Property of the State by Bill Cameron Page B

explanation sounds absurd and I laugh a little.
    â€œThat’s stupid.”
    He heads for the kitchen and I take the lift to the basement, stow the vacuum cleaner and dust rags. When I come out, I can hear him climbing the stairs again. I wait until his footsteps fade and I hear the distant click of his door closing. For a second, I feel strangely unsettled, but I shake it off.
    The moment I’ve been waiting for.
    I move quickly through the rec room, salute the dusty moose as I pass, and climb the corner stairs up through the now-pristine living room to the second floor. I’m the only one who ever uses the library. Next to it is Kristina’s bedroom. The door no one ever opens.
    Until now.

1.10: Where Are You?
    Mrs. Huntzel never speaks of Kristina, and if Philip does it’s only to badmouth her. “She destroys everything she touches.” From most people, I’d blow that off as emo bullshit, but Philip is the precise opposite of a drama queen. So I’m not sure what to expect when I enter the forbidden chamber. Black candles and a voodoo altar, maybe. Sculptures made of animal skulls. A closet full of whips and leather. Scientology books. Who the hell knows?
    What I find is a small, tidy room with a canopy bed, a child’s desk, and an empty chest of drawers. The walls are pale pink, with a border of yellow and blue flowers running near the ceiling. The curtains are lace, and match the doily on the wing chair in the corner. Every surface is clear, barely a layer of dust. I tiptoe around, even though it’s the kind of house where you couldn’t hear a pitched gun battle in the next room. On the bed, happy little unicorns frolic across the comforter, which is thicker than my entire mattress at the Boobie Hatch. One door opens onto the closet, the other a bathroom. I don’t run the water or flush. Maybe no one would notice, but I expect the door to burst open any moment to reveal Philip, Mrs. Huntzel, even the mysterious Kristina herself.
    â€œIntruder alert! Intruder alert!”
    I suppress an urge to test the smoke detector, grab a quilt from the closet and plunk down on top of the unicorns instead. The sensation is at once familiar and unsettling. I’ve had plenty of early nights at the Boobies, confined to quarters. This bed is softer, and the quilt is smooth and cool against my bare arms. I wonder who keeps the room dusted.
    My phone vibrates in my backpack. I ignore it. My face hurts. Unless I steal one of Philip’s Vicodins, sleep probably won’t come. The phone buzzes again. I picture Trisha. I’m hiding out in a room that belongs to a girl I’ve never met. Dust tickles my swollen nose. The air smells of silence. And what am I thinking about? Not Duncan, or the Bobbitts, or Mrs. Petty and the frown she reserves just for me.
    No. I’m thinking about Trisha. Amber eyes and hands clasped below her breasts.
    In my mind, she’s sitting on her bed, the high wooden headboard behind her with its hidden compartment, its hidden secret. Her Katz laptop is open beside her. She’s annoyed at her cell phone because …buzzzz …I’m not picking mine up. Doing homework, writing poetry, G-chatting with Denise Grover. Texting me again.
    Buzzzz .
    I should call her. I want to call her.
    I don’t.
    Reid would say it’s a trust issue, or that I’m punishing myself. Maybe he’s right, but that just pisses me off.
    Fosters really only have one thing in common: we’re fosters. But everyone acts like we’re all supposed to be best friends, as if abuse, neglect, and termination of parental rights are all that matter. Cooper pushed Trisha and me together. “Hey, you two should be friends because, you know, your folks are state-assigned.” Not quite, but close enough. With almost anyone else it could have been a disaster, but not with Trisha. She’s got her shit together like no one I know. And those eyes don’t hurt