LOOK FOR ALL THE
THRILLING NOVELS
IN THE V.C. ANDREWS®
ORPHANS MINISERIES
BUTTERFLY
CRYSTAL
BROOKE
RAVEN
AVAILABLE FROM
POCKET BOOKS

AND THE SERIES'
THRILLING CONCLUSION
RUNAWAYS
COMING THIS FALL FROM
POCKET BOOKS

Raven longed for a home lifce
those she saw on TV. . . .

Living with her drunken mother in a battered apartment
hardly fit for humans. Raven often heard how
her birth twelve years ago was a big mistake. Then her
mother was arrested, and her Uncle Reuben took
Raven to live with him, her aunt, and two cousins.
Aunt Clara welcomed her warmly, and for the first
time Raven had her own room in a clean, orderly
household. In spite of Uncle Reuben's strict rules and
cruel comments, as she fell asleep on her own soft
pillow she felt in her heart a faint tremor of hope.

But while she knew that Uncle Reuben preferred not
to have her there. Raven couldn't guess at the shocking
secrets lurking beneath the family's ordinary
facade ... or anticipate the painful humiliation that
would make her wish for her old life with Mama
again....

V.C. Andrews* Books

Flowers in the Attic
Petals on the Wind
If There Be Thorns
My Sweet Audrina
Seeds of Yesterday
Heaven
Dark Angel
Garden of Shadows
Fallen Hearts
Gates of Paradise
Web of Dreams
Dawn
Secrets of the Morning
Twilight's Child
Midnight Whispers
Darkest Hour
Ruby
Pcari in the Mist
All That Glitters
Hidden Jewel
Tarnished Gold
Melody
Heart Song
Unfinished Symphony
Music in the Night
Butterfly
Crystal
Brooke
Raven


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Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Amdrews family
worked With a carefully selected writer to organize and complete
Virginia Andrews' stories and to create additional novels, of which
this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used
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Printed in the U.S.A.

Prologue

^

I never asked to be born," I threw back at my
mother when she complained about all the trouble
I had caused her from the day I was born. The
school had called, and the truancy officer had
threatened to take Mama to court if I stayed home
one more time. I hated my school. It was a hive of
mobs buzzing around this queen bee or that and
threatening to sting me if I so much as tried to enter
their precious little social circles. My classes were
so big most of my teachers didn't even know I
existed anyway! If it wasn't for the new automated
homeroom cards, no one would know I hadn't gone
to school.
Mama kicked the refrigerator door closed with
her bare foot and slapped a bottle of beer down so
hard on the counter it almost shattered. She tore off
the cap with her opener and stared at me, her eyes
bloodshot. The truancy officer's phone call had
V. C. ANDREWS

jolted her out of a dead sleep. She brought the
bottle to her lips and sucked on it, the muscles in
her thin neck pulsating with the effort to get as
much down her throat as she could in one gulp.
Then she glared at me again. I saw she had a bruise
on the bottom of her right forearm and a scraped
elbow.
We were having one of those Indian summers.
The temperature had reached ninety today, and it
was nearly October twenty-first. Mama's hair, just
as black as mine, hung limply over her cheeks. Her
bangs were too long and uneven. She pushed her
lower lip out and blew up to sweep the strands out
of her eyes. Once, she had been a very pretty
woman with eyes that glittered like black pearls.
She had a richly dark complexion with distinct,
high cheekbones and perfect facial features. Women
shot silicone into their lips to get the shape and
fullness Mama's had naturally. I used to be flattered
when people compared me to her in those
days. All I ever dreamed of being was as pretty as
any mother.
Now, I pretended I wasn't even related to her.
Sometimes, I pretended she wasn't even there.
"How am I supposed to scratch out a living and
watch a twelve-year-old, too? They should be giving
me medals, not threats."
Mama's way of scratching out a living was working
as a barmaid at a dump called Charlie Boy's in
Newburgh, New York. Some nights, she didn't
come home until nearly four in the morning, long
after the bar had closed. If she wasn't drunk, she
RAVEN

was high on something and would go stumbling
around our one-bedroom apartment, knocking into
fcrniture and dropping things.
I slept on the pullout couch, so I usually woke up
©r heard her, but I always pretended I was still
asleep. I hated talking to her when she was in that
condition. Sometimes, I could smell her before i
heard her. It was as if she had soaked her clothing
in whiskey and beer.
Mama looked much older than her thirty-one
years now. She had dark shadows under her eyes
and wrinkles that looked like lines drawn with an
-eyebrow pencil at the corners. Her rich complexion
bad turned into a pasty, pale yellow, and her once
sUky hair looked like a mop made of piano wire. It
was streaked with premature gray strands and
always looked dirty and stringy to me.
Mama smoked and drank and didn't seem to
care what man she went out with as long as he was
willing to pay for what she wanted. I stopped
keeping track of their names. Their faces had begun
t&aaerge into one, their red eyes peering at me with
vague interest. Usually, I was just as much of a
surprise to them as they were to me.
"'Ybu never said you had a daughter," most
would remark.
Mama would shrug and reply, "Oh, didn*t I?
Well, I do. Yw have a problem with that?"
Some didn't say anything; some said no or shook
their heads and laughed.
"^You're the one with the problem," one man told
her. That put her into a tirade about my father.

3

V. C. ANDREWS

We rarely talked about him. Mama would say
only that he was a handsome Latino but a disappointment
when it came to living up to his responsibilities.
"As are most men," she warned me.
She got me to believe that my real father's
promises were like rainbows, beautiful while they
lingered in the air but soon fading until they were
only vague memories. And there was never a pot of
g&ldl .He would never come back, and he would
sever send us anything.
As long as I could remember, we lived in this
small apartment in a building that looked as if a
strong wind could knock it over. The walls in the
corridors were chipped and gouged in places, as if
some maddened creature had tried to dig its way
out. The outside walls were scarred with graffiti,
and the walkway was shattered so that there was
just dirt in many sections where cement once had
been. The small patch of lawn between the building
and the street had turned sour years ago. The grass
was a sickly pale green, and there was so much
garbage in it that no one could run a lawn mower
over it.
The sinks in our apartment always gave us trouble,
dripping or clogging. I couldn't even guess how
many times the toilet had overflowed. The tub was
full of rust around the drain, and the shower
dripped and usually ran out of hot water before I
could finish or wash my hair. I know we had lots of
mice, because I was always finding their droppings
in drawers or under dressers and tables. Some4
RAVEN

times, I could hear them scurrying about, and a few
tones I saw one before it scurried under a piece of
-furniture. We put out traps and caught a couple,
bat for every one we trapped, there were ten to take
its place.
Mama was always promising to get us out. A new
apartment was just around the corner, just as soon
as she saved another hundred for the deposit. But I knew that if she did get any spare money, she
would spend it on whiskey, beer, or pot. One other
new boyfriends introduced her to cocaine, and she
had some of that occasionally, but usually it was
too expensive for her.
We had a television set that often lost its picture.
1 could get it back sometimes by knocking it hard
on the side. Sometimes, Mama received a welfare
check. I never understood why she did or didn't.
She cursed the system and complained when there
wasn^t a check. If I got to it first, I would cash it at
my mom's friend's convenience store, and get us
some good groceries and some clothes for myself. If
I didn't, she hid it or doled out some money to me
in small dribs and drabs, and I had to make do with
it.
I knew that other kids my age would steal what
they couldn't afford, but that wasn't for me. There
was a girl in my building, Lila Thomas, who went
with some other girls from across town on weekends
and raided malls. She had been caught shoplifting,
but she didn't seem afraid of being caught
again. She made fun of me all the time because I
wouldn't go along. She called me ''the girl scout"

5
V. C. ANDREWS

and told everyone I would end up selling cookies
for a living.
I didn't care about not having her as a dose
friend. Most of the time, I was happy being with
myself, reading a magazine or watching soaps
whenever I could get the television set to work. I
tried not to think about Mama sleeping late, maybe
even with some new man in her room. I had gotten
so I could look through people and pretend they
weren't even there.
^You just better damn well go to school tomorrow,
Raven. I don't need no government people
coming around here and snooping," she muttered,
and wiped strands of hair away from her cheek.
"You listening to me?"
"Yes," I said.
She stared hard and drank some more of her
beer. It was only nine-fifteen in the morning. I
hated the taste of beer anyway, but just the thought
of drinking it this early made my stomach churn.
Mama suddenly realized what day it was and that I
should be in school now, too. Her eyes popped.
"Why are you home today?" she cried.
"I had a stomachache," I said. "I'm getting my
period. That's what the nurse told me in school
when I had cramps and left class."
She looked at me with a cold glint in her dark
eyes and nodded.
"Welcome to hell," she said. "You'H soon understand
why parents give thanks when they have a
boy. Men have it so much easier. You better watch

6

RAVEN

SSfrarselfnow," she warned, pointing the neck of the
beer bottle at me.
"What do you mean?"
^What do I mean?" she mimicked. "I mean, if
yea got your period coming, you could get pregant,
Raven, and I won't be taking care of no baby,
«of me."
"I'm not getting pregnant. Mama," I said
I sharply.
| ' 'She laughed. "That's what I said, and look at
| what happened."
| *^^Well, why did you have me then?" I fired back
| at her. I was tired of hearing what a burden I was. I
| wasn't. I was the one who kept the apartment
|- fivabte, cleaning up after her drunken rages, wash-
I" aaig<lishes, washing clothes, mopping the bathroom
|« floors. I was the one who bought us food and
I. cooked for us half the time. Sometimes, she
| Iwought food home from the restaurant, when she
| Eemembered, but it was usually cold and greasy by
I (be time she got it home.
r "Why'd I have you? Why'd I have you?" she
r muttered, and looked dazed, as if the question was
> too hard to answer. Her face brightened with rage.
'Til- tell you why. Because your macho Cuban
father was going to make us a home. He was
positive you were going to be a boy. How could he
have anything but boys? Not Mr. Macho. Then,
when you were born ..."
"What?" I asked quickly. Getting her to tell me
anything about my father or what things were like

7

V. C. ANDREWS

for her is those days was as hard as getting top
government secrets.
"He ran. As soon as he set eyes on you, he
grimaced ugly and said, 'It's a girl? Can't be mine,'
And he ran. Ain't heard from him since," she
muttered. She looked thoughtful for a moment and
then turned back to me. "Let that be a lesson to you
about men."
What lesson? I wondered. How did she think it
made me feel to team that my father couldn't stand
the sight of me, that my very birth sent him away?
How did she think it made me feel to hear almost
every day that she never asked to have me? Sometimes,
she called me her punishment. I was God's
way of getting back at her, but what did she
consider her sin? Not drinking or doing drugs or
slumming about--oh, no. Her sin was trusting a
man. Was she right? Was that the way all men
would behave? Most of my mother's friends agreed
with her about men, and many of my friends, who
came from homes not much better than mine, had
similar ideas taught to them by their mothers.
I felt more alone than ever. Getting older, developing
as a woman, looking older than I was, all of it
didn't make me feel more independent and stronger
as much as it reminded me I really had no one
but myself. I had many questions. I had lots of
things troubling me, things a girl would want to ask
her mother, but I was afraid to ask mine, and most
of the time, I didn't think she could think clearly
enough to answer them anyway.

8

"You got what you need?" she asked, dropping
the empty beer bottle into the garbage.
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is something to wear for protection.
Didn't that school nurse tell you what you
seed?"
" "Yes, Mama, I have what I need," I said.
I didn't.
What I needed was a real mother and a real
father, for starters, but that was something I'd see
only on television.
'"I don't want to hear about you not going to
school. Raven. If I do, I'm going to call your uncle
Reuben," she warned. She often used her brother
as a threat. She knew I never liked him, never Hked
being in his company. I didn't think his own
children liked him, and I knew my aunt Clara was
afraid of him. I could see it in her eyes.
Mama returned to her bedroom and went back to
sleep. I sat by the window and looked down at the
street. Our apartment was on the third floor. There
were no elevators, just sl windy stairway that
sounded as if it was about to collapse, especially
waen^younger children ran down the steps or when
Mr. Winecoup, the man who lived above us,
walked up. He easily weighed three hundred
pounds. The ceiling shook when he paced about in
his apartment.
I looked beyond the street, out toward the mountains
in the distance, and wondered what was
beyond them. I dreamed of running off to find a
place where the sun always shone, where houses

9
V. C. ANDREWS

were clean and smelled fresh, where parents
laughed and loved their children, where there were
fathers who cared and mothers who cared.
^
You might as well live in Disneyland, a voice told
me. Stop dreaming.
I rose and began my day of solitude, finding
something to eat, watching some television, waiting
for Mama to wake so we could talk about
dinner before she went off to her job. When she was
rested and sobered up enough, she would sit before
her vanity mirror and work on her hair and face
enough to give others the illusion she was healthy
ami still attractive. While she did her makeup, she
ranted and raved about her life and what she could JBi
have been if she hadn't fallen for the first good- looking man and believed his lies.
I tried to ask her questions about her own youth,
but she hated answering questions about her family.
Her parents had practically disowned her, and
she had left home when she was eighteen, but she
didn't realize any of her own dreams. The biggest
and most exciting thing in her life was her small
flirtation with becoming a model. Some department
store manager had hired her to model in the
women's department. "But then he wanted sexual
favors, so I left," she told me. Once again, she went
into one of her tirades about men.
"If you hate men so much," I asked her, "why do
you go out with one almost every other night?"
"Don't have a smart mouth. Raven,*' she fired
back. She thought a moment and then shrugged.
"I'm entitled to some fun, aren't I? Well? I work

10

RAVEN

bard. Let them take me out and spend some money
on me."
"Don't you ever want to meet anyone nice,
Mama?" I asked. "Don't you ever want to get
married again?"
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes
looked sad for a moment, and then she put on that
asgry look and spun on me.
"No! I don't want to have no man lording over
me again. And besides," she said, practically
screaming, "I didn't get married. I never had a
wedding, not even in a court."
"But I thought. . my father ..."
"He was your father, but he wasn't my husband.
We just lived together," she said. She looked away.
"But I have his name ... Flores," I stuttered.
"It was just to save my reputation," she admitted.
She turned to me and smiled coldly. "You can
call yourself whatever you want."
I stared, my heart quivering. I didn't even have a
name?
When I looked in the mirror, whom did I see? No
one, I thought.
I might as well be invisible, I concluded, and
returned to my seat by the window, watching the
gray clouds twirl toward the mountains, toward the
promise of something better.
That promise.
It was all I had.

11

1

A Rude
Awakening

I woke to the sound of knocking, but I wasnl sure
if it was someone at our door. People pounded on
the walls in this apartment building at all times of
the day or night. The knocking grew sharper, more
frenzied, and then I heard my uncle Reuben's
voice.
"Raven, damn it, wake up. Raven!"
He hit the door so hard I thought his fist had
gone through. I reached for my robe and got up
quickly.
"Mama!" I called.
I ground the sleep from my eyes and listened. I
thought I remembered hearing her come home, but
the nights were so mixed up and confused in my
memory, I wasn't sure. "Mama?"
Uncle Reuben pounded on the door again, shaking
the whole frame. I hurried to Mama's bedroom
and gazed in. She wasn't there.

