Free Beyond Repair by Lois Peterson

Chapter One
    Even from my bed, I can tell it has snowed outside. All around is a soft silence.
    But not for long. “Cam?” Leah thumps on my door.
    â€œBuzz off.”
    â€œCameron!”
    â€œOkay, okay. Come in if you must.”
    In the morning my sister always looks much younger than seven. She is fresh and clean, and her tantrums from the day before have washed away.
    I sometimes wish I could get away with her hissy fits. I’d love to dump my cereal bowl on the floor just because we’re out of Shreddies.
    Mom keeps threatening to take Leah to a psychologist. I don’t get to freak out. Too many people telling me, “Your mother and sister depend on you. You’re the man of the house now.”
    Real men don’t throw cereal bowls.
    â€œCan I come in?” Leah stands in the doorway in her purple jammies.
    â€œYou’re in, aren’t you?”
    â€œI’m hungry.” She walks to my bed and shoves her face into mine. She runs her finger across my top lip. “You’re getting a mustache!”
    I leap out of bed and peer into my mirror. I tip my head one way, then the other. There is a glimmer of hair above my lip. If I wasn’t so fair, I’d have been shaving months ago, like my best friend DJ.
    â€œYou could have Dad’s razor,” says Leah. “If Mom hadn’t thrown it out.”
    When she starts to snivel, I do the only thing that can stop her. “Snap out if it!” I yell. “Or you’ll make me cry too.”
    â€œYou’re mean. It’s okay to cry.” She rolls her bottom lip up over her top lip and sticks out her tongue to lick the snot creeping toward her mouth.
    â€œDon’t do that. It’s disgusting. And you don’t have to cry every time someone mentions him.”
    â€œWhat’s that noise?” Leah asks. She climbs on my bed and pushes the curtain aside. “It’s snowing!” she screeches. She bounces back down. “Let’s get dressed so we can go out in it.”
    â€œWe’ve got school. Anyway, it won’t last.”
    â€œI want to stay home and play in the snow.” Leah’s already headed to her bedroom. “If we’re out there when Mom gets home, she can’t stop us.”
    Wanna bet ? When Mom gets back from her night shift at the hospital, she expects to find us dressed and eating breakfast, with our lunches packed. Some days she’s so tired, she can hardly say hello before she heads to her room, still in her coat.
    I look outside. Then I lean closer. So close I can feel the cool air on the other side of the window. It can’t have been snowing that long. There’s hardly enough to shovel.
    But someone is out there already. And the driveway being shoveled is ours.
    The shoveler is wearing a green parka with the hood pulled up. It’s not Mr. Lyon from next door. He has emphysema. Our neighbors on the other side are in Disneyland with their four kids.
    I pull on a sweatshirt and drag yesterday’s pants over yesterday’s underwear. I hop across the room, first on one leg, then on the other, as I pull on yesterday’s socks.
    Leah is sitting in the middle of the hallway struggling into her snowsuit. “Hurry up,” she says. She frowns down at her zipper. “I wanna make a snowman.”
    â€œIdiot. There’s not enough snow. Anyway, you’ve grown out of that.” As I push past her, I hear the muffler on Mom’s car. It’s been growling for six months. I can hear it from a block away. “Mom will be here in a minute. Quick. Get to the table.”
    Leah trails after me into the kitchen with the top half of her snowsuit dragging behind her. “Can we have French toast?” she asks.
    â€œIt’s not Sunday.”
    â€œIf Dad was here, he’d make me French toast if I asked.”
    Oh, sure he would! I think. Just like he’d help you do your homework or fix your bike .
    â€œI