper felt. Cat never even saw her own dad. "I''m going over to Cat''s," Harper''d said when she was finally finished crying. Her parents exchanged looks she didn''t understand. "Honey," her mom said, "I''m not sure--no.
I want you to stay home tonight." "Can I call her?" Harper didn''t have her own cell phone. "No. Not right now." Harper didn''t understand, but she did as she was told. The next morning, still not having spoken to Cat, still not knowing what had actually happened with her parents, she waited anxiously next to Cat''s locker at school. She didn''t know how she''d manage to say the words my parents are divorcing, but she knew Cat would say back something comforting. Something soothing.
Something brave. Something like "Well, it''s better than death and dismemberment," which was usually how Cat greeted bad news. Harper shuddered as a group of enormous eighth graders, including Cat''s cousin Eli, sauntered down the hall. Eli nodded to her, like he usually would, but then his expression went stiff and he quickly looked away. Had he seen something on Harper''s face? Were her emotions that obvious? Middle school was much more complicated than elementary school. How was she supposed to cope with heartbreak surrounded by so many swaggering strangers? Finally, Cat appeared at the end of the hall. Harper waved and tried to smile. Cat saw her, and froze.
Her face flared bright red and flooded with an expression that Harper recognized with a shock. It was Cat''s guilty look--the one she wore when her mom discovered that she and Harper had dared each other to run through their neighborhood in the middle of the night. The one she wore when she''d said something rude about one of their teachers, and it turned out the teacher had been standing right behind her and heard everything. The one Cat wore whenever she''d done something wrong. Ten feet away from Harper, Cat swallowed hard, turned, and scuttled away. Cat! Harper tried to say, but she couldn''t get the word past the lump in her throat. What had happened? Did Cat know something? Why wouldn''t anyone tell her? It wasn''t until she was standing in line for lunch that she found out, and then it was in the worst possible way. Gossip.
Someone behind her, someone she didn''t even recognize, said, " That girl over there, in the blue shirt--did you hear what her dad did? With that other girl''s mom--yeah, her best friend-- " The person kept talking. Harper knew exactly what her father had done then. And she knew that everyone knew. Harper actually went dizzy for a second. The cafeteria walls blurred. She ran to the school bathroom and was sick, and then she sat in the school office and tried not to cry. When her mother arrived, she said, "I''m so sorry, honey. You must have caught my stomach bug, on top of everything else.
" Harper considered telling her mother the truth. I know exactly what Dad did. With Cat''s mom . But there was no way, absolutely no way, she could say those words out loud. The next morning, she was hungry enough that she couldn''t pretend she had a stomach bug anymore. Instead she looked at her mom and said, "I can''t go back to that school. Not ever." To her surprise, her mother nodded.
"You really feel that way?" "Absolutely," Harper said. At that moment she absolutely did. "Me too," her mom said. "Let''s get out of here. Let''s change everything." So. Harper''s mom didn''t mess around. Three weeks later: New job, new school, new home.
New town, new life. They were starting over. They''d left everything in their old life behind. Including Cat, Harper''s dad, and whoever Harper had been. Harper hadn''t really thought through the consequences of blowing up her entire life. Right now it meant she was stuck in a strange middle place. She wasn''t who she''d been a month ago--Cat''s best friend, the daughter of two nice parents who seemed to mostly get along--and she had no idea what would happen next. Whatever it was, she hadn''t planned on dead chickens.
Someone around Harper''s age came out the side door of the chicken house and walked casually toward the chickens on the line, as though they were used to dead chickens, which Harper had to suppose they were. She dropped her gaze to her lap, not wanting to stare. Her mom put the car back in gear. "We are not going to be living as far out in the sticks as you might think from whatever that was back there," she said as they pulled away. "It was chickens," Harper said. "Right," her mom said. "I eat chicken. So do you.
" "Not from a clothesline!" "Let''s just not think about it," her mom said. "We''re almost there. It''s so cute--like a tiny house! You know, like on TV." Her mom''s fake enthusiasm was getting old. "And furnished!" Yep. Lucky, weren''t they? That when they abandoned their entire lives, they didn''t need to worry about furniture. They turned a corner, then another. "Here we--" Harper''s mom stopped talking.
Harper saw her face take on a shocked expression, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. Please don''t let it be more chickens, please don''t let it be more chickens, Harper thought before sh.