Waiting for Unicorns Read Online Free Page A

we shared. Would I get her cancer, too?
    After I unpacked the photographs, I opened a box of random stuff I hadn’t wanted to leave behind. There was a valentine from a boy at my old school, a pencil holder I’d made out of Popsicle sticks, old diaries, and a few stuffed animals.
    I put my things away, stacking books on the wobbly bookcase, hanging my clothes neatly in the closet, lining my shoes along the floor, and spreading my quilt from home across the bed.
    Lastly, I unwrapped a sheet of crumpled packing paper from around a large glass mason jar half full of little paper slips. It didn’t look that impressive, but this jar—these slips of paper—were the most important things I owned. My wishes.
    I held the jar up to the window. The light seemed to collect inside the glass, illuminating each paper slip. I shook the jar, shifting the slips around, rearranging them, settling them. I wouldn’t take them out tonight. I’d let them adjust to our new room first.
    I pushed the jar under my bed and leaned back against the bed frame, checking my work.
    â€œBetter,” I whispered.
    It was less full of echoes, but it wasn’t home and I knew it never would be. I just had to get through the next few months. Then Dad and I could go back to Woods Hole and I could forget this place and finally start over.

I WOKE THE FIRST MORNING in the blue house and lay very still in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was dark, but the light from the hall spilled under the crack in my bedroom door. The old cast-iron radiator in the corner of my room clunked and gurgled. It had made those noises all night long. Sura warned me it would, but it still sounded strange. We’d had central heat in our apartment back home, and the baseboards would tick as they warmed up, but they were polite about it. This old thing was downright ridiculous. I glared at the radiator as it clunked and gurgled again.
    The smell of coffee climbed the stairs, and Dad’s bedroom door across the hall creaked open on rusty hinges. His footfalls were quiet, but the floorboards still squeaked under his weight as he made his way down the stairs. I heard his muted voice greet Sura, and her muffled response.
    I lay there for a minute, listening to them talk before sighing and throwing back my covers to search for a sweatshirt and a thick pair of socks. I didn’t want to stay up here in bed while they talked about me down there. I didn’t need Dad telling Sura any personal stuff when I wasn’t there to defend myself. She didn’t need to know a single thing about me that I wasn’t willing to share on my own.
    The stairs squeaked as I padded downstairs, a pair of Dad’s wool socks on my feet. I tucked my hair behind my ears and both Sura and Dad looked up from their places in the kitchen. He was at the table with his big hands around a steaming cup of coffee, and Sura was flipping pancakes at the stove.
    â€œMorning, Tal, how’d ya sleep?” Dad’s grin was wide and hopeful. He wanted this to be all right. He wanted me to be okay.
    â€œFine,” I said.
    â€œDo you like pancakes, Talia?” Sura held out her spatula, a perfect golden cake balancing on the end of it.
    I shrugged. “They’re okay.”
    Dad threw me a look, but I ignored it and sat down across the table.
    I loved pancakes and Dad knew it. Actually, I loved my
mom’s
pancakes. She made them from scratch with oat flour. They tasted like oatmeal and pancakes all rolled into one. Breakfast perfection.
    â€œWell, your dad said you were a fan.” Sura was unfazed, and she placed a plate of pancakes in front of me. “If you don’t like them I have
tuktu
and
touton,
” she said.
    Dad laughed, and I glanced up at her.
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œCaribou and bread fried in bear fat,” Dad said.
    I quickly stuffed a bite of pancake in my mouth.
    Strange places and strange people were one thing, but strange