13

"Raven! Wake up!"
"Coming," I cried, and hurried to the door.
When I unlocked it, he shoved it open so fast he
almost knocked me over.
"What's wrong?" I demanded.
We had a small nakechbulb in the hallway which
turned the dirty, shadowy walls into a brown the
color of a wet paper bag. There was just enough
light behind Uncle Reuben to silhouette his six-
foot-three-inch, stocky body. He hovered in the
doorway like some bird of prey, and the silence that
followed his urgency frightened me even more. He
seemed to be gasping for breath as if he had run up
the stairs.
"What do you want?" I cried.
"Get some things together," he ordered. "You got to come with me."
"What? Why?" I stepped back and embraced i
myself. I would have hated going anywhere with
him in broad daylight, much less late at night.
"Put on some light," he commanded.
-4 feaaiAthe switch and lit up the kitchen. The
illumination revealed his swollen, sweaty red face,
the crests of his cheeks as red as a rash. His dark
eyes looked about frantically. He wore only a soiled
T-shirt and a pair of oily-looking jeans. Even
though he had an administrative job now with the
highway department, he still had the bulky muscular
frame he had built working on the road crew.
His dark brown hair was cut military short, which
made his ears look like the wing& on Mercury's
head. I used to wonder how Mama and Uncle

14

Reuben could be siblings. His facial features were
large and pronounced, the only real resemblance
being in their eyes.
^hat is it?" I asked. "Why are you here?"
- "Not because I want to be, believe me," he
*feplied, and went to the sink to pour himself a glass
of water. "Your mother's in jail," he added.
"What?"
I had to wait for him to take long gulps of water.
He put the glass in the sink as if he expected the
maid would clean up after him and turned to me.
JPbr a moment, he just drank me in. His gaze made
|he feel as if a cold wind had slipped under my
robe. I actually shivered.
"Why is Mama in jail?"
"She got picked up with some drug dealer. She^s
in big-time, real trouble this time," he said. "You
ftfst to come live with us in the meantime, maybe
forever," he added, and spit into the sink.
"Live with you?" My heart stopped.
"Believe me, I'm not happy about it. She called
me to come fetch you," he continued with obvious ,
reluctance. It was as if his mouth fought opening
and closing to produce the words. He gazed around
our small apartment. "What a pig sty! How does
anyone live here?"
Before I could respond, he spun on me. "Get
your things together. I don't want to stay here a
moment longer than I have to."
"How long is she going to be in jail?" I asked, the
tears beginning to bum under my eyelids.
"I don't know. Years, maybe," he said without

15

V. C. ANDREWS

emotion. "She was still on probation from that last
thing. It's late. I have to get up in a few hours and
go to work. Get a move on," he ordered.
"Why can't I just stay here?" I moaned.
"For the simple reason that the court won't
permit it. I thought you were a smart kid. If you
don't come with me, they'll put you in a foster
home," he added.
For a long moment, I considered the option. I'd
be better off with complete strangers than with
him.
"And for another reason, I promised your mother."
He studied my face a moment and smiled
coldly. "I know what you're thinking. I was surprised
she gave a damn, too," he said.
My breath caught, and I couldn't swallow. I had
to turn away so he wouldn't see the tears escaping
and streaming down my cheeks. I hurried into the
bedroom and opened the dresser drawers to take
out my clothes. The only suitcase I had was small
and had to be tied together with belts to close. I
found it in the back of my closet and started to
pack it.
Uncle Reuben stepped in and looked at the
bedroom. "It stinks in here," he said.
I kept packing. I didn't know how long I would
really live with him and Aunt Clara, but I didn't
want to run out of socks and panties. "You don't
need all that," he said when I reached into the
closet for more clothes. "I don't want roaches in
my house. Just take the basics."

16

- RAVEN

» "All I have is basics, some shirts and jeans and
faro dresses. And I don't have roaches in my
^etothes."
t-, fite grunted. I never liked Uncle Reuben. He was
f Aril of prejudice, often telling Mama that her
problems began when she got herself involved with
^ Cuban. He liked to hold himself higher than us
pounds because he had been promoted and wore a suit to
|»®ric.
; I had two cousins, William, who was nine, and
f" Icnnifer, who was fourteen. William was a meek,
| ifaiet boy who, like me, enjoyed being by himself.
t ifite said very little, and once I heard Aunt Clara say
flhe school thought he was nearly autistic. Jennifer
wss stuck-up. She had a way of holding her head
Ifeack and talking down her nose that made everyone
feel she thought she was superior. Once, when I
I, ftas five, I got so frustrated with her I stomped on
r i|er foot and nearly broke one of her toes.
s> " I finished packing and scooped up a pair of jeans
? and a sweater. Uncle Reuben stood there watching
If me as I walked past him to the bathroom to change.
t When I came out, he had my suitcase in his hand
and was waiting in the doorway.
"Let's go," he urged. "I feel like I could catch
some disease in here."
., He, Aunt Clara, and my cousins lived in a nice
A-frame two-story house. Mama and I didn't visit
that often, but I was always envious of their yard,
their nice furniture and clean bathrooms. William
had his own room, and Jennifer had hers. The

17

V. a ANDREWS

house was in a smaller village far enough away
from the city so that I would have to go to a
different school.
"Where am I going to stay?" I asked Uncle
Reuben as I slipped on my sneakers.
"Clara's fixing up her sewing room for you. She
has a pullout in it. Then we'll ^ee," he said. "Come
on."
"Should I just leave everything?" I asked, gazing
about the apartment.
"What's there to leave? Old dishes, hand-me-
down furniture, and rats? I wouldn't even bother
locking the door," he muttered, and started down
the stairs.
I paused in the doorway. He was right. It was a hole in the wall, drab and worn, even rotten in
places and full of apologies, but it had been home
for me. Por so long, these walls were my little
world. I always dreamed of leaving it, but now that
I actually was, I couldn't help feeling afraid and
sad.
"Raven!" Uncle Reuben shouted from the bottom
of the stairway.
"Shut up out there!" someone cried. "People's
trying to sleep."
I closed the door quickly and hurried down after
him. We burst into the empty streets. It was still
dark. The rest of the world was asleep. He threw
my suitcase into the trunk of his car and got in
quickly. I followed and gazed sleepily out the
window at the apartment house. Only one of the
three bulbs over the entryway worked. Shadows hid
^
RAVEN

the chipped and faded paint and broken basement
. windows.
"It's lucky for you I live close enough to come
4®d get you," he said, "or tonight you'd be on your
way to some orphanage."
' "I'm not an orphan," I shot back.
"No* '^u're worse," he said. "Orphans don't
Aa»e mothers like yours."
^How can you talk about your sister like that?" I
demanded. No matter how bad Mama was, I
H'' couldn't just sit there and listen to him tear her
down.
, "Easy," he said. "This isn't the first time I've had
to come rescue her or bail her out, is it? This time,
she*s really gone and done it, though, and I say
that's good. Let it come to an end. She's a lost cause." He turned to me. "And I'm warning you
| ftom the start," he fired, pointing his long, thick
|- r%ht forefinger into my face as he drove, "I don't
| want you corrupting my children, hear? The first
|» time you bring disgrace into my home, that will be
t the last. I can assure you of that."
g- I curled up as far away from him as I could
I squeeze my body and closed my eyes. This is a
aitghtmare, I thought, just a bad dream. In a moment,
I'll wake up and be on the pullout in our
Mvmg room. Maybe I'll hear Mama stumbling into
tile apartment. Suddenly, that didn't seem so bad.
Was drove mostly in silence the rest of the way.
Occasionally, Uncle Reuben muttered some obscenity
or complained about being woken out of a
deep sleep by his drunken, worthless sister.

19
V. C. ANDREWS

"There oughta be a way to disown your relatives,
to walk into a courtroom and declare yourself an
independent soul so they can't come after you or
ruin your life," he grumbled. I tried to ignore him,
to go back to sleep.
I opened my eyes when we pulled into the
driveway. The lights were on downstairs. He got
out and opened the trunk, nearly ripping my suitcase
apart when he took it out. I trailed behind him
to the front door. Aunt Clara opened the door
before we got there.
Aunt Clara was a mystery to me. No two people
seemed more unalike than she and Uncle Reuben.
She was small, fragile, dainty, and soft-spoken. Her
face was usually full of sympathy and concern, and
as far as I could ever tell, she never looked down on
us or said bad things about us, no matter what
Mama did. Mama liked her and, ironically, often
told me she felt sorrier for her than she did for
herself.
"It's a bigger burden living with my brother," she
declared.
Aunt Clara had light brown hair that was always
neatly styled about her ears. She wore little makeup^ but her face was usually bright and cheery,
especially because of the deep blue in her warm
eyes and the soft smile on her small lips. She was
only a few inches taller than I was, and when she
stood next to Uncle Reuben, she looked as if she
could be another one of his children.
She waited for us with her hands clasped and
pressed between her small breasts.

20

?- RAVEN
C
^v««Yoa poor dear," she said. "Come right in."
" *Toor dear is right," Uncle Reuben said. "You
|^&®ttld see that place. How could a grown woman
to live there and let her child live there?"
I^Well, she's out of there now, Reuben."
^-^eah, right," he said. "I'm going back to bed.
|S|fme people have to work for a living," he mut^Beed,
and charged through the house and up the
small stairway. The banister shook under his grip
^igs he pulled himself up the stairs. He had dropped
^ suitcase in the middle of the floor.
^^'"^ould you like a cup of warm milk. Raven?"
I'Aaant Clara asked.
s,, "No, thank you," I said.
; " ^"You're tired, too, I imagine. This is all a bad
business for everyone. Come with me. I have the
Sewing room all ready for you."
' The sewing room was downstairs, just off the
living room. It wasn't a big room, but it was sweet
with flowery wallpaper, a light gray rug» a table
with a sewing machine, a soft-backed wooden
chair, and the pullout. There was one big window
wife white cotton curtains that faced the east side
of the house, so the sunlight would light it up in the
morning. On the walls were some needlework pictures
in frames that Aunt Clara had done. They
were scenes with farmhouses and animals and one
with a woman and a young girl sitting by a brook.
"You know where the bathroom is, right down
the hall," she said. "I wish we had another bedroom,
but..."

21
V. C. ANDREWS

"This is fine. Aunt Clara. I hate to take away your
sewing room."
"Oh, it's nothing. I could do the same work
someplace else. Don't you give it another thought,
child. Tomorrow, you'll just rest, and maybe, before
the day is out, we'll go over to the school and
get you enrolled. We don't want you falling behind."
I hated to tell her how behind I already had
fallen.
"Here's a new toothbrush," she said, indicating
it on the desk. "I had one from the last time I went
to the dentist."
"Thank you. Aunt Clara."
She gazed at me a moment and then shook her
head and stroked my hair.
"The things we do to our children," she muttered,
kissed me on the forehead, and left to go
upstairs.
I stood there for a moment. To Aunt Clara, this
room wasn't much, but to me, it was better than a
luxury hotel. Her house smelted fresh and clean,
and it was so quiet, no creaks, no voices coming
through the walls, no footsteps pounding on the
ceiling.
I got undressed and slipped under the fresh
comforter. The pullout was firmer than ours, and
the pillows were fluffy. I was so comfortable and so
tired that I forgot for the moment that Mama was
in jail. I was too tired, too frightened, and too
confused to think anymore. I closed my eyes.
I opened them again when I felt someone was

22
I, RAVEN

.looking at me. It was morning. Sunlight poured
through the window. I had forgotten where I was
;and sat up quickly. William was standing there
||aping at me.
ft^^Mama says you're going to live with us now," he
^6& slowly.
"' I scrubbed my face with my palms and took a
j^teep breath as it all came rushing back over me.
| "William, get your rear end back in here right
l^w and finish your breakfast," I heard Uncle
Ijteuben shout.
William hesitated and then hurried out. I lay
;1aaek on my pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
|^ "Your mother's in jail," I heard Jennifer say from
?tae doorway.
? - I just turned and gazed at her. She had her light ferwn hair tied back with a ribbon. She was a tall
r^bri with a large bone structure that made her look
[-heavier than she was. Aunt Clara's features were
?twerpowered by Uncle Reuben's, so that Jennifer's
aose was wider and longer, as was her mouth. She
[ had Aunt Clara's eyes, but they seemed out of place
. in so large a face. She was wide in the waist, too.
Whenever I saw Uncle Reuben with her, however,
he always treated her as if she were some raving
feeauty. There was never any question in my mind
that he favored her over William. William was too
small and fragile, too much like Aunt Clara.
"That's what your father says," I replied.
"Well, he wouldn't lie about it, would he? Jesus,
what an embarrassment. And now you're going to
be in my school, too," she complained.

23

V. C. ANDREWS

"Well, I dont want to be;' I said.
"Just don't tell anyone about your mother. We'll
make up some story," she decided.
"Like what?" I asked dubiously.
She stood there, staring in at me and thinking. "I

Cinderella^
Nightmare

'ho do you think you are, some princess?"
ejteuben bellowed from the doorway. "Every-
|y*s up and havin' breakfast. Clara aitft gonna
l»aituf on you."
ICwas getting up," I said. "I didn't realize how
^ It was. There^s no clock in this room, and I
j|§yea*t have a watch."
^**?<o clock? I'll make sure I get you a clock. Those
Jcind of excuses won't work here."
^-ft's not an excuse. It's the truth," I said.
He stood in the doorway with his hands on his
ips. Then he glanced down the hall and stepped
Iftoffhe sewing room.
^We^re going to set some rules down in concrete
ight now," he declared. "First, from now on,
-ye^fe up before everybody. You set the table for
breakfast, and you put on the coffee. Before you
head off for school, make sure the table's cleared
V. C. ANDKEWS

and the dishes and silverware are put away. When
you come home from school, I expect you to help
Clara around here. I want to see you cleaning the
house, washing windows and floors. You'll help her
with the laundry, too. This ain't a free ride just
because your mother is a major screw-up, understand?"

