Free Broken Wings by V. C. Andrews

darling who had to be protected.
    The moment we drove into the apartment complex, Kathy Ann, who was obviously sitting by her window waiting, came charging out of her apartment.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “What happened? I’ll tell you what happened,” Mother darling replied. “She was booked, fingerprinted, and given a court date where she could be sentenced to jail. That’s what happened. Go on upstairs, Robin. You sit and contemplate what you’ve done.”
    I hurried ahead and went into my bedroom, slamming the door closed behind me. Then I threw myself on the bed, became aware of the stench in the sheet and blanket again, and sat up quickly. I thought for a moment and went to the door. They were sitting in the living room, feeling sorry for themselves. Cory was saying how grateful he was that he never got married and had any children. The ones who should be grateful are the children, I thought, who never had him as a father.
    “Can I go down to the laundry room and wash something at least?” I asked.
    “What?” Mother darling wanted to know.
    “The smelly old sheet on this bed and the blanket and the pillowcase. I can’t sleep on it! It all stinks from cigarette smoke,” I moaned.
    “It’s better than what you’ll have in jail,” Cory called back.
    “Can I?”
    “Just the laundry and back, Robin, and I mean it. You better not run off.”
    “Unless you want to keep going,” Cory added, and then laughed.
    “I wish I could,” I muttered, returning to the bed to strip it and roll up the sheet, blanket, and pillowcase. Then I started out.
    “Don’t you need money for that washing machine and dryer?” Mother darling asked Cory.
    “Yeah, you have any change?” he asked me.
    “No.”
    He reached into his pocket and then he pulled out his wallet.
    “You can get change for a dollar. They have a change machine,” he said, and froze, his eyes blinking rapidly as he fingered the bills. “Hey.” He looked up at Mother darling and then at me. “I had eighty dollars in here. Now I have only twenty.”
    “Robin, did you take Cory’s money?”
    “No,” I said.
    “She’s lying. You can see it in her face.”
    “Robin?”
    “No,” I said. She shook her head.
    “I’m so sorry, Cory. I’ll give it to you,” she told him.
    “I didn’t take it. You don’t have to give it to him.”
    “You see what I’ve been livin‘ with,” she told him.
    “I have some money left over from what you gave me,” I told her. “I don’t need anything from him.”
    Before either of them could say another word, I left the apartment and went down to the laundry. All I could think was Kathy Ann spent her whole time at that front window because she saw me and came over to the laundry a second or two after I began to load in the sheet and blanket.
    “Tell me what really happened,” she said.
    “Just what my sister said.”
    “Why did you do it?”
    “I wanted it and I didn’t have enough money for it. You never stole anything?”
    “Not like that,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’d be too scared. I was amazed at how you stole those cigarettes last night. Were you ever caught before?”
    “Not often,” I told her. “I should have kept some of those cigarettes. You have any?”
    “Sure,” she said, and dug one out of her shirt pocket. She lit one for herself too, and we sat there watching the washing machine churn away. “How is your sister punishing you?” she wanted to know.
    “I’m not supposed to leave the apartment complex until she says it’s all right.”
    “Oh. That’s too bad.”
    “But she’s going to be busy nights, singing with the band. They have a job or a gig, as they call it.”
    “So you’ll sneak out anyway?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Wow,” she said, and looked at me as if I was some sort of celebrity myself. “Where are you going to go?”
    “I have to have a dent in my head fixed.”
    “Huh?”
    “I didn’t tell you the truth when you asked me how I