Novels

Turn

Birdie Baxter wants kids to like her, the same as every teenager wants in 1966. But when trying to fit in gets Birdie in trouble, her father asks who she wants to be, and expects an answer before the start of school, which is just two weeks away. 27255 words.

TURN

Chapter 1

The click of the handcuffs snapping around my wrists sounds like a judge’s gavel. “Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Your life is over, or might as well be,” it signals.

Outside, the swirling red light on the black and white police car draws gawkers like bugs to a porch light. A fat cop with a turned up nose walks me out of the drug store, hands cuffed behind my back. All I want to do is get out of here as fast as I can, but the cop squeezes my arm with his pudgy paw and moves so slow he couldn’t catch a cold. My face burns and is probably the same color as the light, even through my dark skin.

Carol and Monique stand off to one side, smirking. I should have known something was fishy when the most popular girls in class invited me to go shopping with them.

The cop opens the back door and pushes me in. The police car stinks of puke, b.o., and stale cigarette smoke. I can’t believe this is happening. Daddy is going to ground me til I’m old and gray.

The other cop comes out of the pharmacy, notebook in hand, walking like he’s got a nightstick for a spine. He removes his hat and slides his blonde hair and big shoulders into the passenger seat. He’s good looking in a Dudley Do-Right sort of way.

The first cop plops into the driver’s seat and closes the door. “Since this is your first offense, we’ll let you off easy.” He cranes his head around and fixes his beady eyes on me. “Just a ride home in the squad car and warning to your parents.” His turned up nose makes him look like a pig.

“We should throw the book at her,” says Dudley-cop.

Piggy-cop snorts. “It was just a tube of mascara, for Pete’s sake.”

“You know how those people are.” Dudley-cop glances at me.

Piggy-cop grunts. “You call?”

“Yeah. Her mom is home.” Dudley-cop shakes his head.

Our house is only three blocks away, but it feels like it takes three years to get there. My own personal Gilligan’s Island.

We pull up in front of our house and Dudley-cop whistles. “She must be the servants’ kid.”

Piggy-cop grunts, again, then grabs my arm and pulls me out of the car.

Mum opens the front door even before we’re half way up the walkway. “Bridget Marie Baxter, what were you thinking?”

“Ma’am, is this your daughter?” Piggy-cop asks.

“Aye, Officer.” Mum’s face is as red as her hair.

“You might want to keep a better eye on her.” Piggy-cop unlocks the handcuffs. “Don’t want her running with the wrong crowd.”

“I’ll be minding what ye say, Officer.” Mum nods and guides me inside. Closing the door, she pins me against the wall with her green eyes. “Birdie, your father and I raised you better than that.”

 “Mum, I can explain,” I stammer, rubbing my wrists.

“There’s no explanation for thievery.”

“But they said I had to if I wanted to be friends with them.”

“Who?”

“Carol and Monique. Anna’s home sick so I went to the library, alone.” Tears are falling down my face like a summer storm. “Carol and Monique were there, and were being nice to me, for a change, saying things like, ‘I wish my hair were curly like yours.’ They even invited me to go buy lip gloss with them.”

I sniff and Mum hands me her hanky. “But when we got to the drug store they told me if I wanted to be friends with them, I had to shoplift. It was like an initiation. So I took a tube of mascara. Then Carol pointed at me and shouted, ‘Thief!’” I sob and fall into Mum’s arms. “I just wanted them to like me.”

“Initiation alright, into a nightmare.” Mum strokes my hair. “I’m sorry, Dearie. 'Tis only a stepmother would blame you.” She looks me in the eye. “But if everyone’s jumping off a cliff, you don’t need to join them.”

I nod and sniffle.

“Now, go to your room and think about what you did.” Mum points up the stairs. “Your father will be home shortly.”

Patti’s not in our room, thank goodness. I couldn’t handle being interrogated by a seven year-old right now. I’m curled up on my bed and thinking, not about what I did, but about how I can get back at Yvonne and Carol, when Daddy comes in the front door and shouts “Olley-olley-Oxenfree,” like always. Mum must not have called him at work. Murmurs, then shouting. Mum told him. More murmurs.

“Bridget Marie Baxter!” Daddy shouts.

I open the door and pause.

“Dum, da-dee-dum, da-dee-dum-dee-da-dee-dumm.” Carver stands in the door of his room and hums the death march.

I glare at him. “Thanks, now I feel much better.”

“That’s what big brothers are for.” Carver smiles and musses my hair.

I descend to my doom.

“Well, young lady, I hear you were brought home by the police this afternoon. For stealing. Grrrr.” Daddy growls like a big brown bear.

“The other girls made me do it.”

“Did they point a gun at you?” Daddy pierces me with his dark eyes.

“No. Just that I had to do it if I wanted them to be my friends.”

Daddy’s eyes soften. “Birdie, baby, don’t give others the power to decide who you are. Don’t let them drag you down to their level.” He looks at me like I’m supposed to say something.

“Okay.”

“You are grounded me for a week: no going out, no phone, no friends.”

I nod. Not a problem, seeing as the last thing I want to do right now is bump into anyone I know, and I have no friends. Except Anna. Not seeing her for a week will be hard. But I expected to be grounded for the rest of the summer, so I’m relieved.

“And I want a two-page essay on who you want to be.”

That’s my college professor dad’s idea of discipline. “Daddy…”

“I could ground you until Christmas.” Daddy raises his eyebrow. He knows he’s got me. “Before school starts: who you want to be.”

Right now I’d like to be anyone but me, Birdie Baxter.

Editors: If one of these stories intriques you, email me and I will gladly send you the manuscript!