Free Escape Velocity by Robin Stevenson Page A

don’t want to sound needy or clingy. No one likes that.
    I sneak a sideways glance at Justine. She’s looking down at her desk and her hair has swung forward, hiding her face again.
    The teacher tells a very long and boring story about a trip she took to watch a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. As far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with this class. I open my notebook and write down: FIND THE CLAPPING WOMAN. I doodle a frame around my words, then tear off a scrap of paper and write: Where do homeless people hang out in this city? I hand it to Justine.
    She takes it, looking furtive and guilty, like no one has ever handed her a note in class before. Her forehead creases as she reads my words. She sticks the paper in her binder, looks at me and mouths later .

    â€œHow come you asked me that question?” Justine asks me after class. We’re standing in the hallway, and crowds of students are passing us on either side, like we’re an island in a stream.
    â€œI’m looking for someone,” I tell her.
    â€œYeah. But how come you asked me?” Her babyish face is suddenly hard.
    â€œI don’t know anyone else. Well, I don’t know you either, I guess, but you were sitting closest.” I shrug. “Look, it’s no big deal. I can look up homeless shelters online.”
    She relaxes. “I thought maybe someone was saying things about me. Putting you up to it, you know? Trying to get at me.”
    â€œNo. Why would they?”
    Justine snorts. “Like they need a reason.”
    I wonder if kids bug her about being fat, but I don’t want to ask because that’d be like admitting I noticed. “People can be assholes,” I say instead.
    She nods. “I know, right? The thing is, I was on the streets for a couple years. Ran away when I was thirteen.” She shrugs. “I’m doing the group-home thing now.”
    â€œSeriously?” I can’t make what she’s telling me match up with how innocent and childlike she looks.
    â€œYeah. Last year there were all these rumors going around about me. So I thought…”
    â€œNo. I hadn’t heard anything.”
    She shrugs. “Whatever.”
    I don’t think she believes me. “Honestly,” I say. “I mean, this is my first day. I haven’t even talked to anyone else yet.”
    â€œI don’t mean to sound paranoid,” she says. “But there are a lot of really bitchy girls at this school.”
    I nod. “I just asked because I want to find someone. This person I’m looking for, she’s pretty old. Maybe sixty, I don’t know.”
    â€œAnd she’s homeless?”
    â€œI think so. Maybe. I don’t really know.”
    Justine frowns. “I guess you’ve already done the obvious stuff, like googling her name.”
    Would she be a Summers like Zoe? Or was that Zoe’s father’s name? I realize I know nothing at all about my mother’s family—whether she has sisters or brothers, whether her parents were married, what their names are. Maybe I have a grandfather out there somewhere as well. Aunts, uncles, cousins…
    â€œLou? Have you googled her?”
    I try to focus. “Uh, I don’t know her name.” I look at Justine. “I know. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”
    â€œWell, not impossible . Victoria’s not that big. Still, if you don’t even know her name…”
    â€œYeah.” I study my fingernails and pick at one of the torn edges. Dana Leigh would flip out if she saw what a mess my nails are in. She was always trying to give me manicures.
    There’s a long pause, and then Justine says, “So who is she? I mean, why are you looking for her?”
    The hallways are emptying, everyone heading to their next classes. “She’s my mother’s mother.”
    â€œYour grandmother.”
    â€œYeah, I guess that’s right.” Duh. Obviously. But I