Chapter one

The day of the tornado began gray and dreary—one of those days where you don’t want to do anything but lounge around and sleep while it mists and drizzles and spits. All of the classrooms looked dark and shadowy and gross and there was no energy in the building whatsoever. And all of the teachers were practically begging someone, anyone, to answer one of their questions, but when they turned their backs to write on the whiteboard, they were stifling yawns of their own because they felt it, too.

Spring is like that around Elizabeth, Missouri. One day it’s really beautiful and sunny and the birds outside your window wake you up, they’re tweeting so loud. And the next day it’s chilly and windy and you can hear gusts lashing up against the side of your house and buzzing against the blinds of the laundry room window that has never been very airtight. And then the next day it does nothing but rain and drum up earthworms onto the sidewalks, only to shrivel them with the next day’s sun and wind.

Welcome to the Midwest, Mom used to say. Where the weather keeps you guessing and you’re almost always sure to hate it. We made complaining about the weather a full-time job in Elizabeth. It was the one thing we could count on to blame for our migraines and our blue funks and the reason we overslept and our bad-hair days. The unpredictable weather could derail even the best day.

When the final bell rang that day, Miss Sopor, my language arts teacher, hollered out, “Quiz tomorrow on Bless the Beasts, people! Got some thunderstorms coming in tonight. Perfect reading weather. Hint, hint! ”

And sure enough, when we walked out to the bus, the clouds were pressing in on us, thickening up and making it seem much more like evening than 3: 15 in the afternoon.

“Sopor’s quizzes are stupid, ” Dani said, her hip brushing up against mine as we slid down the bus line. “I’ve never studied for one and I always get As.”

“ ‘Quiz tomorrow! Bless the Beasts, people! Hint, hint! ’ ” I mimicked, because I did a pretty good impression of Miss Sopor, and we both laughed. “I already read most of it anyway, ” I said. I peered over my shoulder. Kolby, my neighbor, was several steps behind me, carrying his skateboard as usual. I waved to him and he waved back. “Where’s Jane? ” I asked Dani.

“Had to stay after for orchestra rehearsal. Better her than me. I’ve been ready to go home since lunch. I can’t imagine having to hang out in this prison for another three hours. But you know Jane and her violin. She’s happy about it.”

“She’s going to die with that violin permanently attached to her hand, ” I added.

Jane was ultradevoted to her instrument, and Dani and I mercilessly teased her about it. But we both knew that without Jane our trio would never be complete. She was musical and scrappy and her hair managed to make frizz look cool. We’d all been friends since the seventh-grade musical. Jane was in the orchestra, Dani was the lead, and I happily knocked around in the pitch-black lighting booth with my clipboard and headset.

It was sort of a metaphor for our lives together, when I thought about it. Dani was the beauty—front and center, lapping up the spotlight and the applause. I was the support crew—uncomfortably hiding my pudge and shyness beneath a loose T-shirt. And without Jane, neither of us had any reason to be onstage at all.

We got on the bus and bumped our way home. In keeping with the rest of the day, everyone seemed sleepy and subdued. The sky continued to darken, and the wind picked up, blowing some of the newly budding flowers almost flat against the ground. Dani and I sat in weary silence, Dani texting some guy from her economics class and me watching the neighborhoods roll by. The windows were open, and the warm breeze felt good against my face.

On Thursday nights, I had exactly one hour between the time I got off the bus and the time Mom got home with Marin. Just enough time to claim a snack and the TV, but not nearly enough to decompress to a level where I could handle Marin’s excessive energy. Something about preschool amped her up—made her loud and squeaky so she practically vibrated around the room. It was my least favorite part of the afternoon, that space between when Mom and Marin bulldozed through the front door and when they left for Marin’s dance class, leaving me to start dinner.

That day, Marin tumbled into the living room, already wearing her orange-and-black leotard with the rhinestone collar, her face sticky from a Popsicle or whatever it was they gave her at school. She hopped over to the couch and immediately began bugging me about the East Coast Swing.

