Deadly Little Lessons Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-7916-0

  Visit www.un-requiredreading.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Lesson Number One

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Lesson Number Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Lesson Number Three

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Lesson Number Four

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Lesson Number Five

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Lesson Number Six

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Lesson Number Seven

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Lesson Number Eight

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Lesson Number Nine

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Lesson Number Ten

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Acknowledgments

  THERE’S A STABBING SENSATION in my chest. It pushes through my ribs, making it hard to breathe.

  I’ve felt this way since last night. Since the phone rang and I decided to answer it.

  The caller ID screen flashed: PRIVATE CALLER.

  I wish I had let my parents get it. The last thing I needed was another faceless person on the other end of a phone, especially considering everything I’d already been through during the past year.

  But instead I picked it up.

  “Camelia?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

  My chest tightened instinctively. “Who is this?”

  “It’s your grandmother.”

  But it didn’t sound anything like my grandmother. This person’s voice was less cheerful, more distant.

  “Your mother’s mother,” she said, to clarify.

  It took my brain a beat to make sense of her words, after which my whole body tensed.

  “I know it’s been a little while,” she continued, “but I really need to speak to your mother.”

  I wanted to ask her why—what she could possibly want. My mother hadn’t seen or spoken to my grandmother in at least twelve years.

  “I heard your mother is staying at your home, is that true?” she asked, when I didn’t say anything.

  “Staying at my home?” I felt both dazed and confused, like in that Led Zeppelin song from the ’60s.

  “Your mother,” she attempted to explain. “I heard that she’s moved in with you. Is she there? Can I speak with her?”

  Moved in with me? “My mother lives here,” I told her. “This is her home.”

  “Well, then, please,” she insisted (her voice sounded sharp and irritated now), “can you simply put Alexia on the phone for me? This is rather urgent.”

  “Alexia?” I said, assuming that she was confused, too. “Aunt Alexia was staying here. A few months ago.” But now she’s locked up in the mental ward at the local hospital. And the way that you treated her as a child—resenting her for having ever been born—is at least partially to blame for her instability.

  “Do you want to talk to my mother instead?” I asked.

  “Your mother.” There was a tinge of amusement in her voice. “Don’t you know? What have they told you, dear?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Alexia is your mother, Camelia. Certainly you must know the truth by now.…”

  “What?” I asked, but I’m not even sure the word came out.

  “Alexia is your mother,” she repeated, louder, more forcefully, as if I hadn’t quite heard her the first time.

  My heart pounded. An array of colors bled in front of my eyes, and the room began to darken and whirl.

  “Camelia?”

  The receiver fell from my grip.

  I sank to my bed, where I’ve remained ever since, replaying the phone conversation in my head, dissecting each sentence, word, syllable, and letter, hoping that maybe I misunderstood. But no matter how many times I try to pick her words apart, the meaning is still the same.

  There’s a knock at my bedroom door. I roll over and bury my head beneath my pillow, hoping that whoever it is will just go away. But a couple of seconds later, the door opens. Footsteps creak across the floorboards.

  “Camelia?” Dad asks.

  I clutch the ends of the pillow.

  “It’s almost noon,” he says. “I thought we’d go out for brunch. Anywhere you want.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Are you not feeling well?” He attempts to pry the pillow from over my head, but he’s no match for me.

  “Headache,” I tell him. The knifelike sensation burrows deeper into my chest. Talking feels both labored and painful.

  “Well, can I get you anything? Tea, aspirin, something to eat? I could bring you some toast.…”

  “Nothing,” I say, wondering if he notices that I’m still in my clothes from yesterday; that I never changed for bed; that the phone receiver is still on the floor; or that my pillow is soiled with tears and day-old makeup.

  “Okay, well maybe I’ll make you something anyway,” he says, lingering a moment before he finally leaves.

  Alone again, I attempt to let out a breath, but the sharp sensation in my chest keeps it in. I know there are a million things that I should do right now—that I could do—to try to ease this ache: talk to him and/or Mom; call Dr. Tylyn; phone Kimmie; or text Adam at work to come and pick me up. But instead I replay the phone conversation just one more time.

  He slides a tape recorder toward my feet, through the hole in the wall—the wall that separates him from me.

  I’m confined underground, in the dark, in a cell made of cinder blocks and steel. The hole—just big enough to fit both of my hands through—is the only visible opening in the cell. There are no doors, no windows.

  “Where’s the trash?” he barks. His voice makes me shiver all over. He sets his lantern down on the ground; I hear the familiar clunk against the dirt floor. The lantern’s beam lights up his feet: work boots, soiled at the toe, laces that have been double-knotted. “I shouldn’t have to ask for it every time.”

