Surviving Valencia Read Online Free

parked across the street from our house. I didn’t recognize them as friends of my brother or sister. I was sitting on the front steps, designing my new fall line-up of evening gowns in a big unlined notebook I had gotten from the twins for my birthday. What are those high school boys doing? I wrote in magenta beside a strapless mermaid style dress. They were talking and laughing and shoving each other. Their music played loudly. But I knew why they were here: To see Valencia. She was our own personal Corn Palace. I colored the bottom of the dress purple, my peripheral vision telling me they hadn’t left their vehicle.
    Finally one of them yelled, “Hey, is Valencia around?”
    He pronounced it wrong. Like Valensha instead of Valen-see-a.
    I ignored them and started a new dress. This one was a Southern Belle kind of dress, very full and off the shoulder. Only it wasn’t turning out so great because they were distracting me.
    “We drove all the way from Wausau! We want to meet Valensha!” yelled another boy. One of his friends covered his mouth with his hand. They were all laughing and looked like total idiots. Valencia didn’t have friends like this.
    “If you stay parked there, my dad is going to shoot you,” I yelled back to them. I began coloring in the Southern Belle dress. Light blue. That is the color all Southern Belle dresses should always be. That notebook, if I could find it, if it hadn’t been burned with every other artifact of the past, would prove it.
    “Go get her. Go get Valensha,” yelled the boy who was driving. Then all the boys started yelling her name. Yelling it loud and wrong. Valensha! Valensha!
    They got out of the car, and for the first time, I felt scared. It was a weekday and no one was home anywhere on our street. My dad was at work. Mom and Valencia were visiting my aunt and wouldn’t be back until after dinner. Van was supposed to be watching me, but he had gone to the pool.
    I picked up my notebook and ran inside, locking the door behind me. Then I ran to the patio doors and the garage door and locked those too. I hid in the pantry in the kitchen, my arms wrapped around my knees. All the windows in our house were open, and I could hear the boys yelling her name. I waited for them to break in but finally it got quiet. I stayed hiding in the pantry though, and that’s where I was when Van opened the door.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Hiding,” I said.
    “Why is the house all locked up?”
    I just shrugged. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell the truth. It’s as if my mouth could not form any words.
    Later that night I heard him telling our parents what happened. He made me sound ridiculous, and added fake details, like how I was eating uncooked macaroni by the handful. He made me sound like a gremlin or a monster. I understood why he did it; it was the way to talk to my parents and have them listen and talk back. They loved to gang up on someone. It was what kept them close and the best way to buddy up with them. But usually he was too good to stoop so low. He probably figured if he didn’t throw me under the bus first, I would do so to him for leaving me home alone.
    Teachers used to tell us that children preferred even negative attention to being ignored, but this is not always true. I never liked conversations about how stupid I was; I doubt any child would.
    My clever parents never noticed the beer cans in our front yard or trampled hedges associated with that day.
    “Well, it’s obvious she’s not old enough to stay home by herself,” said my mother, definitively, using the newfangled remote control to turn on Dallas when they were finally done rehashing the pantry episode.
     
    Then there was Dougie the Lawn Boy. He mowed our lawn for free, loving every shrub and rosebush for allowing him take his sweet time while he gazed at my window, thinking it was her window. (When I was seven Valencia gave me a big sign with her name on it that had turned up