Chapter One The first time I saw a cockroach in this Nowhereville town, it flew. It friggin' flew, okay? I'd been waiting in the motel parking lot, minding my own business while Dad tried to jump-start the moving van, when BAM--flying cockroach--in muh face. Mom called it a palmetto bug (as in, "Good god, Maeve! I can't believe you're throwing a tantrum over a little palmetto bug"). I called it a "NOPE-Right-The-Heck-Outa-There Bug," and said that screaming was a perfectly reasonable reaction to a horrifying monster flying AT. MY. FACE. I guess Mom did not care for that response, because then she said . some other stuff.
Hurtful stuff. Stuff that made me feel even worse about myself and this whole situation. Yeah, it sucked. Dad broke things up and suggested I ride with him in the moving truck, so Mom and I could have a little break from each other. Stellar start to the morning. I assumed the plan at this point would be to turn around and immediately floor it back to Vermont--I mean, hello, flying cockroaches? Sadly, though, my parents didn't see it that way. Instead, we pulled up to the new house and parked that UHaul right in the driveway. The thunk of the engine as it shut off sounded extremely final.
I slid slowly out of the air-conditioned truck and into the hot, sticky air, already sweating. It took less than a second before I had to swat away a mosquito. I'm pretty sure the mosquito was also sweating. Dad was being relentlessly cheery--joking and shaking hands with the movers--while Mom stood on our front porch, chatting with our new neighbor. It sounded like they were swapping recipes. Mom was from the South, and we'd visited a few times for family reunions, so it's not like I didn't know anything about it. But I never thought we'd have to live here. Wait, did that old lady say "chitterlings"? I shivered as I listened to our neighbor describe a dish that did not sound fit for human consumption.
"Come on, kiddo!" Dad waved me toward the front door, a big, goofy grin plastered on his face. "Let me show you 'round the new digs." I stepped tentatively into the empty, ranch-style house and surveyed the scene. It was big. That's probably the best thing I could say about it. It was also . what's a nice way to put this . aggressively tropical-themed? The carpets were an old-lady shade of pink and covered in stains, the origins of which I didn't even want to guess at.
They matched the flamingo-print wallpaper in the living room. And the palm tree-patterned wallpaper in the dining room. And the toilet seat covers, which had both flamingos and palm trees. When my parents said the new house "had potential," that must have been code for "it's ugly and smells like a decade of cigarette smoke." Look, I'm not saying our old house was anything super special. It was just a house. It was small. (Like, really small.
My room was barely big enough for a bed and a bookshelf.) It was old and kinda busted. (Floors creaked. The downstairs windows didn't open. The upstairs toilet clogged all the time. And there was no air conditioning.) But it was also the only house I'd ever lived in. It was right next to my school, the lake, my favorite bagel café, and Ethan Allen Park.
Sometimes, when I felt all jittery and anxious, I'd walk up the bluffs to the overlook. There was an old stone tower there, with a twist of stairs climbing skyward. I could see the whole city from the top. And beyond the city, Lake Champlain. And beyond Lake Champlain, the Adirondak Mountains. And I could stand there, looking out over everything, and breathe, and feel peaceful for a minute. This strange, new place would never feel like that for me.