I glared at him.
"When I ask you a question, I expect an answer.
You need discipline. You're like some sort of wild
animal livin' over there in that hole with that drunk
of a sister of mine. That's all ended today, hear?
Well?"
"I wasn't living like a wild animal," I shot back.
He smirked. "It looks like I'm going to end up
being' your legal guardian. That means you report to
me, and I'm warning you right now. Raven, I don't
spare the rod and spoil the child. Understand?
'Ws&f" He brought his large hand up. The palm
looked as wide as a paddle.
"Yes," I said. "Yes."
He was practically standing over me, his face
dark red with fury. I had no doubt he would strike
me if he saw fit to do so, and I was afraid.
"Raven," he muttered with a twist in his lips.
"What kind of a name is that to give a girl, anyway?
She must have been drunk the day you was born."
"I Uke my name," I insisted. He was terrifying,
but I had some pride.
He stood there a few minutes longer, gazing
dowa at me. I pulled tile comforter up to my
RAVEN

Iders, but I felt as if he could see right through

|Sr"I know you're growing older and growing fast,
gUBd I remember what happened to your mother,
^fclBW she was when the boys started looking her
E^eay. "You better not be taking the same road. I don't
"gtaat you corrupting my Jennifer, hear?"
y^ fumed away, the tears in my eyes making it
Impossible to look up at him anymore. I wasnt
ibme disease. I wouldn't infect his precious Jenifer.
, He grunted and left the room. I could hear him
leUing Aunt Clara what he had told me, what he
UplEtfed to be my chores. She didn't argue. A little
^gfe later, I heard him leave with Jennifer and
^^Bam. I waited and rose.
^ou hungry, dear?" Aunt Clara asked as I went
to the bathroom.
P-^Just a little," I said.
^,'**Conee is still warm, and I have eggs if you want,
fnaa. oatmeal."
"I'll take care of myself. Aunt Clara. Please don't
think you have to wait on me," I said.
.,., '"Don't you worry about that," she said.
I got dressed and found myself some cold cereal.
Aunt Clara poured me some orange juice and sat
with me as I ate.
I "Reuben's bark is worse than his bite," she said,
t teying to reassure me. "He's just upset with the
surprise and all. Don't pay no mind to all those
orders he gave."
V. C. ANDREWS

"I don't mind helping out," I told her. "I did
most of it at home, anyway."
"I bet you did." She nodded and sipped some
coffee.
"Aunt Clara, what's going to happen to my
mother? Is she really going to jail for a long time?"
I asked.
"I don't know. Reuben mumbled something
about them maybe putting her in a drug rehabilitation
program, but we'll have to wait and see. You
know, it's not her first time getting herself into big
trouble," she added.
I nodded. There was no sense pretending it
wasn't true or living in a dream world. Mama was
in very big trouble, and that meant I was in trouble,
too. Who wanted to live here with a cousin like
Jennifer and an uncle like Uncle Reuben? I'd rather
be in the streets.
"You just rest up a bit, honey," Aunt Clara said.
"You've been through a terrible shock. After I tend
to some chores, well have lunch, and right after
that, I'll run you over to the school to get you
enrolled, okay?"
"I'll help you with your chores. Aunt Clara. It's
what Uncle Reuben wants, anyway," I said, "and it
will help keep the peace."
"Ain't you the smart one?" she said, smiling. She
tapped my hand. "Just sit here and finish your
breakfast first."
She left and went upstairs. When I was done, I
washed all the dishes and cleaned the table. I
joined her just as she was starting on Jennifer's
room. I paused in the doorway, shocked at the
mess. Clothes were strewn about, and there was a
dish with leftover apple pie on the floor by the bed,
where the phone had been left as well. I imagined
she had been sitting there talking to some friends
laid eating the pie, but why did she just leave it?
Wasn't she worried about mice and bugs?
- The bed was unmade, and the bathroom she
shared with William looked as if someone had had
to leave in a hurry. Makeup was uncovered, the
sink was still full of cloudy water, an open lipstick
Wbe was on its side, the toothpaste was uncovered
Nta some of it dripped onto the counter, a wash'.
cloth dangled over the doorknob, and there were
magazines on the floor by the toilet. The shower
door was open, a wet towel on the floor beside it.
i -Aunt Clara began to clean up without making a
comment about the mess.
"Why does she leave her room and bathroom like
; this. Aunt Clara? Talk about living in a pig sty," I
muttered. "I guess Uncle Reuben doesn't look in
here often."
-*'0h, he does," Aunt Clara said with a deep sigh.
?*And I've been after her, but Jennifer...
Jennifer's a little spoiled," she admitted.
-.^A little? This looks like spoiled rotten," I said,
but I pitched in and helped. I cleaned the bathroom
until it looked spotless, even washing down the
mirrors that were smudged with lipstick and
makeup.
William's room was actually more organized and
deaner. The messiest thing was his unmade bed.
V. C. ANDREWS

After I straightened up his room, I went down and
cleaned up the sewing room. I put the pullout back
together so it didn't look like a bedroom. With my
few things neatly put away, no one would even
know I had slept there.
"You don't have to do that every day," Aunt
Clara commented, "You can Just close the door."
"I'm sure Uncle Reuben wouldn't like that" I
told her.
She didn't argue. Even though he wasn't here, his
shadow seemed to linger. The way Aunt Clara
looted wer her shoulder, it was almost as if she
believed the shadow would tell him things we had
said.
After we cleaned up the bedrooms, she began to
vacuum the living room. I polished some furniture
and swept the kitchen floor. I had to keep busy so I
wouldn't think too much about Mama sitting in
jail.
"You area good worker. Raven. I hope some of
your fgood habits will ^pill off onto my Jennifer,"
she said, but not with much optimism.
She prepared chicken salad for our lunch, and we
sat and talked. I really didn't know much about
her. She described where she had been brought up
and how she had met Uncle Reuben. She said he
had just started working with the public works
department, and she had just graduated from high
school.
"He was like an Atlas out there on the highway.
With his shirt off and his muscles gleaming in the
sunlight. He was a lot trimmeE-then," she recalled
^ RAVEN

'a^adly. She laughed. "One day, he pretended to
|^eh% road work right in front of my parents' house
^INt1!^ he could visit with me. We got married
*iifttout four months later. My mother hoped I would
I^INeast goto a secretarial school, but you're impulillWwhen
you're young," she remarked, and looked
sISaery thoughtful for a few moments. Then she shook
l|her '-head and patted my hand. "Don't you go
I^BBping into the arms of the first man you see,
ySoaaey. Stand back, listen to your head instead of
Ulaair heart, and take your time."
I^R^ seemed to me that every woman I ever met
l^idnne the same advice. I was beginning to believe
NttBt love was a trap men set for unsuspecting
i?||6ame&. They told us what we wanted to hear. They
Illftote promises in gold. They filled our heads with
dreams and made it all seem easy, and then they
IHE^sfied themselves and went off to trap another
innocent young woman. Even Aunt Clara, who had
llfliiarried her young sweetheart, discovered she had
|l||ilteB caught in a trap; Uncle Reuben ruled his
I^ioase like an ogre, turning her into a glorified maid
instead of putting her up on a pedestal as I was sure
Ifihe had promised. She just shook her head and
fstfareaded herself through her days like a rat caught
;4ttamaze.
%s After lunch, she drove me over to the school. It
Unas smaller and seemed quieter than mine. The
principal, Mr. Moore, a stout, thick-necked man of
;^aboi»t forty, invited us into his office. He listened to
Aunt Clara and then called his secretary and dicated
orders quickly.

31

V. C. ANDREWS

"I want you to contact her previous school get
the guidance counselor, get her records sent here
ASAP, Martha," he said. I was impressed with his
take-charge demeanor. "I suppose you know that
we'll have to get some sort of instructions from
Child Welfare as to her status. You and your
husband are going to be her legal guardians, of
course."
"Yes, of course," Aunt Clara said.
"She'll do fine," he concluded, gazing at me. "I
know this isn't easy for you^but you should consider
what it will be like for your new teachers. They
have the added burden of bringing you up to par in
their classes. The subjects might be the same, but
everyone has his or her way of doing things, and
there are bound to be differences. Some teachers
move through the curriculum faster than others."
"I know," I said.
He nodded, staring at me a moment with his eyes
dark and concerned. Then he smiled.
"On the other hand, you have a cousin attending
classes here. She should be of great help. Your
daughter is a year older than Raven?" he asked
Aunt Clara.
"Yes."
"Not a big difference. You'll have similar interests,
I'm sure. She can help fill you in on our rules
and regulations, too. Keep your nose clean, and
we'll all get along, okay?"
I nodded.
RAVEN

still sit in on math and social studies. She'll get her
books in those classes, at least," he said.
"What a good idea," Aunt Clara agreed.
^ A student office assistant brought me to math
class and introduced me to Mr. Pinnerman, who
^ve me a textbook and assigned me the last seat in
the first row. Everyone looked at me, watching my
every move. I recalled how interested I used to be
< when a new student arrived. I was sure they were
all just as curious.
^.One girl, a black girl who introduced herself as
[T^ri Johnson, showed me the way to social studies
^nd introduced me to some other students along
||be way. She called me "the new girl." As we
^^pproached the social studies room, I saw Jennifer
&BH30ing down the hall with two girlfriends at her
: side. The moment her eyes set on me, she stopped
|and moaned.
I^^That's her," I heard her tell them as she passed
^y without saying hello.
F',It was worse when social studies class ended and
ft had to find the right schoolbus home. Jennifer
[didn't wait for me, and when I found the bus, she
was already seated in the rear with her friends,
pretending she didn't know me. I sat up front and
talked to a thin, dark-haired boy named Clarence
Dunsen, who had a bad stutter. It made him shy
but also very suspicious. When he did speak to me,
he waited to see if I was going to ridicule him. I
baked back at Jennifer, whose laugh resounded
ibmasb the bus louder th&n anyone else^s.
p^ J^m JtlKwM bes/M, ^Mffl-
V. C. ANDREWS

ises, crawl on the floor if you have to, but get out
and take me home, take me anywhere, just get me
away from here.

"I got news," Aunt Clara said as soon as we
entered the house.
"What?" I gasped, holding my new textbooks
tightly against me.
"Your mother's not going to jail."
"Thank God," I cried. I was going to add, "And
good riddance to you, Jennifer Spoiled Head," but
Aunt Clara wasn't smiling. She shook her head.
"What else. Aunt Clara?"
"She has to be in drug rehabilitation. She could
be there for some time. Raven. They won't even let
her call you until her therapist says so."
"Oh," I said, sinking into a chair.
"It's better than it could have been," Aunt Clara
said.
"Great. I have an aunt in drug rehabilitation,"
Jennifer whined. She turned her eyes on me like
two little spotlights of hate. "You better do what I
said and tell everyone your mother is dead," Jennifer
warned.
I just looked at her.
"Don't talk like that. Jennifer," Aunt Clara said.
"And you should know your cousin helped me
clean your room. See if you can keep it that way."
"So what? She should clean our house. You heard
what Daddy said. She's living off us, isn't she?"
Jennifer fired back.

34

RAVEN

^"Jennifer!" Aunt Clara cried. "Where's your
barity and your love?"
^*Love? I don't love her. It was hard enough to
(plain who she was. Everyone wanted to know
Hy she's so dark. I had to tell them what her father
te," she complained.
s^fennifer."
"^bu're not better than me because your skin's
Slater," I charged.
"Of course, she isn't," Aunt Clara said. "Jennist>
I never taught you such terrible things."
Suit's not fair. Mama. My friends are all wonder-
ig about our family now. It's not fairi" she
loaned.
""Stop that talk, or I'll tell your father," Aunt
;lara said.
"Tell him," she challenged, smirked, and walked
(?& stairs.
s'"I don't know where she gets that streak of
leanness," Aunt Clara muttered.
/1 gazed up at her. Was she that blind or delibertely
hiding her head in the sand? It was easy to see
sat Jennifer had inherited the meanness from
facie Reuben.
"I'm sorry," Aunt Clara said.
'"Don't worry about it. Aunt Clara. I'll be fine
rath or without Jennifer's friendship."
The door opened and closed, and William came
auntering in. He looked up at me with shy eyes.
"How was your day in school, William?" Aunt
lara asked.

35

V. C. ANDKEWS

He dug into his notebook and produced a spelling
test on which he had received a ninety.
"That's wonderful! Look, Raven," she said,
showing me.
"Very good, William. 1*11 have to come to you for
help with my spelling homework."
He looked appreciative but took the test back
quickly and shoved it into his notebook.
"Do you want some milk and cookies, William?"
Aunt Clara asked him.
He shook his head, glanced at me with as close to
a smile as he could manage, and then hurried up to
his room.
"He's so shy. I never realized how shy. Doesn't
he have any friends to play with after school?" I
asked, watching him leave.
Aunt Clara shook her head sadly.
"He stays to himself too much, I know. The
counselor at school called me in to discuss him. His
teachers think he's too withdrawn. They all say he
never raises his hand in class. He hardly speaks to
the other students. You see him. He looks like a
turtle about to crawl back in his shell. I don't know
why," she added, her eyes filling with tears. I felt
like putting my arm around her.
"He'll grow out of it," I said, but she didn't
smile.
She shook her head. "Something's not right, but I
don't know why. I took him to a doctor. He's
healthy, hardly even gets a cold, but something ..."
Her voice trailed off. Then she turned to me with
I
1 RAVEN
i>
c teary eyes and asked, "What makes a young boy
E' behave like that?"
I didn't know then.
8ut I would soon learn why.
£ Only I wouldn't be able to find the words to tell
her.

I35

37

Fly Away
Home

Drug rehabilitation," Uncle Reuben muttered
as he chewed his forkful of sirloin steak. Whenever
H Mama and I had steak, it was usually warmed-up
leftovers she had brought back from Charlie's.
"That's a waste of government money," he continued,
chewing as he talked. He seemed to grind his
teeth over the bitter words as well as his meat.
"It's not a waste of money if it helps her," Aunt
Clara said softly.
He stopped chewing and glared at her.
"Helps her? Nothing can help her. She's a lost
cause. Best thing they could do would be to lock her
up and drop the key into the sewer:"
Jennifer laughed. I looked up from my plate and
fixed my eyes on her.
"Stop staring at me," she complained. "It isn't
polite to stare, is it. Daddy?"
RAVEN

Uncle Reuben glanced at me and then nodded.
"No, it ain't, but how would she know?"
Jennifer laughed again and smiled at me. My
meat tasted like chunks of cardboard and stuck in
ay throat. I stopped eating and sat back. "I'd like
10 be excused," I said.
"Like hell you will, until you finish that," Uncle
Reuben said, nodding at my plate. "We don't waste
food here."
' Jennifer cut into her steak and chomped down
^«ith a wide smile on her chubby face, pretending to
Sfftror every morsel. "It's delicious," she said.
| *""It's not polite to talk with food in your mouth,"
11 said quickly.
11,.William looked up with a gleeful smile in his
l^oyss. Jennifer stopped chewing and swung her eyes
| at Uncle Reuben. He continued to scoop up his
l|iertatoes, shoveling the food into his mouth as if he
Shad to finish in record time.
r "I have a homemade pecan pie, Reuben. Your
[fcwrite," Aunt Clara said.
I j He nodded as if he expected no less. They're all
Ispofled, I thought.
[.* "I got an eighty on my English test today,"
"lennifer told him.
,1 "No kidding? Eighty. That's good," Uncle Reu,ben
said.
: "I have a chance to make the honor roll if Mr.
H-JPmnerman gives me a decent grade in math this
||l|Barter," she bragged.
H. "Wow. Hear that, Clara? That's my little girl
H making her daddy proud*'

39

V. C. ANDREWS

"Yes. That's very good," Aunt Clara said. "William
came home with a ninety in spelling," she
added.
William looked at Uncle Reuben, but he just
continued chewing with only the slightest nod. "I
guess I gotta go get the paperwork done on her," he
said finally. "Everything go all right with the
school?"
"Yes," Aunt Clara said. "She's enrolled."
"What kind of grades you been getting?" he
asked me.
"I pass everything," I said, looking away quickly.
"I bet," he said. "Your mother ever ask you how
you were doing in school?"
"Yes, she has," I said with indignation. He curled
his lips. "She had to sign my report card, so she saw
my grades all the time."
"You never forged her signature?" Jennifer asked
with a smile that could freeze lava.
"Why? Is that what you do?" I fired back.
"Hardly. I don't have to do that. I pass for real,"
she said. "Daddy signs my report cards, don't you,
Daddy?"
"Every time," he agreed. He pushed back from
the table and stood. "If she's going to waste food,
Clara, you see you don't give her as much to start. I
work hard for my money to pay for everything," he
added, directing himself to me.
Even though my stomach was protesting, I forced
myself to swallow the last piece of meat and
another forkful of green beans.
"I want to catch the news. Call me when coffee

40

RAVEN

and pie is ready," he added, and left the kitchen to
go watch television.
My eyes followed him out, and then I looked at
William, who was staring at me sympathetically. I
smiled at him, and his face brightened.
"I gotta go do my homework, Ma. I don't have to
, do anything with the dinner dishes anyway, right?
You got her," Jennifer said, nodding at me.
"You should still help out, Jennifer."
"I can't. You heard Daddy. He wants me to make
the honor roll. Don't you want me to-finish my
homework?" she whined.
"Of course."
"Okay, then," she said, jumping up. "I'll come
down later for a piece of pie."
; She left the kitchen. Aunt Clara shook her head
: sadly.
;" , *TH help," William said. He started to clear the
i^ table with me.
"You want to see the birdhouse I buflt?" he asked
,pe when we were finished.
Aunt Clara smiled at me, happy William was
.emerging a little from his shell.
"Sure," I said.
„. "It's up in my room. I made it myself," he said. I
followed him up to his room, and he took it off the
r shelf It was a triangular-shaped house with dried
| corncobs attached to the outside.
|1C "I glued all those oh," he said, showing me how
secure the cobs were.
I handled it gently. "This is wonderful, William.

