Pieces of Why - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

K. L. Going lives with her family in the Hudson Valley area of New York State. Since graduating from college she has worked as an adult literacy tutor, a ticket agent for a major airline, a front desk clerk at a resort hotel, and an assistant in a Manhattan literary agency. She has lived in Maine, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and New York. K.L. is the author of many books, including Fat Kid Rules The World, The Liberation of Gabriel King, and Dog in Charge. Her first novel, Fat Kid Rules the World, was a YALSA Michael L. Printz honor book.

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CHAPTER 1

Certain days ought to come with warning notices. WARNING: This day will be hazardous to your health. Instead, most days start out normal. Maybe even better than normal.

Which is so much worse.

I woke up feeling good. It was Thursday, and that meant choir practice. More than anything, I wanted to be a great singer. Not a rock star, but a singer who’d change the world with my voice, like Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Adele, or Mahalia Jackson. I wanted my music to make people stop in their tracks.

Of course, seeing as I was only twelve and poor as dirt, that was a universe away, but if my voice teacher, Ms. Marion, had taught me anything, it was that even the most unlikely person could succeed.

“Didn’t the great Mahalia grow up in a house right here in New Orleans with thirteen people under one roof?” she said. “Didn’t she have to leave school in the fourth grade because her family couldn’t afford to send her anymore? If a black girl could rise up in the early 1900s when everything was against her, then a skinny little white girl like you hasn’t got any excuse.”

So I kept one of those tear-off calendars beside my bed and the last thing I did every night was to rip off that day’s page. It was a dumb calendar with facts about cars from a box of leftovers Ma hadn’t been able to sell online, but that hardly mattered. All I wanted was the pleasure of crumpling up every day of the week that wasn’t Thursday.

I sat up that morning and ran my fingers through my thick, tangled hair, and then I started a hum to warm up my vocal cords. Ms. Marion was a stickler about warming up properly.

Lazy singers never last.

Through the security bars on my window, I could see that the sky was full of clouds, ready to burst. The ominous streaks of gray might have been a sign, except in New Orleans storms can come and go in ten minutes flat—especially in June.

I got up and made my way into the shower, turning the water up hot and letting the spray scald my skin as I belted out the lead line of the gospel song my choir was practicing. The Rainbow Choir was a chorus of kids made up of every race, color, and creed, and we were supposed to inspire a sense of community in our audiences. At least, that was Ms. Marion’s vision. Me and my best friend, Keisha, had been founding members back when we were nine, but in the past three years, I wasn’t sure we’d done any inspiring.

Still gave me an excuse to sing.

Ma and I lived in a rickety old shotgun house outside the Irish Channel. Our rooms were close together, so I was thankful Ma slept like the dead. Nothing woke her up—not even my powerful alto voice—so I could sing as loud as I wanted and let the acoustics in the bathroom carry the sound up to the ceiling.

I stepped out of the shower onto the gritty bare floor. New Orleans is hot as blazes in the summer, and I already felt sticky again—not a good sign this early in the day. I wished for the thousandth time that we had air-conditioning, but I propped open the bathroom window instead, hoping a breeze might come my way.

Nothing moved, outside or in.

I dressed, brushed my teeth, then pushed past the clutter to my bedroom. Ma’s main job was as a baker at the Winn-Dixie on Tchoupitoulas, but as a side job she sold people’s unwanted stuff online, and that meant our house was always chock-full of empty boxes, bubble wrap, foam peanuts, and random items like angel figurines, antique toys, or prom dresses that had gone out of style. Ma figured out how much they were worth, put them up for auction, and if they sold, she got a percentage. If the stuff didn’t sell, half the time it ended up staying here.

Ma’s bedroom is at the end of the house, so I had to step over a dozen puzzles and dusty Xbox games in order to peek inside. She was asleep on the oversized bed, and her uniform from the previous night’s late shift had been dropped where she’d taken it off. A McDonald’s hamburger wrapper and half a tub of fries lay on a chair where several small cockroaches were feasting on the remains.

Cockroaches gave me the creeps, so I set Ma’s garbage pail next to the chair and took out our shoe-on-a-stick, then quickly pushed the whole mess into the bin before the cockroaches could scamper away. I tied up the garbage bag extra tight, wanting to retch, but I choked the feeling down.

For a moment, I stood watching Ma’s thin frame rise and fall with sleep. Ma looked peaceful with her auburn hair spread loose across her pillow, but she’d had more than her share of troubles, and if anything else came her way, I suspected she’d crumble like the plaster on the stairs of the New Heaven Baptist Church. Those steps had looked fine, right up until two giant slabs fell off the side, revealing the twisted metal bars underneath.

I covered Ma with a blanket and kissed her cheek, then went outside to practice my vocal exercises on the front stoop, knowing it would be a long wait for choir.

I was right. It took half of forever and a quarter of eternity.

What I didn’t know was that the whole time I was waiting, trouble was creeping up, and it was the kind of trouble that would leave me and Ma swirling in its wake.

CHAPTER 2

All afternoon, the temperature rose until the sidewalks steamed and the air was so still, I could barely breathe. I wasn’t allowed to leave for choir practice until Ma woke up and we spent some time together, but that meant I waited around all day only to scrape by and barely make it to rehearsal before Ms. Marion called everyone onto the risers.

When Ma finally emerged from her bedroom dressed in her store uniform, my hair was damp against my forehead and frizzy from the humidity, and my patience had worn thin. I was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Apple Puffs with apple juice instead of milk because Ms. Marion says milk coats the vocal cords, making it difficult to sing.

“That is just plain gross,” Ma said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of my head.

I shrugged. Wasn’t that bad—the apple juice made the cereal tart against my tongue. “I have choir tonight,” I reminded her.

She glanced at the clock. “You think I don’t know that?”

“And . . . tomorrow night is June Fest,” I mumbled, studying the floor. “You said you might come hear me sing the lead.”

“I told you I’d think about it,” Ma said, “but I’ve got work to do, and you know we need the money.”

I didn’t respond. Money was always tight, but even if she hadn’t been offered that shift, Ma would’ve found some other excuse.

“I’ve got to head out,” Ma said, grabbing her pass for the streetcar. “Are you sure you’ll be okay walking to choir practice by yourself?”

Ma said the same thing every week. She hated it when I went anywhere alone, but I didn’t have much choice since Keisha had dance class right before choir. And I wasn’t about to miss rehearsal.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, same as every week.

Ma paused, hovering in the doorway. “It’s not you I don’t trust, it’s . . .” She never finished that sentence, but she always relented. “Lock the door behind you when you leave. Don’t talk to strangers, and follow the path I laid out for you.”

I nodded, piling my empty bowl on top of the other dirty dishes in the sink. Five minutes later I was dressed in blue-jean shorts and a baggy T-shirt, ready to leave. Keisha said...