  Time. How long has it been? Two weeks? Two months? Was I unconscious for more than a day? He took my wristwatch—the purple one with the extra-long strap that wound around
my wrist like a bracelet. My father gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday, just before I found out the truth. And now I may never see my father again. The thought of that is too big to hold in; a whimper escapes from my mouth. Tears run down my cheeks. I hate myself for being here. I hate even more the fact that I probably deserve it.

  I lean forward, pushing my plastic bowl through the hole, eager to appease him. Hours earlier, he’d filled the bowl with stale crackers and had given me a lukewarm cup of tea. My stomach grumbles for a hot meal, though the thought of eating one makes me sick.

  He snatches the bowl and then pushes the tape recorder a little further inside. As he does so, I catch another glimpse of the mark on his hand, on the front of his wrist. I think it might be a tattoo.

  “What is this for?” I ask, referring to the tape recorder. Aside from the clothes on my back, my only current possessions are those he’s given me: a flashlight, a blanket and pillow, a roll of toilet paper, a basin of water, and a cat litter box. If it weren’t for the flashlight, I’d be totally in darkness.

  I shine my flashlight over the recorder; it’s the old-fashioned kind.

  He feeds a microphone through the hole. There’s a cord attached to the handle. “Only speak when spoken to,” he reminds me. “Now, be a good girl and plug the mic into the recorder,” he continues.

  With jittery fingers, I do what he says, fumbling as I try to plug the cable into the hole at the side, finally succeeding on the fifth try.

  “I want you to record yourself,” he says. “Tell me what you love and what you hate. What scares you the most.”

  “What scares me?” More tears drip down my cheeks. I’m scared that I’ll never get out of here. I’m scared that I’ll never get to see my parents again, and that I’ll have to pay for what I did.

  I move my flashlight beam up the wall. Unlike the cinder-block back and side walls, the front of the cell has a solid steel frame, consisting of a locked steel door, similar to that of a prison cell (except with no bars to look out).

  “As you can imagine, I love a good scare.” He laughs.

  I huddle into the far corner of the cell and pull the blanket over me, still trying to piece together what happened the night I was taken.

  I remember talking to him for at least an hour at the bar and then following him out a side door. We walked toward the back of the building, where his car was supposedly parked. It was dark—a spotlight had busted—and we were passing by some trash cans. I remember trying to keep my balance while standing on a lid. Why was I doing that? And what happened afterward? Did I fall? Did anyone see me? Did I pass out before we drove away?

  “Whatever you do, don’t waste my time,” he snaps. “Don’t record how much you hate it here, or how you think I’m a monster. Those opinions are irrelevant to me. Is that understood?”

  I nod, even though he can’t see me, and dig my fingers into the dirt floor, trying my best to be strong.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he says, as if time had any meaning for me since I don’t have a watch.

  I nibble on my fingernails, too nervous to care that they’re covered in dirt. “Can I have more water first?” I ask, knowing that I’m speaking without permission, but needing to, because my throat feels dry, like sandpaper.

  “Not until the tape’s done,” he snaps again.

  I listen as he walks away, the soles of his shoes scuffing against the dirt floor. The door he entered by—the one that leads to a set of stairs (I’ve seen it through the hole in the wall)—creaks open, then slams shut. Those sounds are followed by more noises: bolts and locks and jingling keys.

  I remain huddled up, trying to reassure myself that I’m still alive, and that I’m still wearing the same clothes as the night I was taken, so he probably never touched me in any weird way. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe once I’m done with his tape-recording project, he’ll finally set me free.

  IT’S NOT UNTIL late afternoon that I finally venture out of my room. The light in the hallway stings my eyes. Sun pours in through all of the windows, shocking my senses, because everything inside me feels dark.

  In the kitchen, Mom’s yoga bag is gone from the hook. She’s already left for work. Dad’s outside, mowing the lawn. I can see him out the kitchen window, past the growing number of my mother’s prescription bottles on the sill. When she first heard about her sister’s most recent suicide attempt, nine months ago, there was only one bottle. But now she’s up to four medications: one to help her sleep, another to make her wake, one to numb her pain, and another to help deal with the side effects of the pain-numbing pills.

  Positioned beside the array of bottles is a supersize jar of almond butter (her edible vice), two sizes up from the one she used to buy.