41

V. C. ANDREWS

It must have been hard to build this from scratch.
How long did it take?"
"A couple of days," he said proudly. "As soon as
I save up enough, I'm going to buy some binoculars
so I can see the birds that come to my house up
dose. Do you know anything about birds?"
I shook my head, and he went to his desk to get
an encyclopedia of birds. It contained brightly
colored photos of birds, their habitats, and the type
L of food they ate. He then showed me another book
that had instructions on building birdhouses.
That's the next one I want to build." He
pointed to a double-decker birdhouse.
"That's beautiful. You can build that?"
"Sure," he said confidently. "I'll let you know
when I get the materials, and you could watch if
you want."
Thanks," I said.
He gave me his best smile, one that truly brightened
his eyes.
'**! better start on my homework," I told him.
I left, and as I passed Jennifer's door, which was
partly open, I saw her curled on the floor, talking
on her phone. I paused, and she looked up at me.
"What are you doing, spying on me?" she
snapped.
"Hardly," I said. "But I thought you had to do
your homework, or are you taking a course in
gossip?" I continued down the stairs, my heart
pounding. I heard her slam her door closed behind
me.
Since the sewing room was so close to the dining
RAVEN

mom, I could hear Uncle Reuben's conversation
with Aunt Clara while he had his coffee and pie.
» "We're not going-to go and spend a lot of money
^ on new clothes for her. I want to see if we can get
some sort of government help. I think if you take in
a kid, they give you some support money."
, *'$he needs things, Reuben," Aunt Clara said
softly. "Shouldn't you go back and see what else
she has in the apartment?"
^
^ "What good would that do? We'd only have to
Bithave it deloused."
I^^You can't just let her wear what she has," Aunt
tdtea insisted softly.
i-S'^Okay, okay, get her a couple of things. But I
|cBoa't want you spending a lot of money, Clara. We
:^at Jennifer, who needs new things. You see how
pEbst sac's growing."
S ,**Maybe Jennifer will share some of her things
JslHBth Raven," Aunt Clara said.
H He grunted and then added, "If she does, you
llaake sure Raven is clean before she puts anything
|^?3ennifer's on."
I, **0h, she's clean, Reuben. She's really a very nice
young lady, despite her life with your sister."
I, "Well see," he said. I heard him rise. "Make sure
|be cleans all this up before she goes to sleep. I want
lift to appreciate what she gets here."
l^-She does."
| He didn't respond. I heard him go back into the
Hying room and turn up the television. Then I went
|fe^eh> Aunt Clara.
t?-.*^&>u don't have to do this. Raven," she whis-
V. C. ANDREWS

pered. "There's not much left. Go do your homework."
"I didn't have that much. Aunt Clara. I have to
meet with my teachers for a while after school each
| day for the next week to catch up. When will we
know when Mama can talk to me?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I don't know, honey.
ReubeH will find out more tomorrow.'*
"He should have made more over William's
spelling test," I mumbled. "And an eighty isn't
such a great grade."
She looked at me with not so much fear in her
eyes as cautious agreement. "I know," she said.
"I've been after him to spend more time with
William."
"I'm not so sure that would help," I muttered,
mostly to myself. If she heard, she didn't respond.
Then she paused and looked as if she saw a ghost. I
turned.
Uncle Reuben was standing in the doorway.
- "She should do that herself, Clara. You need to
come in and rest," he ordered, his eyes burning
through me.
"There's nothing left to do, Reuben."
He continued to stare. Had he heard me?
"All right, Reuben. I'm coming," she said. She
wiped her hands on a dish towel and left the
kitchen. He let her pass, glanced at me again, and
then followed her.
From what I had seen already, I realized Uncle
Reuben whipped his family around this house with
a took, a word, a gesture. He was the puppet
RAVEN

master, and they jumped when he tugged at their
strings. I felt as if he was tying strings around my
arms and legs, too, and soon I would be just
another puppet.
After finishing my homework, I made my bed
and changed into the one nightgown I owned.
Lying there and staring out through my one win-
<tow at the stars that popped in between passing
clouds, I thought that somehow I had been turned
into Cinderella without the magic slipper or fairy
godmother. There would be no magic in my life.
Once, I spent my time dreaming about far-off
places, beautiful houses, handsome young men,
' gala dances, beautiful clothes and jewels. I was in
ssy own movie, spinning out the scenes on the walls
of my imagination. It took me out of the small
apartment.
1 had to laugh.
Here I was, out, with a family, going to a new
school, and what did I dream of?
» Getting back to my small apartment.

I actually grew to like the new school. Because
my classes were much smaller, the teachers took
more time with me, and I also began to make some
friends. Jennifer continued to avoid me as much as
possible, but I began to accept it. From what I saw
of the friends she had, girls who were mostly like
her, selfish, vain, and sneaky, I more than accepted
it. I welcomed it. There were much nicer kids to
know.
Jennifer was far from the goody-goody she pre45

V. C. ANDREWS

tended to be in front of Uncle Reuben, too. She was
right in there with the girls who smoked in the giris'
room, and from what I was told and what I saw, she
often cheated on her homework and tests. I could
see that her teachers weren't very fond of her,
either. Terri Johnson told me she knew for a fact
that Jennifer and her friends went on shoplifting
sprees at the mall just for the thrill of it. Here she
was, a girl with parents, a nice home, and all, and
she wasn't any better than the girls I had known
who<^me from broken families and who lived in
much more unpleasant places. I wondered what
Uncle JReuben would do if he found out any of this
about his precious perfect daughter.
One day in the cafeteria, Jennifer paused with
two of her friends at my table. I stopped talking
and looked up at her.
"You've fallen behind on the laundry," she said.
"I need that blue and white blouse tomorrow. See
that it's done."
My moutib fell open as I looked from her to the
smirking faces of her friends.
"Why don't you wash it yourself, then?" I shot
back.
"You're supposed to be earning your room and
board, aren't you?"
"What about you?" I countered.
"I don't have to. I have parents," she replied
smugly. "Just get it done, or I'll tell Daddy," she
threatened, and walked off laughing.
Terri looked down, embarrassed for me.
"She's a spoiled brat," I said. I wanted to say a
RAVEN

lot more, but it was hard to talk. My words got
choked in my throat because it was tight from
fighting back my tears.
' fc *Td rather live with a snake than that," Terri
-Offered, and the girls at my table all laughed.
- "Yeah, well, that's what I'm doing," I muttered,
^living with a snake."
^ When I got home from school that day, I found
her precious blue and white blouse in the hamper.
j@efore I put it into the washing machine, I poked a
hole in the shoulder of the blouse with the pointed
end of my math compass. After dinner on Tuesdays,
Aunt Clara and I folded and ironed clothes.
She didn't notice the hole in the blouse, and she
brought everything up to Jennifer's room. It wasn't
until the next morning, when I was sure she was
gping to wear it just to show off at school, that we
heard her scream.
I had already risen and gotten dressed. Aunt
Clara was with me in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

"What in the world ..." She hurried to the foot
of the stairway.
Jennifer was on the landing in her skirt and bra,
holding up the blouse.
"Just look at this, Ma. Just look."
"What the hell is it?" Uncle Reuben demanded,
coming from his bedroom and buttoning his Shirt.
"There's a hole in my favorite blouse, and she
did it. She did. Daddy!"
She showed him the blouse. He looked at it and
then down the stairs at me.

43

V. C. ANDREWS

"Did you do this?"
I shook my head. "I didn't even see it, or I would
have told Aunt Clara," I said.
"Why would Raven do such a thing?" Aunt Clara
asked.
"Because she's jealous," Jennifer cried.
"I don't even like that blouse. It's too old-
fashioned, like something a grandmother might
wear," I said dryly.
"It is not! Everyone's wearing these blouses. You
don't know anything about style!"
*Tlease, Jennifer," Aunt Clara said, "stop
yelling."
William came out and looked at everyone, his
face full of surprise. I smiled at him, and he smiled
back.
"If I knew you put a hole in this..." Uncle
Reuben threatened. He looked at the blouse again.
"I don't know how this kind of a hole would get in
there."
"Bugs can do that," I said. He looked up sharply.
"We don't have bugs, or at least we didn't before
you came," he said. "Clara?"
"Oh, I'll just buy her a new one today, Reuben."
"I'd better not see anything else like this," he
warned. He gave Jennifer the blouse back and
returned to his bedroom to finish dressing. Aunt
Clara went back to the kitchen, and Jennifer and I
looked at each other.
"Ifou'll be sorry," she said. "I'm going to wear it
anyway and let everyone know what you did."
RAVEN

. "Suit yourself," I said. "You'll only make a
|^Ngger fool of yourself."
C I winked at William.
| "What are you laughing at?" she snapped at him,
I:. and ran back into her room.
1^ For the first time in a long time, I had a great
r appetite and ate a big breakfast. Even Uncle Reu-
fe ben was impressed at how I didn't leave a crumb.
4
A Close Call

When we boarded the schoolbus on Thursday, I
had my arms full. Jennifer had to do a social
studies project, and she had chosen to make a large
visual chart, but there was a good reason she had
made that choice. One of her girlfriends, Paula
Gordon, who was talented in art, came over and
really did most of it. Jennifer pretended she had
done it all, and when she showed it to Uncle
|? Reuben on Thursday morning, he raved about it as
if it were something a famous artist like Rembrandt
or that artist who cut off his ear for his girlfriend
might have done. I thought any one of the birdhouses
William made in his wood shop all by
himself was twice the accomplishment, and yet I
never once heard Uncle Reuben even mention
them, much less praise him about them.
As usual, Jennifer basked in the compliments her
father tossed like wedding rice over her. When we
RAVEN

jpt ready to leave the house, she was very conerned
about getting her precious project to school
^ andamaged. She surprised me by pausing at the
1-jdoor, and in the sweetest voice she could manage,
she asked me to do her a favor. I saw she had made
a^ceito ask in front of Uncle Reuben.
,&"Ti''bu know how rough the kids are on the bus,
Raven. I have to protect my chart. Can you please
<arry my books, my notebooks, and my lunch bag
'i"Sw me? Please. Someday, I'll do you a favor," she
r l?ronrised, flicking her eyelashes at Uncle Reuben.
- What else could I do but agree? I felt like some
slave walking behind her, my arms laden with my
hooks and my lunch bag as well as hers. She
paraded down the sidewalk and onto the bus,
holding her chart up high enough for everyone to
See.
"Someone make a place for Raven. She's carrying
my things for me," she announced.
It wasn't necessary.. I always sat with Clarence
Dunsen. She just wanted everyone to know that she
could get me to do things for her.
When we arrived at school, she surprised me by
taking only the books and notebooks she needed
for her morning classes.
"Bring everything else to lunch. I've got to carry
this around until social studies," she said in front
other friends, who stood there with thin smiles and
laughing eyes.
"Why don't you just bring it to social studies
now?" I asked her.
"And take a chance that someone might sabotage
V. C.ANDREWS

it? Never. Remember what happened to Robert
Loago's ant farm in science class?" she asked her
entourage. They all nodded. "Someone poured
water in it and drowned all the ants."
"I wonder who would do that," I said dryly.
"Thanks, Raven," she said, taking her morning
class books and shooting off before I could refuse.
I lugged her things along with mine to my first
class.
^How come you have two lunches today?" Terri
Johnson asked me in English class. I told her, and
she raised her eyebrows sharply, the skin in her
forehead forming small furrows.
"She's just trying to show off," I said, but Terri
still looked suspicious.
"She could ask one of her slaves to do that Those
girls would be glad to do her favors. I've seen it. I
don't know what she's up to, but as my granny tells
me all the time, a snake can't be a rabbit," she
added.
I laughed, but later I began to think a little more
about it, too. Just before class ended, I looked at
what I thought was Jennifer's lunch bag, only I
noticed my name was on it. Why would Aat be? I
wondered.
I opened what was supposed to be Jennifer's
lunch bag. We usually had the same thing. I knew
because I had helped Aunt Clara make the lunches.
There was an extra small pack wrapped in wax
paper in hers. I glanced up to be Sure Mrs. Broad-
hurst wasn't looking my way, and then I unwrapped the wax paper.
RAVEN ;:

A cold but electric chill shot through my heart. I |
had seen this before. I knew what a joint was. I had Ij
seen and smelled pot around my old apartment. ||
Lila Thomas had tried to get me to smoke it with
^eronce.
; I looked over at Tern. She saw immediately from
the expression on my face that something was
wrong. I lowered my hand to the side, looked at the
teacher, and then opened my hand. When I looked
back at Tern, she was nodding with satisfaction.
Five minutes before class ended, the real reason
Jennifer wanted me to carry her lunch was clearly
revealed.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Broadhurst," the student office
volunteer said from our doorway. "Mr. Moore
Wuld like to see Raven Flores immediately. He
wants her to bring all her things, too," she added.
"Raven," she said, nodding at me. I glanced at
Terri, whose eyes were filled with worry. I smiled
and winked at her to reassure her.
I scooped everything into my arms, glanced once
more at Terri, and followed the student volunteer.
As I left the classroom, I stuffed the wax paper and
joint into my bra. I had seen girls do this at my old
school. No one would look there. It was a very
serious thing to strip-search a student. Male
teachers were terrified of even suggesting such a
thing, and the giris knew it.
Mr. Moore was standing at his desk when I
entered his office. He gazed at me and then nodded
at the student volunteer. ,
"Close the door," he told her. She glanced at me

