Free Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh Baskin Page B

interrupts you, and warns you that you have one minute remaining. That recording is like a nightmare in my head, like a horrible bodyless, faceless voice-monster. After that minute the phone goes dead.
    Mommy? Mommy? Are you there? Mommy?
    â€œWhat is it you need to talk her about, Ruby? About school today? About Kristin’s birthday party?” Matoo asked me.
    She knew? The school called her?
    â€œI took care of it, “ Matoo said, before she put her glasses back on. I hoped she didn’t see my mortified expression.
    â€œYou’re going to the party. So get ready. You’re going to meet everyone at the bowling alley in ten minutes.”
    Matoo was smiling. But I thought I was going to die.
    I knew I couldn’t call my mother but I wanted to so badly right then. I wanted to so badly that I thought maybe my wanting could be strong enough to make it happen. If only I deserved it more, never got into trouble, never did anything wrong, never cried in school—if only I did all those things, then my mother would somehow just know I needed her and she’d magically be calling right at this very minute.
    Please, Mommy, call me.
    Please call me right now.
    Because if I was good enough, she’d know.

    By the way, I never saw Rebecca again. Just a few weeks ago I found out that Rebecca ran away from her foster family. I overheard one of the other visitors saying she heard that Rebecca was in juvie now.
    I get it.
    You can run but you can’t hide. And no matter what you do.
    And nobody knows that better than I do now. I thought I was hiding but I wasn’t. Or I was, but I can’t any longer.
    Josh Tipps is Margalit’s brother.
    I am sick.
    I am so sick.
    I am really so sick to my stomach and I have been all night. I didn’t shut down my computer until after midnight and then I don’t think I ever fell completely asleep. So I probably look pretty bad, which is good. I want Matoo to just go to work and leave me alone. When she calls up the stairs, I tell her I’m not feeling well.
    There is no way I can go to camp today.
    No way. I feel like I am drowning. I’ve never felt so alone before. I am drowning and there is no one who can save me. I just need time to think. I need time to think.
    It takes a lot of convincing, but Matoo is running late and it’s summer, so missing camp is not like missing school. And finally she leaves.
    It’s just me and Loulou now.
    â€œLoulou, what can I do? I don’t deserve this. I didn’t do anything. It’s so not fair. I can’t tell Margalit. Ever. She can never find out.”
    Loulou looks at me but she doesn’t have any solutions either.
    I rack my brain. I consider every possibility for how to live with this terrible truth and not lose my very first, very best friend. For a crazy second, I want to call my mom—which, of course, I know I can’t do—like I used to when I was little. I want her to put her arms around me and make everything all right. Or at least tell me what to do.
    And then I realize my mother can’t fix anything.
    Because she’s the one who broke it.

Chapter Seventeen
    Here’s another famous motto: Where there is a will, there’s a way.
    I have the will. And I sure hope I can find a way.
    I don’t have a plan exactly, but twenty-four hours later, and somehow I’ve successfully put my two worlds back where they belong—which is as far apart from each other as can be.
    I just need to stay alert and keep a lid on it, which is another one of Matoo’s expressions. You don’t need to show everyone what you are feeling all the time, Matoo says: Keep a lid on it.
    So I go to camp in kind of a daze, but as soon as I get there, as soon as I see Yvette and Elise and Beatrice and Margalit, and the inviting glint of the swimming pool, it’s like yesterday never happened. And the night before that really never happened.
    I hand Margalit the story notebook,