  I head into the living room, feeling my body tremble with each step I take toward the bookcase. You’d think that after everything I’ve been through this past year—after having been stalked, held captive, and almost killed three times, not to mention having questioned my own sanity—I wouldn’t let one measly phone call get my world so off-kilter. I mean, who even knows if what my grandmother said was the truth?

  But I fear deep down that it is.

  I zero in on the row of photo albums on the top two shelves. Back when life was simpler, before things got too dramatic and complicated for any of us to handle, my parents and I used to go through the albums together, reminiscing about things like my sixth birthday party, the time Mom nursed a baby sparrow back to life after a nearly fatal fall from its nest, and my first lost tooth.

  I grab the album that documents my parents’ life before I came along, and start flipping through the pages. For all the time I’ve spent perusing the album, laughing at my dad’s dorky bangs and my mom’s hippie clothes, never once did I think to question the fact that there aren’t any shots of Mom when she was pregnant with me, that there are no photos from a baby shower, nor any ultrasound pictures.

  I spend several minutes going through the album yet again, poring over photos of my parents’ wedding shower, photos of the big day itself, and then years’ worth of pictures dedicated to their exotic vacations in places like Fiji, Costa Rica, and Capri, hoping to find even one baby-bumpified picture that would make everything right. But all I find is my mom’s concave stomach in an array of tie-dyed bikinis.

  A moment later, my cell phone rings. It’s Kimmie.

  “Hey.” I pick up, relieved that it’s her.

  “Guess who you’re talking to right now,” she bursts out.

  “Excuse me?” I recheck the phone screen.

  “Bonnie Jensen’s newest style maven.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Three words for you: New. York. City. This summer. Me: interning for Bonnie Genius Jensen. Seriously, can you believe it?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean, that’s great.”

  “Great doesn’t even cover it, Camelia. This could be life-changing for me.”

  “Right. I mean, so great.”

  “And so what if I’ll be fetching coffee and dusting clothing racks all day…as my downer of a dad says. It’ll be for Bonnie Freaking J. I mean, I’ll wipe her ass if she wants me to, because I’m sure it’ll be with designer T-paper, right?” She laughs.

  “Exactly,” I say, trying my best to sound happy for her. And I am happy for her. She deserves every bit of this. But right now, amid family photos that add up to only one possible conclusion, it’s all I can do to hold the phone to my ear.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks.

  Part of me wants to tell her about my grandmother’s phone call, but another part doesn’t want to ruin her moment or admit what could be true.

  I glance up at the plaque on the mantel. It’s a framed quote from Don Miguel Ruiz, one of my mother’s many earth-crunchy gurus: Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Mom made a point of putting the plaque here in the center of the room over the fireplace, to remind us always to be true to our word. But what about hers?

  “
Camelia?”

  “I’m so excited for you,” I say.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing, I just have to go. My father’s signaling for me to help him outside.” A big fat lie. “Can I call you back?”

  “Wait, have you been crying? Your voice sounds all nasal-like.”

  “Allergies.” More lies. “My dad’s mowing the lawn.”

  “And since when have you been allergic to cut grass?”

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  I hang up without waiting for her answer and hurry up to the attic. I start to go through the cedar chest in which Mom stores what she deems to be of sentimental value, still hoping to find that one scrap of evidence that’ll prove I’m truly theirs.

  I pull out my old tutu, a caterpillar costume, and my first-ever teddy bear. At the bottom of the chest is a scrapbook. In it are photos of my mother and Aunt Alexia when they were young. Even then, my aunt looked out of place—either standing in the background looking down at the floor or half concealed behind someone else.

  As I start to put the scrapbook away, I spot another photo at the bottom of the chest. I reach in and pluck it out.

  “Camelia?” Dad calls from downstairs, startling me.

  I take a step back, bumping into a pile of old shoe boxes. It’s a picture of my mother on yet another beach, in yet another tie-dyed bikini, completely bumpless. I turn the photo over, noticing a date printed on the back that falls just three weeks before my birth.

  “Are you upstairs?” Dad yells when I don’t answer.

  I stuff the photo into my pocket and hurry downstairs, feeling my stomach twist. Entering the bathroom, I slam the door behind me and try to catch my breath, but I can’t seem to get enough air.

  I move to the sink to splash water onto my face. My reflection stares back at me in the mirror, but I no longer even recognize it. My eyes are bloodshot. My skin is flushed. There are red spots all over my neck.

  “Camelia?” Dad asks, rapping lightly on the door. He opens it and our eyes lock. He appears as surprised as I am by what he sees.

  “Who am I?” I ask him; my voice breaks.

  “Camelia…?” He appears thoroughly confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, who am I?”

  “You’re not making any sense.”