Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“Hey! Let me out! Let me out!” The crate wasn’t big enough for me to stand in, but I could sit up and I slapped and punched at the wooden slats enclosing me.
Nancy ignored my pleas and waited until I had stopped shouting to speak.
“This is your first night in the box so let me explain the rules,” she said calmly. “You’ll stay in here for the next ten hours, until I come down here to let you out. If you give me any trouble when you get out, you add a night to your sentence. If you soil yourself or the inside of the box, you also add a night to your sentence. If you wake up the house howling and crying—you guessed it, another night will be added to your sentence. Do I make myself clear? Well, do I?” she demanded, kicking the box and making me gasp.
“Please!” I whispered. I had never liked small spaces and this was making things so much worse. “Please, don’t leave me here!”
“Behave yourself if you don’t want to lengthen your sentence.”
There was a mean kind of self-righteousness in Nancy Spaulding’s voice and I knew that she was enjoying this. She might be telling herself she was punishing me for my own good but in reality she was a sadist and she was getting a lot of pleasure out of trapping a helpless child in a wooden box.
“Please,” I sobbed. “Please, I’ll be good—I’ll do anything you say, Ms. Nancy—please!”
Nancy Spaulding didn’t say anything to my desperate pleas. Instead, I heard her turn and walk away. Her heels tap-tap-tapped on the stairs leading up from the basement to the main house, getting fainter and fainter until at last, with a muffled boom, the door was slammed shut.
I was alone.
As the reality of the situation sank in, I began to tremble. I was stuck in a box that felt no bigger than a coffin and I would be here for ten hours straight with no way to get out and stretch or even use the bathroom! I was naked and cold and the slats of the wooden box were rough and prickly with splinters against my bare skin.
I had never felt more like a prisoner.
I sobbed and sobbed until I had no tears left. I was horribly thirsty—and hungry too—but I knew there was no way I was getting anything that night. I curled up in a ball, drawing my legs and arms in tight to my shivering body, trying to stay warm as I squeezed my swollen eyes shut.
For the first time, I began to wonder if it might not be better to die than to go on living this kind of existence. After all, my mother and father and Auntie Amelia were dead and in Heaven—wouldn’t I go there too if I died? Wouldn’t it be better to join them?
This idea persisted and came to dominate my thoughts those terrible nights in the box. I even began to imagine myself running to meet my parents and my old foster mother, hugging them as I entered the beautiful golden gates of Heaven.
I honestly believe I might have committed suicide at some point—especially after my three nights in the box. I was beginning to feel utterly broken and helpless to change my situation.
But then, something happened—something that changed everything.
ELEVEN
“CPS came by today and picked up Theo,” Nancy Spaulding said one night, about a week before school was supposed to start. The family was sitting at the table, eating thick, juicy steaks Maria had cooked on the outdoor grill along with loaded baked potatoes and fresh steamed green beans. And, as usual, we fosters were standing in a line just watching and waiting for our chance to pick at the scraps.
“I wondered where he was. Well, damn it—what am I supposed to do? I’m too busy to train another groundskeeper right now,” Gary Spaulding grumbled.
As far as I could see, all he ever did was sit around the house and snack and then molest poor Maria at night but of course I would never dare to say so. I kept my mouth shut as the discussion continued.
“Well, you’re going to have to make time,” Nancy said sharply. “It’s not my responsibility to train the new one. I take care of the indoor staff—you’re in charge of the outdoor ones—you know that.”
Gary sighed deeply but nodded at last.
“All right, fine,” he muttered, cutting another bite of juicy steak. “When is the new one coming?”
“I told them to send us another teen boy and he’s coming tomorrow so you’d better be ready,” Nancy told him.
It never ceased to amaze me how she talked about Child Protection Services like they were some staffing agency she was availing herself of. But of course, she didn’t call CPS and demand that they send someone over who would make a good maid or cook or gardener—she probably said things like, “We’re happy to open our home to another older boy since we’ll be missing poor Theo so much when he goes.” Or some bullshit like that.