Free Nekomah Creek by Linda Crew

called Powell’s?”
    She shook her head no.
    “Well, it’s supposed to be great. A whole block of books. Anyway, my parents promised to take me up there Saturday and I was wondering if … well, do you want to go too?”
    “Go with
you
?”
    “Well, yeah.” For crying out loud, it wasn’t supposed to be a date. It’s just that Dad said I could bring a friend, and I knew Rose would appreciateit. I mean, it’d be wasted on Jason. All he reads is comic books.
    “I’ll ask my mom,” Rose said. “But I’m sure it’ll be okay.” She bit into her popcorn ball. I could tell she was excited. But then a shadow went over her face. “I wouldn’t be able to buy much, though.”
    “Well, we’ll probably go to the zoo and the science museum, too.”
    “Really? Wow! And even if I couldn’t buy any, just seeing all those books …”
    As the line inched forward, we watched the eighth graders dancing and finished our popcorn balls. Getting closer, we could hear the spooky sounds coming out of the haunted house.
    Just as we reached the entrance, Rose tipped her head toward mine. “Did you hear about Amber Hixon?”
    My scalp prickled. “Hear what?”
    “They took her away from her parents.”
    “What?”
    “My mom heard these social workers came and got her right after school today. Now she’s probably going to a foster home.”
    She might as well have socked me in the gut. “But how could they just take her away from her family?”
    “I don’t know. My mom thinks it was the school counselor’s idea.”
    A hand reached out from the cardboard door of the haunted house and pulled me into the darkness.It was hot and stinky and I could hardly breathe.
    Somebody stuck my hand into a bowl of what was probably spaghetti. “Heeeeerrrreee … feel some nice guts!” Then a werewolf popped up in front of me. “Aarrrggghh!”
    I wasn’t a very good customer, though. All of a sudden I was too busy being scared about real things to sweat the pretend stuff. I was just stumbling along, thinking of Amber’s trying-not-to-cry face, the words she’d muttered to me after she came back from Mrs. Van Gent’s office the other day. “I swear, Robby,” she’d said, “families don’t mean nothing to that woman.”
    A foster home. I’d read about those. That’s where kids go if things aren’t right at their house. In one book a boy got taken away because his father accidentally ran over his legs with a car. But Amber didn’t have broken legs or anything. Her parents had bought her a pony, for crying out loud.
    Ahead of us, the ballerina squealed.
I have to get out of here
, I thought, my Construx suit banging against the cardboard walls.
I have to hear the rest of this
.
    “Rose?” I said into the darkness. “Rose, are you there?”
    I felt a hand take mine. Spaghetti sauce gooshed between our fingers.
    “I’m right here. Isn’t this scary?”
    “Rose,” I whispered, “how could Mrs. Van Gent get Amber taken away?”
    “What? Oh, well, I guess they just thought her family was too weird.”
    “Eeeeekkk!” A vampire with a flash-lit face loomed in front of us.
    This was impossible. I concentrated on pulling Rose through the maze as fast as I could. Finally we broke into the cooler air of the gym.
    “That was fun!” Rose said, her cheeks pink.
    Suddenly I realized we were still holding hands. I dropped hers and wiped spaghetti gunk on my jeans.
    “But Rose, who’s they?”
    “Who’s they who?”
    “Amber Hixon,” I said impatiently. “Who thought her family was weird?”
    Rose blinked like she’d already forgotten about it. “Oh. Well, maybe it started with Mrs. Perkins and the counselor. My mom says teachers have to report it if they think a kid’s in trouble. It’s the law. And then there’s something called Children’s Services. That’s the government.”
    “The
government
? Can they do that? Just take a kid away from his—” I caught myself. “I mean
her
family?”
    Rose peered at me.