Cooking (Chapter 7, Story 1)

"Will you look at the time?" Karen huffed, glancing at her watch. "I'm late. You'd better get in there and watch those kids now. Don't forget to give them dinner." With that, Karen turned on her heels and walked back down the corridor. Kella sighed and entered the apartment. Usually, her siblings used any time that their mother wasn't home to wreck the house, but today the apartment was in relatively good condition. "Hey everybody," Kella greeted them. The little kids smiled and waved, and Michelle went into the kitchen to help Kella. Kella went into the kitchen herself and began to pull food items from the shelves on the wall. There were some spaghetti noodles, a can of tomato sauce, and some canned green beans. Michelle pulled out two pots and she and Kella began dumping the canned items into them. "How was the doctor?" Michelle asked. "Okay, I guess. He was really nosey," Kella replied. "That's his job," Michelle reminded her. "I guess." "The debt collector came by again." "Oh yeah?" Michelle nodded, stirring the green beans. "He said something about jail this time. Of course, I couldn't hear much of what he said, since Mom always makes us go in the back when he comes." "Don't worry, Michelle. Everything is going to fine. Mom will get a job, and she'll be able to pay off the debt." Michelle shrugged. "Kella," she said quietly, "you don't have to lie to me. I'm not a little kid anymore. I understand what's going on. It does scare me sometimes, but I'd rather know the truth." Kella didn't say anything. She knew treated Michelle like a baby, even though there was only a two year difference in their ages. There was a loud crash followed instantly by the wail of a small child. "Laura's crying. I'll go see what happened," said Michelle.

Apartment (Chapter 6, Story 1)

Kella and her family lived in an old brownstone apartment on the southeast side of town. Most of her classmates lived in the same building, but Kella never spent any time outside of school with them; her siblings and mother kept her too busy. The apartment would have been a tight squeeze for a family of three, so it was nearly bursting at the seams from the exertion of containing Kella, Karen, and the six other people who lived there. The house was always in a shambles. Books, Barbies, and popped balloons littered the hallways. Milk, eggs, oatmeal, and tomato sauce dripped from every surface of the kitchen. The trashcans were always overflowing with dirty diapers, unpaid bills, and broken shards of glass. Even if Karen had been able to afford nice furniture, there wouldn't have been any room for it. But the family did what they could with what little they had. There was one small table in the center of the kitchen. There should have been four chairs placed around it, but they were always being used for makeshift tents or TV stands, and when one of the table legs had been broken years ago, Karen had sawed the remaining three legs off and, since then, the family ate Asian-style, on the floor. There was also a small oven and a sink in the kitchen, which were seldom used since no one in the house cooked and paper plates were almost always used at meals. There were two other rooms, a den and a bedroom; both were used for sleeping. There was a double bed in bedroom where April, Laura, Kailey, and Joshua got to sleep, since they were little. The rest of the family took turns sleeping in the love seat in the den. When it was Karen's turn to sleep there, Kella, David, and Michelle put on their socks, gloves, and winter coats and slept on the floor, but if it was one of their turns, all three shared the couch. There was no bathroom in the apartment, so in the mornings the four older children had to walk out of the apartment, down the corridor, and up a flight of stairs. The bathroom, which served two floors, was nearly always occupied, so when it became vacant, they all had to attempt to brush their teeth, wash their faces, and comb their hair simultaneously to avoid being late for school.

Karen (Chapter 5, Story 1)

"Kella?" Kella!" Kella turned to see her mother heaving her hefty body toward her. She was usually in a bad mood, but she seemed even more upset than usual. Kella glanced at her watch. She had told her mother she would be home half an hour ago to babysit. For a fleeting moment, she felt a pang of guilt, knowing that she had let her mother down and possibly caused her to miss an important engagement. But Kella knew her mother far too well to feel guilty for long. Most likely her mother had spent the morning draining booze from a coffee mug and gossiping about nothing in particular to her friends, and it was likely that she had planned to do the same things in a coffee shop or bar while Kella stayed at home and tried to control her six younger siblings. "Kella, you selfish brat, what are you doing out here? I know I told you to be home so I could go out this afternoon. But of course, you could only think of yourself. It probably didn't occur to you that I do like to go out and have some fun now and then, did it? Of course, you wouldn't understand. You go about all day, doing whatever you want, never thinking about your poor mother." Karen grabbed Kella by the arm and, still complaining about Kella's selfishness, dragged her home.

Institute (Chapter 4, Story 1)