53

V. C. ANDREWS

with interest, stepped out, and did so. "Sit," he
ordered, nodding at the chair. I sat quickly, and he
stood over me.
"It has always been my policy to handle my
problems in house, if possible," he began, gazing at
me quickly to catch my reaction. 'That doesn't
mean I don't tell parents what goes on. I have an
obligation to do that, but the rest of the world
doesn't have to see our dirty laundry."
**What do you want from me?" I demanded.
His eyebrows hoisted with surprise at my courage.
"I know you've had a poor background and
upbringing, and that goes to explain poor behavior,
but you're at an age now when you will be held
accountable for your actions, young lady. I can
assure you of that."
I looked away, my eyes fixed on one of his
plaques, and waited.
"If there is something illegal in your lunch bag, I
want you to take it out now, leave it on my desk,
aad go to class. Later, we'll discuss it, and believe
me, that is a major favor I'll be doing for you."
My heart thumped, and then I smiled. I leaned
down and opened my lunch bag, slowly taking out
the sandwich and the cookie. Then I turned the bag
inside out and placed it next to the food. I waited.
"What about that bag?" he asked, nodding at the
other.
"That's my cousin's, even though my name is
somehow on it. I was doing her a favor. Her arms
were full of books and her social studies project."
"How do I know that's hers if your name is on
ft?" hfr asked.
* "%u don't, but we have the same lunch, so it
doesn't matter," I said, and took out the sandwich
'and the cookie. I did the same thing with her bag,
turning it inside out, and waited.
.- Has eyes went from the harmless contents to my
books and then to me.
"Can I at least know what you're looking for?" I
asked.
"Never mind," he said. "Put all that back."
t I did so slowly. "I don't think it's fair for me to
be singled out for no reason," I said. "It's embar
rassing to be called out of class like this."
His shoulders shot up as if I had snapped a
tubber band in his face. "I have a very big responsi
bility here," he said. "Many young lives are in my
hands, and"—he lifted a thick folder—"I have
read your records from your previous school.
frankly, if you did all this here,-I would consider
having you taken to family court. I'm not surprised
your mother's in prison."
"I haven't done anything wrong," I shot back at
him.
"We'll see," he said.
. "Who told you I did?" I asked.
"That's none of your concern. Very well, return
to your classes," he ordered. "And just remember,"
he said, tapping my previous school record folder,
"I'll be keeping my eye on you."
I I got up quickly and left his office. The bell had
V. C. ANDREWS

rung, so the secretary had to give me a late pass.
When I got to my next class, Terri looked up
expectantly. I nodded and smiled to let her know
everything was fine. After class, I told her what I
had done and what had happened.
"She tried to set me up and get me into trouble."
"It doesn't surprise me. Jennifer and her friends
are always getting other people in trouble," Terri
said. "You better watch your back."
"I will, but she'll find out she should watch hers,
too," I said.
At lunch, Jennifer and her friends walked over to
my table.
"I'll take my lunch," she said.
"I don't know which one is yours," I said.
"Somehow, my name is on both bags. Luckily, we
both have the same thing." I handed it to her. She
looked at the girls and then at me.
"I heard you were called to the principal's office,"
she said. "Why did he want to see you?" She
smiled at the girls. "I hope you didn't embarrass
my parents."
"No, it was fine," I said, taking a sip from the
straw in my milk container. "He just wanted to
know what we were having for lunch. He said he
heard we had the best homemade lunches," I
added, and bit into my sandwich.
Even her friends had to laugh. She fumed, her
face so crimson I thought the blood would shoot
out of the top other head like a geyser, and then she
pivoted on her heels and marched away. Terri and
RAVEN

the girls at my table laughed so hard that others in
the cafeteria stopped talking to look our way.
'<-r **I guess there's a little snake in you, too," Terri
said.
^
^
"What else? She and I are cousins, aren't we?" I
laid, and that made everyone laugh again.
E-'^But I wasnt finished, not yet, not quite.
: On Saturday, Jennifer went off with her friends
right after breakfast as she usually did on Saturdays.
Aunt Clara tried to get her to take me along,
but she resisted and complained.
' ^She doesn't have the same friends I do," she
moaned.
"What does that mean?" Uncle Keuben asked
quickly, fixing his eyes on me sharply. "Who are
Xer friends?"
Jennifer shrugged. "She hangs out with black
people. I suppose because she's so dark."
"No," I said. "I hang out with people of color
who happen to be nice and not phony."
"Oh, and that's supposed to mean my friends
are?"
I shrugged. "Because I'm new in the school,
everyone is warning me about them," I said as
nonchalantly as I could.
Her face looked as if she was facing a wall of fire.
Before she could stutter out a response. Aunt Clara
spoke. "You two should get along," she said.
I "'%u're just about the same age."
| "I don't want Jennifer hanging out with any
' troublemakers," Uncle Reuben said.

I 51

V. C. ANDREWS

"I don't hang out with troublemakers," I insisted,
"It's just the opposite."
"Why can't she go with Jennifer and be with
young people, too?" Aunt Clara asked softly.
"It's all right. I'm fine," I said.
I don't know why Aunt Clara suggested I go
along anyway. She knew that Uncle Reuben would
be home and would be watching to make sure I did
my chores. Jennifer wouldn't lift a finger, and she
certainly wouldn't have wanted to wait for me.
Shortly after Jennifer left. Aunt Clara and I
began our weekly cleaning of the house. William
wanted to help with the vacuuming, but Uncle
Reuben chastised him.
"That's woman's work," he growled. "Let them
do it. Why don't you go play baseball or football
instead of spending all your time in your room?"
he complained, which only sent William back to
his room.
I gazed at Aunt Clara to see if she would speak up
for William, but she looked away quickly and
continued to clean. We went upstairs to start on the
bedrooms, and I began as usual with Jennifer's
mess. It was worse than ever, now that she knew I
had to do most of the cleaning. Aunt Clara felt
sorry for me and joined me in Jennifer's room. She
started with making the bed. When she lifted the
pillow, she stopped and stared down. I kept picking
up clothes that bad been flung about with apparent
glee. A blouse actually dangled off the top of the
vanity mirror.
"What's that?" Aunt Clara asked.
RAVEN
rwhat?"
I turned and watched her put the pillow down
ad then pluck the joint between her fingers. She
1«aeiled it and looked at me. I approached and
B|leaned over to smell it, too. Then I looked at her,
|aay eyes wide, my head shaking slowly.
te|K "Is this what I think it is?" she asked.
I'y "Yes," I said. "I'm afraid so. Aunt Clara."
|t "Oh, dear. Oh, dear me. Oh, no. I'll have to teU
ISjeuben." She hurried out of the room and down
[!<he stairs. Moments later, I heard Uncle Reuben
come charging up, his footsteps so hard on the
Steps the whole house shook.
"What's going on here?" he demanded.
, I stepped out of the bathroom, my arms full of
iwt towels for the laundry.
"I don't know," I said.
"Who put this there?" he demanded. Aunt Clara
came up behind him. I stared at him.
"I really don't know. Uncle Reuben," I said.
"You didn't do it?"
"She was working on picking things up when I
found it, Reuben. She didn't put it there," Aunt
Clara said, and started to cry.
"And I suppose you don't know nothing about
h?" Uncle Reuben followed.
I shook my head.
Uncle Reuben's eyes grew small and then widened.
He gazed at Aunt Clara and then at me.
"We'll see about this when she gets home," he
fired. He shot another angry look in my direction
and then left the room.

59

V. C. ANDREWS

"Oh, dear," Aunt Clara said. "Oh, dear, dear."
She followed after him.
I set down the towels, looked at Jennifer's picture
on her dresser, the one in which she had the most
conceited grin on her face, and smiled myself.

Jennifer's reaction was predictable. As soon as
she was confronted with the evidence, she burst
into tears and pointed her right forefinger at me
like a pistol.
"She did it. She did it to get me into trouble," she
accused.
Uncle Reuben nodded. "I've been thinking so,"
he said.
"How could I do it? I wasn't in your room until I
went upstairs with Aunt Clara to clean the mess," I
said quietly.
'^Ybu roust have done it before."
"Why?"
*"Ib get me in trouble," she whined.
"Why would I do that?" I asked. "Why would I
stoop so tow as to put something like that wider
your pillow?"
She stared at me hatefully. 'nien she turned to
Uncle Reuben. "Daddy!" she moaned.
"Jennifer's never done anything like this before,"
he said. "I'd bet you have."
"You'd lose," I said.
"Daddy, I didntdo it," Jennifer cried, stamping
her foot.
"All right. All right. I believe you." He thought a
moment. I could see there was an inkling of doubt
RAVEN

in his mind. "Well let it go for now, but I'll be on
} the lookout for any more trouble, even the slightest.
} if I find drugs in this house again, 111 bring the
owner to the police. That's a promise," he said,
directing his words mostly at me.
'- Jennifer looked satisfied and glanced at me with
an expression of contentment. "I'm tired," she
^ laid. "I have to rest before I go to the movies."
r t She hurried away. Nothing more was said about
| ^tt, but when we left for school the next day, she
Hurried up to me before mounting the steps to the
bus.
"I know you did that with the joint."
^It was yours. You accidentally left it in your
lunch bag, but I got it out in time so you wouldn't
get in trouble. I thought you would appreciate my
hiding it for you," I said, pretending to be dumb.
She stared at me, and then her eyes filled with
cold understanding before she stepped onto the
bus. Later, I told Terri, and the two of us had fun
telling our other friends. Jennifer avoided me most
of the day. It was one of my best days at the new
school, but I was still wishing it would all come to
an end. I had had enough of Uncle Reuben and
battling with Jennifer.
My hopes died a quick death when we got home
that afternoon. Jennifer refused to talk to me on
the bus and walked slowly so I would get to the
house first. As soon as I entered. Aunt Clara
stepped out of the living room, her hand clutching
a handkerchief to her mouth.

61
V. C. ANDREWS

"What's wrong?" I asked. Jennifer came up behind
me.
"Your mother," Aunt Clara said. "She's gone
and run off from the rehabilitation clinic. She's a
fugitive."
"Great," Jennifer said. "Maybe she'll <»me fot
you, and you can run off together."
"Stop that talk!" Aunt Clara cried in a voice so
sharp and.shrill even I took note. "I won't have it."
Jennifer's eyes filled with tears. "You care more
about her than you do me," she accused. Aunt
Clara started to shake her head. "Yes, you do. But
I'm not surprised," she added, and flew up the
stairs.
"I should leave," I murmured, looking after her.
"Where would you go? You have to be with
family," Aunt Clara insisted.
Family, I thought. That's a word I'll never under5

Behind Closed
Doors

" ii y<
Can you believe it?" Uncle Reuben cried as he
entered the house. "The police came to my office,
easas to see me at work! The police! Everyone sees
«4aem and wants to know what's going on. My
'sister, I had to tell them, has run away from her
tfcrug rehabilitation center, violated court orders.
She's some kind of fugitive, and the police came to
ae® if she's contacted me, I can tell you this. If she
does have the nerve to contact me, I'll turn her in.
She's dragging us all down with her!"
I was in my room trembling, but I could hear him
slamming things around in the kitchen.
"Please don't get yourself so upset, Reuben,"
Aunt Clara pleaded.
. "Don't get upset?" He laughed madly. "My
sister's rotten through and through, Clara. She's
fike some dark, rancid piece of fruit stinking up the
V. C. ANDREWS

place. Now I got her juvenile delinquent to raise.
Why didn't she think before she got herself pregnant
by that no-good Cuban bum? The state's going
to pay us for this. I'll see to that. I see this kind of
thing all the time ... women who can't afford to
have children, who should never have children, just
raining them down on the rest of us. That's why
taxes is so high, you know, because of people like
my sister and what she produces."
"You've got to stop this, Reuben. You'll get
yourself sick," Aunt Clara said.
"Sick? I am sick, sick of it all." He groaned so
loud I thought he was coming through the wall.
"It's not like I didn't try to help my sister. I told her
how a real man acts ... I showed her. I showed
her, all right."
"Reuben... I don't think you should get so
worked up," Aunt Clara said. I could tell by Ae
sound of her voice that she was nervous and
wanted to change the subject.
What was Uncle Reuben saying about my mother?
What had he showed Mama?
I heard him get up and walk to the stairway,
pausing at my door. My heart thumped. I thought
he would come bursting through the door and yell
at me about my mother and how I was a drain on
society. I kept my eyes to the floor and waited,
holding my breath, A moment later, I heard him
start up the stairs.
My eyes were burning with hot tears, I stared out
the window.
Mama, how could you do this to me? Why did
RAVEN

you run away? For a moment, I wondered if she
would come here to get me, take me away from all
this. Fd even hide out with her. Who was I fooling?
I thought. I was probably the last thing she thought
about when she fled. By now, she must be with one
of her degenerate boyfriends, either hiding out or
racing off to live in some hovel.
My mother seemed to be two different people to
me now. Once, when I was younger, I thought of
' her as someone to love and someone who loved me,
but somehow, somewhere, that all disappeared,
and we started to live like two strangers. Maybe
Uncle Reuben was right. Maybe my mother was
just no good. Something had gone wrong inside
her, and she could never be rehabilitated. She
would never change.
Was that same bad germ inside me, too? Would I
become like her someday, despite myself? Was
Uncle Reuben right about that, too? I was my
mother's daughter. I inherited something from her,
and maybe that something was evil. I wasn't any
sort of student. I had no real friends. I was afraid to
have any ambitions, and so, when I tried to envision
myself ten years from now, all I could see was
the same lonely, lost person.
Uncle Reuben wasn't wrong. I was going to be
Jt^t like my mother.
I sighed so deeply my chest ached. Then I stood
up, wiped my eyes, and went to help Aunt Clara
prepare dinner. She looked very tired and very sad
herself. The way she held her shoulders slumped,
kept her eyes down, and moved with tiny, insecure

65

steps made her look even smaller than she was. it
was as if she had shrunk inches since Uncle Reuben
had come home. She was the one who looked
pitiful, and yet she turned to me with sympathy
flooding her eyes and shook her head.
'^Ybu poor dear," she said. "I know how you
must feel. I'm sorry your mother has done these
things. She should think what she's doing to you."
I didn't reply. I set the table, moving mechani
cally about the kitchen. I dreaded sitting at the
dinner table with Uncle Reuben tonight. My throat
was closing as it was. As soon as he began his tirade
against my mother and complained about me, I
would surely choke on anything that was in my
mouth, and he would scream about my wasting the
food he worked so hard to provide.
Suddenly, I felt dizzy and had to seize the top of
a chair to keep myself from falling. Aunt Clara
came running to me.
"What's wrong. Raven?"
"I don't know. My head just started to spin."
"You look white as a candle. Here, let me get you
some cold water. Sit," she ordered, and I did so.
My stomach churned. When she brought me the
water, I held the glass with both hands and sipped.
It did make me feel a little better.
"I want you to go lay down, honey," she said. "I
don't need you to do anything. Go on. Rest. You've
had a big shock,"
She helped me to my feet and guided me back to
the sewing room. I hadn't pulled out the bed yet, so
she did it for me, and then I lay down.
RAVEN