Mom, still in her work skirt and low, scuffed heels, bustled around us, mumbling things about the living room being “a damn cave” as she snapped on lights, making me blink and squint.

“No! I don’t want to! Go away! ” I yelled at Marin, and she went into Mom’s room, where I could hear her chattering incessantly and rifling through things while Mom tried to change clothes. I ignored them, finally satisfied that it was quiet and I could watch TV in peace.

“Jersey? ” Mom called from her room, and I pretended I didn’t hear her because I didn’t want to get up. A few seconds later, she came into the living room, pulling her earring out, her panty hose draped over one arm, her toes looking red and taxed against the carpet. “Jersey.”

“Huh? ”

“Didn’t you hear me calling you? ”

“No.”

A look of annoyance flitted over her face as she reached to pull the earring out of her other ear. “Did you put the towels in the wash? ”

“No, I forgot, ” I said. “I’ll get them in a minute.”

This time the annoyance crossed her face, full force. “They need to get done. I want them in the dryer before I get back.”

“Okay, ” I mumbled.

“And start dinner, ” she continued, heading back toward her room.

“I will.”

“And take the dishes out of the dishwasher, ” she called from her bedroom.

“I will! God! ” I called back.

I was ten when Mom married Ronnie, but until then it had always been just Mom and me. My alcoholic dad had walked out on us when I was barely a year old. According to my mom, he was constantly in and out of jail for crimes that usually started with the word “drunk, ” he was hardly a parent to begin with, and most of the time she felt like she was raising two kids, not one. Still, she stuck it out because she thought they were in love. But one night he left and never came back. She’d tried to find him, she said, but it was as if he’d disappeared from the face of the earth. Every time I asked about him, she told me that if he was still alive, he didn’t want to be found. At least not by us.

I hadn’t seen him since I was a toddler. I couldn’t remember what he looked like.

And because Mom’s parents were control freaks who wrote her off when she got pregnant with me, I had never seen them, either. I didn’t even know where they lived. I only knew they didn’t live in Elizabeth.

Ten years of being the Mom-and-me duo meant a lot of chores fell on my shoulders. Mom needed help, and I didn’t mind giving it most of the time, because she worked really hard, and though I might not always have had the best stuff or the most expensive vacations, I had the things I needed. And I loved my mom.

But after Mom married Ronnie and had Marin, the chores for two turned into chores for four, and that got old. Sometimes it seemed like Mom was constantly reminding me of the stuff I needed to get done.

Mom and Marin continued rushing around, Marin prancing in and out of the living room, singing, humming, and I pressed the back of my head harder into the throw pillow and wished they would get going already and leave me alone.

Eventually, Mom came into the living room, calling for Marin to go to the bathroom and shoving her feet into the black flats she’d left next to the front door. She’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt and was digging through her purse.

“Okay, we’re going to dance class, ” she said absently. “Be back in an hour or so.”

“ ’Kay, ” I said. Bored. Uninterested. Ready for them to leave.

Marin raced into the living room, her own purse draped over her arm, looking like a miniature version of Mom. In truth, it was Mom’s old purse, an ugly black thing Mom had given to Marin after she got tired of it. Marin adored it, carried it everywhere, stuffing it with her most prized possessions.

“No, leave that here, ” Mom said, pushing open the screen door with her shoulder.

“But I want to take it, ” Marin argued.

“No, you’ll forget it, like last time, and I don’t want to have to make another return trip to Miss Janice’s. Leave it here.”

“Nooo! ” Marin cried, getting her Meltdown Voice on.

Mom gave her the no-nonsense look I recognized all too well. “You’re going to be late, and then you’ll miss the hello dance, ” she warned.

Marin, head down and shoulders droopy, placed the purse on the floor next to the door and followed Mom out onto the porch, her glittery little shoes looking dull and lifeless under the cloudy sky.

“Don’t forget the laundry, ” Mom said on her way out.

“I know, ” I singsonged back sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

I thought I knew so much—knew there was laundry to be done, knew when Mom and Marin would come home, knew how the rest of the evening was going to go.

But I didn’t know anything.

I had no idea.