Free Betti on the High Wire by Lisa Railsback

Buckworth looked at the ceiling and itched her chin. “It’s ... empty. So you can write in it or draw pictures, whatever you want. Maybe you can write new English words in it so you don’t forget them.”
    “M Tea.” I itched my chin too. “My M Tea Book.” I had no idea what Melon tea had to do with a book. But then Mrs. B. wrote the word on her hand: Empty. “My Empty Book,” I said, and Mrs. Buckworth smiled. It had a purple cover with pictures of flowers and a smiling girl. And there was a blue pencil that was attached to it with a pink thing on the end. The pink thing looked like a little piece of candy so I bit it. Definitely not candy. I spit that thing on the floor.
    Still, I loved my Empty Book! “Thank ... you, Mrs. Buckworth,” I finally said.
    “You’re welcome, Betti. It might be nice for you to have it. I mean, so you can look back on it someday. After you’ve been here for a long time.”
    A long time? I definitely wasn’t going to be here for a long time. But I’d write everything in my Empty Book so I could show Auntie Moo about the world of America. Pictures that I’d drawn of my very interesting vacation here and all of my new words. I’d show Old Lady Suri at the bean stand and I’d show the leftover kids who would ooooh and ahhhhh, and best of all, I’d give it to my mama and dad when they came home to the circus camp.
    Mr. Buckworth knocked softly on my bedroom door and walked in. Both of them sat down on my bed next to me.
    “This ...” Mr. Buckworth waved his hand around the yellow room. “This must all seem so new and strange, Betti.”
    I nodded. Very strange.
    “But you don’t have to feel shy. This is your home now.”
    The Buckworths were okay. Mrs. Buckworth gave me an Empty Book and red buckle shoes and she squatted with me on the airport floor. Mr. Buckworth made me spaghetti snakes and saved me from the Melon dog. Lucy taught me important words like “yummy” and “mikroo-wave” and gave me a stuffed hairy bear. In fact, the Buckworths were nice. For Melons. I played with my fingers and set my circus doll in my lap. It was all very confusing.
    “I do not ... understand,” I said, trying to run my fingers through my doll’s knotty leftover kid hair.
    “What is it, sweetie?”
    “I do not understand why you choose ... me.”
    “Oh, Betti.” Mr. Buckworth smiled and plunked his hand down on my head. “We knew we were going to adopt you when we first saw you.”
    “But ... why?” I bugged out my eyes. “Did the ghosts tell you?”
    Mr. Buckworth chuckled. “No. No ghosts. We just felt that you had so much courage. Like a little tiger.”
    I didn’t know what “courage” meant, but I liked being a little tiger.
    “And you’re funny, Betti. We knew that Lucy would love you too,” added Mrs. Buckworth. “That you’d teach her so many important things.”
    I thought about how I made the leftover kids memorize my scary Big Mouth stories. I thought about how I taught them all of my games that got us into big trouble.
    “Auntie Moo say ...” My good eye started to get cloudy, so I shut it tight. “Learn something and teach something every day in whole short life.” I squished my circus doll against my chest, and wished that Auntie Moo were hugging me.
    “Auntie Moo is smart, just like you.” Mrs. Buckworth looked at me with kind eyes until I looked down. “We know you’re going to miss her, Betti. And the other kids. That part’s not going to be easy. You can talk to us about that too, okay?”
    It wasn’t supposed to go like this at all.
    Somehow I’d have to make the Buckworths realize that I was definitely the wrong choice. Broken from the inside out. Somehow I’d have to get the Buckworths to throw me away, back to the circus camp, so they could get a new leftover kid. Not smart and not funny and not a little tiger, like me. I was going to have to be bad. Really really bad .
    “We hope you’ll feel happy here, Betti.”
    “Yes, Mrs.