"I still feel a little sick," I said.
"Oh, dear. If you're not better in a little while,
„ I'll take you to the emergency room."
"No, I'm not that sick. Aunt Clara. I'll be all
<. right," I promised.
She stroked my hair and felt my forehead. "You
don't feel too hot, but you're very clammy. It's all
,- emotional, I'm sure," she said. "Just rest."
I She brought the glass of water in and set it beside
me. I settled under the blankets and felt a little
'better, but still my stomach flopped. I closed my
|f eyes again, and before I knew it, I fell asleep, only
to wake to the sound of Uncle Reuben's loud voice
rumbling through the house like thunder demanding
where I was and why I wasn't helping to serve
the meal. I started to get up, and the room spun on
me, so I had to lie back.
Their voices became indistinct mumbles, and I
must have fallen asleep again^ because when I
opened my eyes this time. Aunt Clara was standing
beside the bed with a tray in her hands.
"How are you feeling now, dear?" she asked.
I blinked, rubbed my face, and sat up slowly.
Fortunately, the room didn't spin.
"Better."
"Good," she said. "Here, I brought you some
dinner. You have to put something warm in your
stomach."
"I'm not very hungry."
"I know, but it's best to eat when you're under
such a strain. <3o on," she said, placing the tray in
my lap, "eat what you can."
V. C. ANDKEWS

"Jesus, serving her like she's some kind of special
guest," I heard Uncle Reuben spit from the
doorway.
"I totd you she wasn't feeling well, Reuben. I
want her to get some food down."
"Of course, she's not feeling well. Who would if
they were brought up the way she was? It's a
wonder she's not seriously sick with some bad
disease," he concluded. "We might all come down
with it, and you asking Jennifer to share clothes
and such with her."
"I'm just as healthy as Jennifer," I fired back at
him.
He smirked. "I can just imagine what your teeth
are like. When were you to a dentist last?"
I hadn't been for nearly a year, so I didn't
answer.
"See what I mean?" he said to Aunt Clara.
"Either we get the state to help us, or..."
"Or what?" I shot back at him.
"Don't you be smart with me," he said, pointing
his finger at me.
"Let her eat, Reuben. There's time to talk about
all this," Aunt Clara pleaded softly.
He glared at her, and she looked down quickly.
"Time? Yeah, there's time," he said sarcastically.
"Lots of time. My sister ain't coming back for her.
That's for sure," be added, and walked away.
I started to sob, my shoulders shaking so hard I
thought my heart would split in two.
Aunt Clara put the tray down and^at beside me,
embracing me. "Don't cry, dear. He doesn't mean

68

RAVEN

what he says. He's upset because he was embarrassed
at work. Please, you'll only make yourself
* sicker, and then what?"
| I sucked in my breath and pulled back my tears.
[ "Please, eat something. Raven," Aunt Clara
feegged.
. "All right," I said. "Thank you. Aunt Clara."
| I started to eat, and she left. Afterward, William
| came to my door.
I. "I'll take your tray to the kitchen for you»" he
;? volunteered.
? "Thank you," I said, smiling, "but I can do it,
I, William. It's nice of you to offer, though."
F He continued to stare at me.
| "Is there something wrong?" I asked him.
t "Are you feeling better now?"
I "Yes, I am," I said. "Your mother was right Hot
[ food helped."
He smiled. "Good, because I want to show you
; the double-decker birdhouse. It's done," he delared.

"It is? Okay," I said.
I took my tray to the kitchen. Aunt Clara, who
was watching television, came rushing in. "I'll do
that. Raven."
"I'm fine now," I told her, and smiled.
"And you ate, too. Good," she said. She put my
dishes in the dishwasher. "You just go and do your
,- homework, or come watch television if you like,
Raven."
*Tm going up to see William's new birdhouse,
and then I'll do my homework," I explained.

69

"Oh. That's very wee," she said.
William looked proud. "Come on," he said, and
I followed him up the stairs to his room.
As I sat and listened to him explain what kind of
birds would feed in his house, I felt sorry for him,
sorry that his father took so little interest in what
he had accomplished. He was like a flower, stunted
and pale because it received so little sunlight. He
L almost talked as much about his father making fun
| of his hobby as he did about why he loved making
the houses. When I showed sincere interest in him
and what he was doing, he wasn't sad or shy
anymore. He practically beamed with pride.
"Thank you for showing me your work, William.
I bet you could sell these birdhouses. They're so
perfect," I told him, gazing around at his collection.
It was impressive when I realized he had done
all of it himself.
He beamed and strutted about his room, showing
me his books on birds, his tools and paints, and
some of his other creations.
"Do you have a favorite bird?" he asked me.
"Because if you do, I'll make a special house for
you."
"No. I don't really know very much about birds.
We didn't have many trees around the apartment
building."
"Oh, I guess not," he said. "I've been hoping to
build a house for every kind of bird we get around
here. But it takes money to buy all the wood and
stuff. And every time I talk to Daddy about my

70
RAVEN

projects, he just makes fun of me." He hung his
fcead sadly.
[ "I wish I had some money to help you buy
i supplies," I told him.
1 "Don't worry. I'll get the money." He thought a
; moment and then decided to tell me how. "Daddy
drops a lot of change behind the cushions on the
^ sofa downstairs when he sprawls out to watch
E television. When nobody's around, I pick up the
cushions and find it. Once, I found nearly two
dollars in quarters and dimes."
I- I laughed. "Your secret's safe with me," I told
| him. I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.
I For a moment, he looked so shocked I. thought he
F might cry or scream. When I turned around, I saw
| the cause of his alarm. Uncle Reuben was standing
- in the doorway.
t "What the hell are you two doing in here?" Uncle
|? Reuben's face was bright red with fury. "Raven, get
: away from my son. I knew you were a no-good
troublemaker like your mother. And here you are
flaunting yourself around and tempting my son just
, the way she tempted me. Well, I won't have none of
it! Get out of this room right now before I drag you
out!" For a second, I was too terrified to move.
Then Uncle Reuben started pulling William toward
him, and I knew I had to get away.
I saw William's horrified face as I ran past him
and knew that I had to speak up.
"We didn't do anything. Uncle Reuben. Honest,
William was just showing me his birdhouses." I

71
V. C. ANDREWS

was probably just making him more furious, but I
had no idea why he had gotten so angry, and I was
ashamed that I was leaving William to face his
father's fury all alone.
Not stopping to look back, I ran downstairs and
straight into my room, shutting the door tightly
behind me. I knew that Uncle Reuben would break
down the door if he wanted to, but the house was
quiet suddenly, and I prayed that maybe I was safe.
For now.
I tried to start on my math homework, but there
was no way I could concentrate with my heart still
racing and my pulse pounding. What if Uncle
Reuben was upstairs hurting William? What did he
think we were doing, anyway?
William already lived in constant fear of being
ridiculed and belittled by his father, and now it
seemed that Uncle Reuben had one more thing, to
add to his ammunition--against both of us.
It was obvious even to me that the reason William
was so withdrawn was that he was afraid.
Afraid that he would get yelled at, made fun of, or
maybe even worse. I knew Aunt Clara was concerned
about William; she even talked about taking
him to a doctor. Why couldn't she see that the
reason William was so quiet and timid was that he
was afraid?
What would happen if I stayed in this house
where! was belittled and ridiculed as well--for my
birth, for my mother, for things I hadn't even done?
Would I become like William? Would I just one day
disappear inside myself?
RAVEN

as I was opening my math book. Aunt Clara
her head in the door. "Raven, are you all
rt?" Her eyes were all red and puffy, and I could
that she'd been crying.
'Yes, Aunt Clara, I'm fine. How is William?
cle Reuben didn't hurt him, did he? We weren't
ng anything bad. Aunt Clara! I was just thank- feg William for showing me his birdhouses. We ...
<?».." Talking about it made me upset all over
again, and I began sobbing so hard I couldn't even
Speak.
* Aunt Clara came to sit beside me on the bed.
**Shh ... I know, dear, I know. Everything will be
feie."
^But, but William ... what did Uncle Reuben
do to him?" Why wasn't she answering my questions?

"He's fine, dear, but please, promise me not to
speak of this again. Reuben will just get upset all
over again. Promise me you won't speak of it!"
"I promise. Aunt Clara."
She stood there for a few moments, then told me
not to stay up tooilate studying, and left. I sat with
my math book on my lap and stared up at the dark
ceiling. I could hear Uncle Reuben's heavy footteps,
a door close, water running, and a phone
ringing. Poor William, I thought. I had seen it in his
face. He was terrified. What about Aunt Clara?
Had she built a wall of self-denial around herself,
shutting up the dark secrets? Like a coiled fuse
attached to a time bomb, sooner or later all the
horror in this house was sure to explode.

73

V. C. ANDREWS

I didn't want to be here before. I surely didn't
want to be here now, but what choice did I have? J
had no father. I bad no other relatives. I felt
trapped, caged in by events far beyond my control;
It heightened the panic that throbbed so loudly in
my heart, I thought for sure it sounded like a jungle
drum heating out the rhythms of alarm.
What should I pray for? My mother's miraculous
appearance? My mystery father's .sudden interest
in a daughter he had never known? Who was more
lost than me, someone without even a real name,
forced to live with people who really didn't want
me?'- ' '- ,.- -, .-. . :..- ' ....:
A real rumble of thunder pounded at the windowpane
and was soon followed by a downpour. Thick
raindrops tapped at the window as the wind grew
stronger, slapping torrents against the walls. I
beard Aunt Clara rushing around downstairs shutting
windows. Then I heard Uncle Reuben curse
from the top of the stairs. Moments later, it was
silent except for the monotonous sound of drizzle. I
could feel the darkness deepening around me,
wrapping itself around this house.
My cheeks felt cold* All my tears had turned to
ice behind my eyes. I turned over and buried my
face in the pillow as I tightened myself into the fetal
position and swallowed back my fear and loneliness. - .'- ...-
.^ - . .;::

Sunlight fell on my face and woke me up just as
Uncle Reuben was coming down the stairs, i flew
off the bed and hurried to the bathroom. Even

RAVEN

I could wash my face, he was bellowing
at-nay not being in the kitchen helping Aunt
a prepare breakfast for everyone. It looked as if
|l|ttng& were back to normal.
lljb.i^^^hy -weren't you up and helping?" Uncle ReuQlen
demanded.
J'Yilliam entered and took his seat at the table.
eyes met mine for a moment before he looked
m at his cereal and juice.
(^..Jhde Reuben looked from William to me and
Stemmed his fist down on the table. "I don't ever
||tea,at '-to catch you in William's room again, under- gStaad?" . . . -.
l^s^T&s," I said, hoping that that would be the last
l^aad about last night.
jpK^And today, again, I got to take time out of my
l^ffisy schedule to look iato your problems. I bet
||your mother never spent a minute on you. Did she
pewr go to the school to see how you were doing?"
|t ^ 1 sat and began to sip my orange juice.
is) 0&"When I speak to you, I want you to look at me
and respond," he ordered.
., "No, she never did," I said.
; "I didn't think so," he said, pleased with my
^answer. He looked at Aunt Oara, who kept busy at
thesink.;
"Jennifer should come down, Reuben. She'll be
late for the bus."
"She's never late," he said.
"You know she has been a few times, and you
had to drive her to school," Aunt Clara saidsoftly.
"The bus came too early those days," he insisted.

15

V. C. ANDREWS

By the time Jennifer appeared, William and I
had finished eating. I began to clear the table.
"Leave that," Jennifer ordered when I reached
for the sugar bowl. "I haven't had my cereal yet."
"You should get up earlier, Jennifer," Aunt Clara
said. "You don't have much time."
"I would if I could find the clothes I want,"
Jennifer whined. "Someone put my blouses in the
wrong place, and my favorite skirt was shoved so
far in the back of the closet I nearly didn't find it."
She glared at me.
"You could put your clothes away yourself, and
that way you'd know where everything is," I said",
"You're just jealous because I have more clothes
than you. If you had as many as I did, you'd have
trouble remembering where you put them," she
said angrily. "Besides, you probably were hiding
this skirt so you could wear it."
"I don't want to wear your things. I have my own
clothes and..."
"Stop this bickering at the tablet" Uncle Reuben
shouted. He rose out of his seat like a gusher, his
face crimson and steaming, Jennifer sat, and Aunt
Clara quickly poured some coffee in a cup for her.
"We never had bickering at the table before," he
added, glaring at me, "but I bet that was something
that happened m your house often."
"It wasn't," I said.
Aunt Clara glanced at me fearfully and shook her
head gently. She wanted me to be like her, bury my
head in the sand, absorb Uncle Reuben's hateful
remarks, and pray that it would all end quickly.
RAVEN

"If I do anything of any value for you, it will be
?~t0 teach you how to behave properly," he contin1aed.
"I know there are years of degenerate living to
1-overcome, but by God, if you're going to live with
I ibs, you'll overcome them," he said, wagging his
| monstrous fist at me. "Why don't you watch Jenni(iler?
Learn from her," he suggested.
^
:<. I raised my eyebrows and nearly laughed. Jennifss sat there smugly, chomping down on a few
Hakes of cereal, sipping some coffee before jumping
BtW.
^
||y. "We've got to go. Daddy," she declared. "You
H«aa teach her how to behave later."
H". He grunted. William looked at me sympathetiUlally
but said nothing. I went to get my books and
H-deft the house a few seconds after Jennifer. She was
Hhidready down the sidewalk, meeting her friends at
ll^tae bus stop. The big topic of conversation was the
H upcoming school dance. The girls were all talking
^ about which boys they hoped would ask them.
Jennifer's wish list was the longest.
^
"She hasn't been here long, but do you think
anyone will ask her?" I heard Paula Gordon whisper
as she nodded in my direction.
"Who would ask her?" Jennifer said, loud
enough for me to hear, and she laughed. "Oh, no,
wait a minute. Maybe Clarence Dunsen will ask
her."
"Yeah," Paula said. "He'll go, 'Raven, would ...
would ... wouldwouldwould ... would ... you ...
you ... like to ... to ... gogogo ...'"
They laughed loudly and then moved away.

77

V. C. ANDREWS

Their voices grew softer, more secretive. I was
relieved to see the bus pull up. I hurried on. They
all laughed again when they fifed past and looked at
me sitting with Clarence.
Funny, I thought, how girls like Jennifer attract
other girls just like her. They stick together as
comfortably as a pig in its own mess, I thought. It
made me laugh. Clarence looked-at me with curiosity.
For a moment, I wished he would ask me to the
dance and we would show them all up. But that was
a fantasy, and in my life, fantasies were written on
clouds that floated by, impossible to grasp, caught
in the wind, gone as fast as they appeared.
6
He Likes Me!