Kella was in no particular hurry to get home, where her younger siblings were sure to be crying, fighting, and begging to be held, and her mother was sure to be angry for some reason or other, so Kella decided to take the long route home. Since the town was so small, it never took more than fifteen minutes to walk anywhere, but if she walked behind the psychologist's office into Shady Stream Park, behind Scottsdale Research Institute, and through the used car lot, she could add five minutes to her trip. Kella was intrigued by the Research Institute. There was nothing particularly interesting about it on the outside; it was just a large cement building with a large parking lot filled with cars. It was the inside of the Institute that interested her. She had been inside only once, on a field trip with her third grade class. There hadn't been very much to see at first. The walls were bright white and scientists in white lab coats roamed about the building. None of the scientists spoke, and, since the children had been told to be silent, there were no sounds, except for the clack of shoes against the linoleum floor and a faint humming that seemed to come from the rear of the building. Kella had gotten bored within minutes of entering the building, so she's snuck off with another classmate, Tommy Hodges. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" asked Tommy, who was, at the time, Kella's best friend and constant companion. "Of course it is, Tommy," Kella had replied, and, taking Tommy's hand, she led him down a hallway toward the humming sound. The humming grew louder and louder, until Tommy wrenched his hand from Kella's and covered his ears. The walls began to take on a strange gray color, there were fewer scientists milling about, and the lights were getting dimmer. The hallway went on for a little while longer, until Kella and Tommy reached a set of large metal double doors. A sign on the right door said "DO NOT ENTER" in large red letters. Looking around, Kella realized that she and Tommy were all alone. "Come on Tommy, let's go in." "But Kella," Tommy whined, "the sign says not to." "There's nobody here, Tommy," Kella said. "Nobody will know. Are you scared?" Tommy hesitated. He was, in fact, very frightened, but he couldn't tell Kella that. "No, of course I'm not scared. Are you?" "Me? No, I don't get scared." Kella winced, realizing that she had just told a lie. Her father hated lies. "Well, sometimes I get scared, but I'm not now. Come on Tommy. We'll just take a quick peek inside, then we'll go find the others. Okay?" Tommy looked nervously around at the dingy, barely-lit hallway. What had once been a barely-audible hum was now a loud thwack thwack thwack that made the ground beneath his feet quiver. There was a bright light seeping beneath the doors; maybe his teacher was on the other side. "Fine," he said.

Town (Chapter 3, Story 1)

The receptionist smiled at Kella as she walked past the front desk. "Would you like me to make an appointment for next week, Hon?" she asked. "No, thanks," Kella replied, "I'm busy." "Well how about the next week?" The receptionist raised an eyebrow at Kella. "I have to check my calendar," Kella replied, turning away from the desk. "I'll let you know soon." Kella breathed a sigh of relief when she finally exited the building. The warm rays of the afternoon sun caressed her face, and Kella could hear birds chirping and a dog barking somewhere in the distance. At one time, Kella had despised living in this small town. She hated how everyone knew her name--and her business--without ever formally meeting her. She hated the regularity of the town, how it never seemed to change, and how everyone living there had the same ideas about everything. But the town had grown on her, and now she couldn't imagine being without its quiet tree-lined streets and old-fashioned buildings.

Cuts (Chapter 2, Story 1)

"Are you sure about that?" the psychologist asked, leaning forward in his creaky chair. "Of course," Kella mumbled. The shrink's office was small, dark, and cold, and it smelled like tuna fish. Kella hated that smell. It reminded her too much of her father; he had loved tuna. "Alright then." The psychologist--Brian was his name--leaned back and formed a tent shape with his hands over his immense gut. "If there's nothing wrong, then why have you been cutting yourself?" Again, Kella almost laughed aloud. Is that what her mother had told this man? That the scars on her arms and legs were self-inflicted? Kella knew her mother, Karen, would never admit that she was the one who hit Kella with electrical cords and sliced her wrists with kitchen knives. She would never tell anyone that she threw dinner plates at Kella's head and screamed at Kella to leave home and never come back. Kella should have known that when the social services lady came by the other day, Karen would blame everything on Kella. Kella didn't understand why her mother hated her so much. She loved all her other siblings to death, smothering them constantly with affection and tender loving care. But the woman treated Kella like a dog, and now the truth was beginning to seep out. Kella couldn't hide the evidence of her mother's abuse forever, and it frightened her to think of what might happen if the authorities ever found out. "Do you have anything else to say?" Brian asked. "Time's just about up." Yes, Kella agreed, it probably was. But of course, she kept the thought in her head. This stranger wouldn't understand her predicament. "No. Can I go now?" "Sure, go ahead." Kella hopped up from the leather seat and strode to the door. "Don't forget to come back next week," Brian called after her. Fat chance, Kella thought. "Yes, sir. Goodbye."

10 Dollar Bill (Chapter 1, Story 1)

Kella's father once told her that the most important thing in life is honesty. "Kella," he said, "no matter what happens to you, be honest. Even if telling the truth hurts someone or makes your life more complicated, good things always come to the honest people in the end." Kella wondered, as she sat on the big, black leather couch in the psychologist's office, if her father was honest. She wondered if anything he ever told her was true. He told her he would never leave her, didn't he? And yet, here she was, avoiding the psychologist's beady eyed stare, all alone with her father nowhere to be found. He'd left her, her mother, and her other 6 siblings in an old broken down motor home with nothing to remember him by but a note that said, "I'm sorry" and 10 dollars. At this thought, Kella almost laughed. Really, Dad, 10 dollars? What's a single woman with no job and seven kids supposed to do with that? Kella had decided that the money would be of no use to her mother, so she took it. She told herself that she didn't want her mother to be hurt by her father's stinginess, but in reality, she just wanted--no, she needed--something to remember him. Tattered and ripped, the bill still resided under her bed in a small shoebox, and Kella took it out of the box, closed her eyes, and wished for her father to come home every night. Every morning, she awoke hoping he would be down at the kitchen table, joking with one of Kella's little sisters or kissing Kella's mother, but every night she was left with nothing but a steadily fading image of his face in her mind. Kella remembered the psychologist sitting in front of her and glanced up. What had he asked her? Oh yes, he wanted to know if she had ever been hurt by anyone close to her. "No," Kella said softly, "never."