Episode 2: Plotting Mode
Things were less tense after dinner. Hannah was right about how she couldn’t help herself sometimes. Her gifts weren’t exactly always pleasant. Mama had warned us they wouldn’t be. We sat on the floor of our room, our backs against my bed this time, looking at the news article on Hannah’s phone again.
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
“Well, I figure we’ve got two options. We can take this article to Mrs. Emerson and try to convince her that they are our family. Or we can see if we can find a phone number or something for one of Dad’s sisters and call them ourselves.”
I knew which one Hannah wanted to do. She wasn’t a huge fan of our social worker, Mrs. Emerson. She blamed Mrs. Emerson for our being put in a different foster home than the boys. I couldn’t blame Mrs. Emerson, personally.
There are four of us. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I’m pretty sure that there aren’t many foster parents who are willing to take four kids all at once. Plus, there’s Jake. Jake is worth at least three kids all by himself. On the other hand, Hannah promised Mom that she’d do everything she could to keep us together as a family and Hannah takes promises very seriously.
“I guess we could start by calling them ourselves.” I ventured, hoping that Hannah could read my misgivings.
Hannah hadn’t even opened the book. She was staring at the photo of the Fortenbrasses again, her face set in what I like to call her “Plotting Mode."
You have to understand, Hannah is beautiful. She’s runway model gorgeous. Seriously! She’s had offers before and everything. Hannah’s plotting face, however, makes her look a little more human. Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows draw together, and this tiny wrinkle appears between them. Her mouth thins out and she chews on her index finger.
It’s weird and a little gross and totally makes my day because I don’t feel like I’m the drab, human sister to an angel. On the other hand, "Plotting Mode” also means that we’re probably gonna get in trouble sooner or later.
Finger between her teeth, Hannah stared at the phone. After a long minute, she said, “You know, it’s pretty hard to turn a bunch of kids away when they show up at your door. Especially if they tell you they’re your long-lost family.”
This was so much worse than calling a stranger.
“I’m not exactly sure about the protocol and stuff but I know I’m pretty sure Mrs. Emerson’s not gonna be okay with us just taking off with the boys and traveling out to some God forsaken island in the middle of nowhere without contacting these people first."
Hannah switched to her middle finger and tapped her nail against her front teeth. I swatted at her hand. "Stop it! You know how much that annoys me!”
Hannah lashed out and slapped me back, her palm cracking on my upper arm. “Don’t hit me, Hailey!”
“Stop tapping your teeth, then.” I shoved her.
Things degenerated into a furious, but relatively silent war of slaps and pushing until Cady’s voice floated up from the floor below.
“Girls! Stop wrestling around up there.”
We froze, mid-slap and turned to stare at the door. Cady did not allow fighting in her house and had warned us in no uncertain terms if she caught us physically attacking each other, she would report us to Mrs. Emerson with a recommendation that we be separated.
With a glare, I sat back against the edge of my bed, watching Hannah turn back to the phone which had been forgotten momentarily on the floor during the pitched battle.
“What are the chances that we can just buy Amtrak tickets, go get the boys, and leave without anyone realizing it until we’re too far away for them to do anything about it?” I asked, pitching my voice low in case Cady didn’t believe the silence. Hannah considered this.
“I don’t know. Let’s see how much tickets cost.” She opened a new browser window and did some quick research. After about five minutes, she sat back. “It looks like you and me are adults; two adult tickets and two child tickets is gonna cost about 500 bucks.”
“No way we’ll get that together without questions being asked.” I muttered.
“We could sell our bikes and the stereo, that might get us a couple hundred. We could borrow the other half from Roger and Cady’s credit card and pay them back when we’re settled.” Hannah suggested.
“That’s technically stealing.” I pointed out.
“Not if we pay them back.”
“Credit card fraud, then, and you’re seventeen. You won’t just go to juvie for that. They’ll lock you up until you’re middle aged.” I was not about to be left to take care of the boys on my own.
Hannah shot me an exasperated look. “How do you propose we do this, then?” I rolled my lower lip between my teeth. I’m not a planner. That’s Hannah’s gift.
“How long do you think it would take for us to get out of here if we go through the system?” I asked
Hannah shrugged. “No idea. It could be months, maybe years, if they don’t want to take us right away.”
That meant we would both be adults before anything got settled and we could try for custody of Joe and Jake ourselves. I wondered how serious Hannah was about the credit card fraud thing. Hannah desperately wanted to leave foster care. Two years in the system had been uncomfortable, unpredictable, and frustrating most of the time.
“You know you could always apply for emancipation and go out there on your own and talk to them and…” I began. I knew it was pointless, but I tried anyway.
Hannah interrupted me. “No way. We stay together. That was the one thing Mom always said, ‘Stay together, no matter what.’ We stay here until we can find other family.”
I sighed. “Or until we age out of the system.”
Hannah frowned. “We’ll get out of here before then, I promise.”
“I’m sure Roger and Cady would let you continue to live here even after you turn 18.”
Hannah snorted. “I doubt it would be for long. Roger and Cady like you a lot more than they like me.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not true; you know that’s not true.”
“Well, they think you’re less trouble than I am.”
I decided not to argue with her. Hannah was the one who kept the distance between herself and our foster parents. I wasn’t going to point it out just then, but Hannah preserved a sense of formality with them that did not invite a deeper relationship. I went shopping with Cady and played card games with Roger. Hannah only joined in when I invited her. She never spent time alone with either of them on purpose.
I gave up. “Well, neither choice is great, but I’d rather see if they want us sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah.” Hannah agreed. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”
I got up off the bed and crossed the room to my shelf of potted plants. I reached down to the bottom shelf and grabbed the mister. I sprayed each plant, lifting a leaf here and there to make sure that the soil in each pot got wet before moving on. Taking care of my tiny garden inspired more questions in my head. I turned around to face Hannah, who was still sitting on the floor, the phone in her hand, her head bent over it.
Hannah wanted so desperately for this family to be ours that she wasn’t thinking about anything but getting the four of us out of Chicago and across the country.
“I think we need to talk to the boys about it.” I blurted out. “Joe, at least, needs to have a say in what we do and how we do it.”
It was the only other thing I could think of to put off Hannah’s plan of running away and getting us sent to juvie for our troubles. We wouldn’t be able to go see the boys until the weekend, so that gave us more time to think of another plan. Hannah didn’t look up from the screen when she nodded her agreement.
I sighed. It was going to be a long week.