^

&.
>

rl had a crush on a boy when I was in the sixth
[grade. His name was Ronnie Clark, and he had
^lltoe eyes that brightened with so much warmth
i-when he smiled that he made you feel good when
ijBs. were upset, and yet his eyes could darken with
Mystery and intensity when he looked at someone
mtensely or was in deep thought. I caught him i3
gazing at me that way a few times, and it made my
heart flutter and sent tiny warm jolts of electricity
up and down my spine. Suddenly, I thought about
my hair, my clothes, a budding pimple on my
chin.
The world around you changes when you realize
someone as handsome as Ronnie dark is gazing at
you with interest. Every time I moved or turned,
when I rose to walk out of the classroom, even
when I picked up my pen to write in my notebook, I
was very conscious of how I looked. I couldn't wait

79

V. C. ANDREWS

to get to a mirror to check my face and my hair. I
hated my clothes and regretted not watching my
mother do her makeup when she did it well.
I tried not to be obvious when I looked at
Ronnie, and if he caught me looking, I always
shifted my eyes quickly and pretended I didn't
have the slightest interest in him. Sometimes he
smiled, and sometimes he looked disappointed. He
was as shy as I was, and I thought it would take a
bulldozer to push us dramatically into each other's
path. He didn't seem to have the nerve to sit next to
me in the cafeteria or come up to me in the
hallway, and after a while, I was afraid that I might
be making more of his gazes than there was.
Nothing could be more embarrassing than thinking
a boy liked you when he didn't.
One afternoon, when I was in gym class, I looked
at the doorway to the gymnasium and saw him
standing there looking my way. We were playing
votleyball, and we were all in our gym outfits. The
ball bounced close to the doorway, and I chased it
and seized it, looking up at him at the same time.
"Nice," he said.
Butterflies panicked in my chest, but I gave him
the best smile I could muster. Mrs. Wilson blew her
whistle and shouted for me to get back into the
game. Ronnie walked away quickly before she
chastised him for being there, but at lunch, he came
up to me in the Hne and told me I was pretty good
at volleybaU.
"You could probably be on the giris' team now
instead of waitinf another year," he said.
K RAVEN
E
l^ "Tell me what it's like to be on a school team," I
H&aked him, and he followed me to the table.
I. We started dating soon after that, but never did
|tteroh more than hold hands and kiss a few times
piftftr school. I met him at the movies one night, but
jifceiiad to go home right afterward. And then, just
|ps suddenly as it had all started, it ended. He
yaaaaed away from me as if I had been just another
Hateresting picture in a museum. Soon he was off
|teoking at other girls the way he'd once looked at
||aae. I felt stupid chasing after him, so I stopped
rtooking for him, and that was about when my
pchool attendance began to drop off anyway.
I There were many fewer students at the school I
| now attended and only about a dozen or so boys I
Iwbuld consider as good-looking as Ronnie Clark. I
[agreed with Jennifer that I could never expect any
Jlof them to take any interest in me, but to my
^surprise that very afternoon after Jennifer and her
H friends had teased me about Clarence Dunsen, a
Ipehubby boy named Gary Carson bumped into me
deliberately between classes, and when I turned to
- complain, he smiled and said, "Jimmy Freer likes
you."
He hurried on, leaving me confused. I knew who
Jimmy Freer was. He was captain of the junior
varsity basketball team, tall for his age, and very,
very good4ooking. He was right at the top of
Jennifer's wish list, and I never even dreamed he
would be looking at me, but at lunch he was
suddenly right behind me when I went to buy some
milk.

81
V. C. ANDREWS

"That's the healthy choice," he quipped. I turned
and, for a moment, was too surprised to speak.
"Most everyone else is buying soda."
"I don't drink much soda," I told him. "Milk's,
okay." I paid for my milk and headed for the table
where Terri and some of the other girls I liked were
sitting, but he caught up with me.
"How about sitting with me?" he asked, and
nodded toward an empty table on our right.
I gazed at the girls, who were all looking my way
with interest, and then I turned and saw Jennifer
and her friends staring at me, too. It warmed my
heart to see the jealousy in their faces and made me
smile.
"Okay," I said. He led the way and set his tray
down across from me.
"How do you like the school here?" he asked,
dipping his spoon into his bowl of chicken rice
soup.
"It's okay."
"Is that your favorite word?" he joked.
"No. Sometimes I say it's not okay."
He laughed, and I noticed what a nice smile he
had and what a perfectly straight nose. I liked the
way a small dimple in his right cheek appeared
when he talked. His dark brown hair was cut
closely on the sides, but he let a wave sweep back
from the front. He had beautiful hazel eyes, bejeweled
with flecks of blue, green, and gold on soft
brown. No wonder he was everyone's heartthrob, I
thought, and tried to took cool and sophisticated
RAVEN

:'teKter his gaze, I could feel the way everyone was
^looking at us in the cafeteria. It made me think I
was on a big television screen and every little move
^made was magnified. I brushed my lips quickly iriA my napkin, afraid a crumb might be on my
Mouth or chin.
"So you're living with Jennifer, huh?" he asked.
: "Sort of," I said.
-"Sort of?"
"I don't call it living," I told him, and he laughed
again. Then he smiled, his eyes drinking me in so
intently I felt as if I were sitting there naked.
"I had a feeling you were smarter than most of
the girls in junior high school here."
"Fm hardly smarter."
"You know what I mean," he said with that
impish gleam in his eyes.
"No, I don't."
He laughed and grew serious. "Have you been to
any school basketball games yet?"
"No."
"There's a big one coming up tomorrow night
with Roscoe. We beat them once, and they beat us
once this year. Why don't you come?" he asked.
"I don't know if I can."
"Why can't you? Don't you believe in having
school spirit?" he asked with that teasing smile
returning.
"It's not that I don't know if my unde will let
me out," I said.
He grew serious-looking and ate as he thought.

S3

V. C. ANDREWS

"Why?" He leaned toward roe to whisper. "Did
you have a bad record at the last school you
attended or something?"
"Sure. I'm on the post office walls everywhere," I
said. He stared a moment and then roared so hard
that kids who were sitting nearby stopped talking
to look at us.
"You really are something. Come on, come to the
game. Afterward, Missy Taylor is having a small
house party. We'll have a good time, especially if
we beat Roscoe. Can I hear you say okay again?"
"I can't make any promises," I said, but I really
wanted to go.
"You're old enough to go out if you want. They
shouldn't keep you locked up. Jennifer's certainly
not kept locked up," he added. "She'll be at the
game, I bet. You can come with her, can't you?"
"I'll try," I said. "She's not happy about taking
me along anywhere."
"I'll make sure she does," he said with a wink.
We talked some more. He asked questions about
my life before I began living with Uncle Reuben. I
didn't want to tell him too much. Jennifer had
successfully spread the word that my mother had
died, and for the moment, I was afraid to contradict
her and create too much of a scandal. It might
scare Jimmy away, I thought, and anyway, what
difference did it make what the kids at this school
knew or didn't know about me?
Jennifer approached me in the hallway the first
opportunity she had after lunch. Normally, she
wouldn't so much as glance in my direction, but
RAVEN

hlier girlfriends were buzzing around her like bees
| faSI of curiosity instead of honey.
t <* "What's going on between you and Jimmy?" she
|. demanded as if she were a police interrogator. She
J-Jitood in front of me -with her hands on her hips.
? s "Excuse me," I said. "I don't want to be late for
I class."
^ "Don't you walk away from me. Raven," she
cried, her nostrils flaring. She looked exactly like
Uncle Reuben.
"I'm not walking away. Do you want me to be
Itete and get into trouble? Uncle Reuben won't like
Bat, will he?"
"You've got time. Answer me," she demanded.
"Jimmy who?" I said, looking perplexed.
"Jimmy who? Jimmy Freer. You were talking to
him in the cafeteria," she said, amazed at my
questions. She looked at the other girls, who were
just as surprised.
"Oh," I said, "was that his name? He never told
me. Um .», nothing's going on, but when something
is, you'll be the first to know," I added, and
kept walking. I could almost hear the explosion of
anger in her head.
I didn't realize that because I had been seen with
Jimmy Freer, Jennifer was going to pay more
attention to me. She was even waiting for me at the
bus at the end of the day.
"Do you want to go to the basketball game
tomorrow night?" she asked in as close to a pleasant
voice as she could speak.
"What?"

8S
V. C. ANDREWS

"Are you deaf? I asked you if you wanted to go to
the game with me, that's all."
"Sure," I said. Now I was the one who was really
surprised.
"Just don't get my father angry about anything
and spoil it," she warned, and marched onto the
bus before I could ask her why she suddenly didn't
mind being seen with me. I found out later. One of
Jimmy's friends. Brad Dillon, had asked Jennifer
to the game and party. The plan was to double-date
with me and Jimmy, and since Brad was on Jennifer's
wish list, she was eager to get me to go and
make it happen for herself. I was more surprised
that Brad wanted to be with her. He was even
better-looking than Jimmy, in my opinion, but as
we would soon discover, the boys had their own
special plans.

Jennifer really wanted this date. All that evening
and the next day, she did everything she could to
ensure that Uncle Reuben wouldn't stop us from
attending the game. I was suddenly very important
to her. She even offered to help with some of the
chores and put on a big act of reconciliation,
pretending to help me make friends.
Uncle Reuben had made an appointment at the
social service agency and announced at dinner that
he was undertaking the necessary steps to make
himself my formal legal guardian. In the meantime,
social services was promising to cover my health
and basic needs.
"It still irks me that society has to pay for my
RAVEN

|-sister's mistakes," he declared as he chomped
. dewn on a lamb chop. I thought he would consume
It. bone and all, like somic bulldog.
„ --i I looked up sharply. It was as if he had reached
across the table and poked me with his fork.
"I'm not a mistake," I said as proudly as^I could.
'twas a tight wire inside, stretched so taufly I
thought I might break and cry, but I held my breath
and kept a firm lid on my well x>f tears.
p . Uncle Reuben paused and glared at me, the meat
caught between his thick lips and the grease gleam-
jp mg on his chin. Jennifer looked up nervously. Auat
Clara held her breath, and William gazed down at
his food. I could almost feel the trembling in his
Btflebody.
- "It's a mistake not to be prepared properly for
children," he said firmly.
"My mother made mistakes, but I'm not a mistake.
I'm a human being with feelings, too." I
tossed my hair back. "Nobody's perfect, anyway."
"You hear that? You hear the way she talks and
thinks? You'd think she would be more respectful
and grateful. Here I am trying to make a new home
for her, and she talks like that, insolent."
"I'm not being insolent. Uncle Reuben."
"She didtft mean it," Jennifer piped up.
Uncle Reuben raised his eyebrows and gazed at
her. Even I had to pause and look at her. She
flashed me a quick look of warning.
"It's hard to start in a new school with new
people, I'm going to help her make new friends,"
Jennifer offered.

87
V. C. ANDREWS

Aunt Clara beamed. "That's wonderful, dear.
You see, Reuben, the girls will get along just fine."
He still had a glint of suspicion in his eyes, but he
grunted and continued to eat. Jennifer began talking
about the basketball game as if it was the event
of the century.
"Bven our teachers are going to attend. It's
important to show school spirit"
"That's very nice," Aunt Clara said.
Uncle Reuben started to talk about his own
school days, and for a moment, I felt as if I was
really sitting at a family dinner. Aunt Clara even
laughed, recalling some stories he described, but
then he suddenly stopped and looked at William.
"You hear how important it is to participate in
sports, William. You shouldn't spend so much time
in your room. You should stay after school sometimes
and join a team," he told him.
William gazed at me with desperately sad eyes.
"He's too young. They don't have teams yet," I
said.
"Sure they do," Uncle Reuben snapped. "He
wouldn't even go out for the Little League when he
had the chance. I was going to drag him over to the
field, but his mother was too upset."
"Not everyone has to be an athlete. Some people
have other talents. William is fantastic at building
tilings," I said.
"What is this? You're not here a month, and
you're telling me what my son is capable of doing
and not capable of doing?" Uncle Reuben cried.
"She's just like my sister, with a mouth bigger than
RAVEN

her brain. When I say something to William, I
don't want to hear you contradict it, understand?" he said, slamming his fork down on the table.
"She didn't mean anything," Jennifer said
quickly. "Raven, if you want, I'll help you with the
dishes, and then we'll work on your math. I told
you I would help you," she said, turning her back
on Uncle Reuben and winking at me.
I shook my head and went back to eating. After
dinner, when Unde Reuben retired to the living
room to watch television, Jennifer did help with
the dishes. She stood beside me at the sink and
whispered.
' "Can*t you keep your big mouth shut at dinner?
Just let Daddy make his speeches like I do, and
don't say anything," she advised.
"He bullies thai family," I remarked.
"Who cares? You want him to get angry and
forbid us to go to the game and the party? Just shut
up." She wiped another dish and then turned and
left the kitchen.
Where was the love in this house? I wondered.
What makes this more of a family than what I had
with my mother? Was it just the roof over their
heads and the food in the refrigerator? I was
beginning to think I would rather settle for the
occasional good days with Mama than the constant
life of tension and fear that existed in this home,
but I didn't even have the choice anymore. Maybe I
truly was a mistake. I was someone who could be
moved and ordered about like a piece of furniture.
The next day at school. Jimmy paid even more

89

V. C. ANDREWS

attention to me. He walked with me in the halls
between classes and sat with me at lunch. When I
asked him if Brad Dfllon really wanted to go out
with my cousin, be just smiled and said, "I told you
I would make sure you got to the game, didn't I?
Let's just have a good time. I'M be looking in the
bleachers for you," he promised.
Jennifer talked Uncle Reuben into driving us to
the school gymnasium. It wasn't until we were
almost there teat she revealed we were invited to a
party after the game. He almost stopped and
turned around to take us home.
"What do you mean? What party?" He bellowed
sn loudly I thought the windows would shatter,
I sat quietly in the backseat and listened to
Jennifer rattle off her lies. .
"Everyone's going. It's a chaperoned party at
Missy Taylor's house. We won't be late. It's a
celebration," she explained.
"How come you didn't say anything about it
before?" he demanded.
"We just got invited, right. Raven? Missy called
us."
I didn't say anything. He wasn't going to blame
me later. I was determined about that I saw his
eyes go to the rearview mirror.
"Who's this Missy Taylor?"
"Melissa Taylor. You know her father. He owns
Taylor's Steak House."
"That's no more than a bar," Uncle Reuben said.
"They have a nice house," Jennifer continued.
He grunted. "I don't want you home late. Be
&AVEN


borne before twelve. How axe you getting home,
anyway?" he asked.
^
1 "Oh, we have a ride. Don't worry, Daddy."
, He looked at her again and then at me through
. the minor. "I'm not happy about this. Who's the
| ehaperone?"
|. "Her mother's there. Stop worrying so much,
1 Daddy. You went to parties when you were our
age."
^
"No, I didn't. I didn't even go out on a real date
until I was a senior."
. This time, I grunted, unable to imagine anyone
going out on a date with him. He looked at me
through the mirror again and drove on.
It was a very exciting game. Jimmy was spectacular,
stealing the ball, making long shots, holding the
team together, and keeping them within four points
the whole time. He did what he promised, too: he
looked into the bleachers and found me. When he
1 smiled, Jennifer glanced at me with eyes so green
with hot envy I thought she would burst into
names.
In the last minute of the game. Jimmy intercepted
a pass and scored. Then one of their players
was fouled but missed his shot. The ball was tossed
to Jimmy, who made a long jump shot from the
corner. It put the game into two-minute overtime.
The crowd was excited, and the roar was deafening.
When they stomped their feet, I thought the bleachers
would come tumbling down and crush us all.
The overtime was just as exciting as the game,
each team scoring until the last thirty seconds,

