Free Girl on the Other Side by Deborah Kerbel

floors. It was like aliens had come overnight and swapped her with a completely different woman.
    â€œCome on, Beth!” she called to Nanny as she was waxing the hardwood in the main floor office. “Make yourself useful and give me a hand here!”
    She had to be having some kind of a psychotic breakdown. Or maybe this was just her way of coping with being trapped at home — which I knew was the last place she ever wanted to be.
    Holy crap, were my parents losing their minds?
    The last thing I wanted to do was hang around and find out. But really, what choice did I have? I thought about calling someone and begging them to sneak me out. But who could I call? Definitely not Dylan or Brandi! Once, in a fit of desperation, I picked up the phone and started to dial Derek’s cell, but hung up before it started to ring. There was no way I wanted him to come here and see how messed up my family was.
    As the hours passed into days, the fridge and the cupboards slowly emptied out. But since nobody could go out to the grocery store to restock, we just made do. With the windows closed up, the house was eerily dark. We floated around in it like ghosts. Nanny went about her job silently, working in the shadows and trying to stay as invisible as possible in order to avoid any more of Catherine’s cleaning fits.
    As for me, I kept waiting for some kind of emotional meltdown from David and Catherine. An explanation … an apology … an accusation about the email I sent out. Something. But it never came. As usual, they were just too wrapped up in themselves to notice me. A couple of times I came close to asking them how they could have done such a terrible thing — stolen from everyone in town and then lied about it. But for some reason I couldn’t get the words out. Maybe I was in shock. Or maybe I was developing a severe case of rickets from the lack of sunlight in my life.
    This darkness was really hard to handle and the air reeked with the chemically “fresh” scent of cleaning fluids. By the third day I was craving sunlight as badly as a starving man craves food. It was unnatural to be living shut away from the world. For the first time in my life, I began to feel an awful sense of claustrophobia. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. One afternoon while my parents were both downstairs, I snuck up to my room, pulled my curtain open a couple of inches and peeked out my window. I just needed to feel the sun on my face for a couple of minutes.
    From up there, I had a great view of what was going on below. The media were still camped out on the street, but their numbers were definitely shrinking.
    Closing my eyes, I let the light soak into my skin and thought about Grandma and Grandpa. They’d been on my mind a lot during those dark days. It was so hard to imagine how they spent five years hiding in that cellar during the war. And here I was going crazy after four days! More then ever, I wished Grandma were still alive. She’d be able to help us all through this mess — she’d been through so much worse in her life.
    Then yesterday, after five days of imprisonment, the principal of my school called and told Nanny that unless I had a doctor’s note I had to go back to class. I actually didn’t mind. I thought it would be a relief to get out of the darkness.
    So this morning after breakfast is over, I push through the last of the reporters and walk back to school. At first, kids just stare like I’m a freak or something. Teachers stare, too, but at least they’re polite and try to hide it a bit better. But little by little, I begin to sense everyone’s anger. I can feel their eyes on me as I walk down the hall to my first class. And I can hear the hush and hiss of their whispers as I pass their lockers. I try not to let it bother me, but that gets harder as the day goes on.
    In my morning gym class, I’m the last one picked for teams. At lunch, I sit alone