91

V. C. AKDRJEWS

when Jimmy had an opportunity to score and
delayed it as long as possible. The crowd held its
collective breath as the ball sailed through the air
and threaded through the basket to give our school
the victory. The team carried Jimmy off the court,
the school's hero.
"And you're going to be with him at the party!"
Paula Gordon moaned.
"I have no idea why," I said.
She exchanged a funny look with Jennifer, both
covering their smiles with their hands.
Afterward, the boys joined us to watch the varsity
game, but it wasn't as exciting, and during the
halftime. Jimmy suggested we just leave and go to
the party.
"We'll get a head start," he said.
We piled into two cars and headed for Missy
Taylor's house. The weather had turned bad, and
there was a constant drizzle, but rather than put a
damper on our excitement, it made everyone
squeal and scream as we rushed to get into the
automobiles. When we arrived at the house, I
discovered both her parents were at their bar and
restaurant, so Jennifer's first lie was immediately
evident. It was a nice house, bigger than Uncle
Reuben and Aunt Clara's. Missy was an only child,
and there were four bedrooms as well as a base*
ment party room with a bar and a jukebox.
The music started immediately, and Brad got
behind the bar and began to pour beer and vodka. I
didn't want to drink anything, but everyone was
RAVEN

drinking, even Jennifer, who claimed she was used
(o drinking vodka.
"I drink it at home and then put water in the
bottle so my father won't know," she said. I actually
believed her, but it wasn't long before she
began to feel sick and had to go to the bathroom to
throw up.
"She drank it too fast," Jimmy said. 'That's the
trick, drinking slowly. You're doing all right. You
Snow how to handle yourself, I see."
I had only sipped half a glass of beer. My mother
Would roar with laughter, I thought
"Come on," Jimmy said, taking my hand. "Let's
leave these losers behind."
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see," he said. He led me up the stairway
to the bedroom.
"We can't just walk through her house like this,
can we?" I asked.
"Sure, Missy knows. It's all right," he said.
"We've had parties here before. It's a great party
house, because her parents don't keep track of what
we drink, and they're always out."
Missy Taylor can't have much of a family, either, I thought. I was beginning to wonder if any of the
kids at school were really better off than me.
Jimmy did seem to know exactly where to go. He
led me to one of the guest bedrooms. As soon as we
passed through the door, he kicked it closed and
embraced me. It was the most wonderful kiss I had
ever experienced, long, wet, and so hard it made

93

V. C. ANDKEWS

the back of my neck ache. As he kissed me, he
brought his hands up the sides of my body to my
shoulders and then kissed my neck.
""You're delicious," he said. "Just as I imagined
you would be."
"I'm not something to eat," I said, trying to
laugh. I was getting very nervous. I liked him,
wanted him to kiss me, but he was moving so fast
he made my heart pound. His hands were on my
breasts, and his fingers were manipulating the
buttons of my blouse. As he did that, he walked us
toward the bed, and before I knew it, we were
sitting on it. He brought his lips to my chest and
began to work on my bra.
"Wait," I said.
"For what?"
"I don't want to do this so fast. We can get in
trouble," I told him.
He looked at me with a frozen smile on his lips.
"Don't worry. We won't. I have what we need. You
expected I would, didn't you?"
"What? No," I said.
"What do you mean, no? You agreed to come
here with me. What did you think we'd be doing,
having popcorn and watching television? You know
what's happening, and I know about you. Jennifer's
told everyone."
"What?" I pushed him back. "What did sh&tell
everyone?"
"Hey, what's going on? This isn't brain surgery.
We're just having a good time. You've had them
before."
RAVEN

"Not like this," I said, standing. "I don't know
what Jennifer has told everyone, but I'm not what
-shbu think."
"Come on," he said. "I don't kiss and tell." He
readied for my hand, and I stepped back.
"Neither do I," I said. "I'm nobody's one-night
| sstaad," I added, repeating something Mama had
wee told one of her lovers. As it turned out, she
was often a one-night stand.
"I thought you were cooler than the girls here,"
it® said. "Why do you think I asked you out on the
TBaght of the biggest game? Come on," he said,
reaching for me again. "Don't I deserve some
reward?"
"No," I said. "You deserve a kick between the
legs, and that's what you're going to get if you try to
yull me onto that bed," I threatened. My eyes were
full of fire.
He cowered. "Pine. Get the hell out, then."
I headed for the door.
"Yw and your cousin are full of it," he yelled
after me.
"Don't put me in the same category as Jennifer,"
I spit back, disgusted.
Out in the hallway, I saw Brad leaving one of the
bedrooms, a smile on his face as he hurried to
straighten his clothes.
"Brad, where's Jennifer? We're going home!"
"Fine, chill, I'm done with her. She's all yours."
He laughed as he made his way downstairs to the
party.
I pushed open the bedroom door and saw Jenni-

95

V. C. ANDKEWS

fer lying on the bed, her skat bunched up and hei
shirt halfway unbuttoned. She looked as if she was
sleeping, but I had enough experience with my
mother to know that she was passed out.
"Jennifer, wake up!" I shouted, shaking her by
the shoulder. "C'mon, we've got to get out of here!"
"What? Who? Raven,,. what are you doing
here? What happened?" She looked groggily
around the room. "Where's Brad? We were having
fun, and then the room started to spin, sand I..."
"Come on, Jennifer, you have to get up!" I pulled
her into a sitting position, and she swung her legs
over the side of the bed.
"Ohhh, my head! I want to go home," she
moaned, clutching the side of the bed.
"We will. That's why I came looking for you. But
first you better tell me what kind of stories you've
been telling everyone about me," I demanded.
"Please, Raven, I just want td go home."
I could tell there was no use talking to her in this
condition, so I put my arm around her and helped
her to the stairs. Brad was standing at the foot of
the stairs with a group of boys, and they were all
laughing hysterically.
"Somebody better take us home," I said. "Jennifer's
sick. We need to go now."
"Why don't you just hitchhike?" Brad suggested.
Everyone laughed.
Jennifer and I made our way downstairs, and I
turned to Missy Taylor who had come up from the
basement to see what all the laughing was about.
"If someone doesn't take us home, my uncle will
RAVEN

make a lot of trouble for you, especially with all
this drinking going on."
She smirked. "Take them home. Brad. I don't
want to get into trouble. They're too young to be
here, anyway. It was a stupid idea."
"I'll say it was," Jimmy piped up from behind us.
"Come on," I urged Jennifer, and we walked to
the front door.
"Let's get moving," Brad said angrily. "I don't
want to miss the fun."
"Yes, we'd hate to have you miss any of the fun.
Some fun," I muttered, and led Jennifer to his car.
She sprawled out in the backseat.
"She better not throw up in my car," Brad said.
- "You really didn't want to bring her here. Why
did you?"
"I did it as a favor for Jimmy so you would come.
I guess you didn't hit it off, huh?" he said, smiling.
"That's okay, though, Jennifer and I had fun."
Jennifer giggled from the backseat.
"No," I said, "we didn't hit it off."
"A lot of girls want to go out with Jimmy," he
said as if I had lost a golden opportunity.
"Here's one who doesn't," I said.
He shook his head. "Man, where are you from?"
he asked.
Yes, where am I from? I wondered, and then I
thought, it doesn't matter where I'm from. It's
where I'm going that matters.
7
The Party ^ Over

It was raining harder when we arrived home. Brad
wouldn't help me with Jennifer. He just sat there
waiting impatiently while I struggled to get her out
of the car. She didn't even seem to realize we were
getting soaked, because she wouldn't or couldn't
move quickly. I practically carried her from Brad's
car to the house. He shot off as soon as we were out
of the automobile. By the time we reached the
door, both of us were soaked. I had hoped to sneak
Jennifer in and up to her room, but the moment I
opened the front door. Uncle Reuben sprang from
his recliner in the living room and appeared in the
hallway. His eyes bulged when he saw Jennifer. She
was pale, her clothes wet and disheveled, her hair
messed with strands sticking to her forehead, and
her eyes half closed. She leaned on me for support,
and I guided her into the house.

RAVEN

: "What the hell happened to her? What's wrong?"
he demanded. "Is she sick?"
She lifted her eyes and looked at him pathetically
lor a moment and then suddenly burst out laughing
| land crying at the same time.
He turned to me. "What's going on here?"
1 "She drank some vodka at the party," I said. I
tad made up my mind I wouldn't lie to protect her.
" "What? Drank some ... Clara!" h& screamed.
Aunt Clara came rushing out of the bedroom and
I-appeared at the top of the stairway. She wore only
" her nightgown. "What is it, Reuben?"
"Look at your daughter," he declared, extending
his arms toward Jennifer.
She looked even more ridiculous wearing an
idiotic smile and clinging to my arm. Her eyes
rolled, and she pressed her hands to her stomach.
"Uh-oh. I don't feel so good," she moaned.
Uncle Reuben turned to me again. "I thought
you said the party was chaperoned."
"I didn't say anything. That was Jennifer," I said.
He curled his thick, dark eyebrows toward each
other and narrowed his eyes into slits of suspicion.
"Who gave her the vodka?"
"I'm sick. Daddy. Let me go upstairs," she
pleaded.
"Oh, dear, dear," Aunt Clara <aried, coming
down the stairs quickly. She took Jennifer's other
arm. We started toward the stairway, but Uncle
Reuben reached out with his large bands and
grasped my shoulders, pulling me away and toward
V. C. ANDREWS

him. He nearly lifted me off the floor as he brought
his nose closer to my face and sniffed.
"You drank something, too," he accused.
"Just half a glass of beer," I said.
"I knew it. I just knew this sort of thing would
happen when you came into my home."
"It wasn't my fault," I cried, and pushed his
hand away from my shoulder. "Jennifer wanted to
go to this party more than I did. And she knew
exactly what was going to be happening there," I
told him. If he only knew what else had
happened--even his precious princess wouldn't be
safe from his wrath.
He didn't hear a word. Jennifer stumbled on a
step, and Aunt Clara struggled to keep her from
falling. Uncle Reuben shot forward, scooped Jennifer
up in his arms, and charged up the stairway with
her as if she were nothing more than a toddler.
"Don't shake her so much, Reuben," Aunt Clara
warned, climbing after them. It was too late. Jennifer
started heaving again just as he reached the
upstairs landing. He hurried toward the bathroom.
"Oh, dear, dear," Aunt Clara said, pressing her
hands together and then to her face. She paused to
look at me and shook her head. "How could this
happen. Raven?"
"I think it's happened before. Aunt Clara, only
you never knew," I said. I wasn't sure exactly what
had happened with Jennifer and Brad, or if it had
happened before with other boys, but I was pretty
sure Jennifer wouldn't want her parents to know
about that, either.
RAVEN

' She bit down on her lip and started upstairs.
; Uacle Reuben stepped out of the bathroom.
L? "See to her," he ordered. "Give her a cold
shower."
^ William had come to the doorway of his bed- ,3K»m dressed in his pajamas. He wiped his eyes
-and looked out at the bedlam, confused. "What's
;, going on?" he asked.
| 'tl **Go back to sleep," Uncle Reuben ordered. Then
| jie turned to glare down at me. "I want to talk to
you," he charged.
- "I didn't do anything," I protested, and went to
my little room, closing the door behind me.
He nearly ripped it off the hinges opening it
again. "Don't you dare walk away from mei" he
screamed.
"It wasn't my fault. Uncle Reuben. She wanted
to go to the game and the party. She talked the boys
into asking us. She went right to the bar and poured
dterself a glass of vodka, claiming she knew how to
drink, but she got sick right away. I guess she drank
too much too fast trying to show off. I brought her
home as soon as I could. That's the truth."
"Jennifer never went to a party like that before,"
he insisted. "She's never come home like this.
Somehow, I'm sure this was all your doing."
"Believe what you want," I said. "You will
anyway."
I turned my back on him. It was a big mistake.
Seconds later, his big left hand was at my neck, and
his right hand scooped up the hem of my dress. He
lifted me off the floor and tossed me to the pullout,

101

V. C. ANDREWS

nearly knocking it over with me on it. Before I
could scream, he had unbuckled his belt and pulled
it off his pants. The next thing I knew, he was
pulling down my panties. Then I screamed as loud
and as hard as I could.
"Bitch!" he said. "Bad seed! You're not coming
here and ruining my Jennifer. I'll put an end to this
bad behavior right now."
The first whack of the belt shocked me more than
it hurt me. I couldn't believe this was happening.
With his large palm on my back, he held me down
as he swung his belt again. This time, the pain shot
up my spine.
"Wagging your rear at boys, going to parties,
drinking and who knows what else. You 'are just
like your mother," he said. "You should have been
whipped before this, but it's not too late. No, sir."
He hit me again and then again. Between my
screams and my tears, I started to choke. It was
useless to try to get away. He as much as nailed me
to the bed with his heavy palm. He finally stopped
beating me, but for a long moment he just held me
down. My rear end was stinging in pain. It was as if
I had been stung by dozens of wasps. I felt him
move his right hand over it, but this time surprisingly
softly. I wondered if he was checking to be
sure he had done enough damage. Then he pulled
his left hand from my back. I was afraid to turn,
afraid to move. I sensed him standing there, gazing
down at me, breathing hard.
"Maybe now you'll behave," he said.
I shuddered with sobs and heard him leave,
RAVEN

dosing the door behind him. For a long time, I
didn't move. I remained there, with my face down,
'- writing for the pain to subside. Finally, it did so
enough for me to turn over. It hurt to move my legs
' and even more to put pressure on my rear. I
UMawled on my back and tried to catch my breath,
wiping my face. I think I was bothered more by my
; outrage and loss of dignity than the stinging and
^ aching, however. Slowly, I leaned over and pulled
E wy panties back on. When I stood up, it was like
rising from a beach or poolside and realizing you
had been sunburned. My skin was throbbing, and
there was a deep, sick feeling in the center of my
stomach.
I wanted to open the door and scream, "How
dare you do this to me?"
I actually did open it, teut when I looked out at
the quiet house, I suddenly became even more
terrified. If he would do this, who knew what else
he would do? Instead, I made my way to the
bathroom and tried putting a warm, damp towel on
my battered thighs and rear.
It didn't help much. I returned to my room,
moving cautiously and slowly through the house. I
could hear Uncle Reuben yelling upstairs and Aunt
Clara's muffled sobs* I barely had enough strength
to undress, and when I finally did lie down, the
throbbing grew worse. It kept me awake most of the
night. I think I passed out rather than fell asleep
t sometime just before morning.
; A cold shock woke me, and I realized I was
drenched in ice water. I cried out and sat up to face

103

V. a ANDREWS

Uncle Reuben, who stood there with the emptied
pail in his hands. The water quickly soaked right
through the blanket, but I kept it close to nay half-
naked body.
"You get yourself up and get out there to help
Clara do the weekly cleaning," he demanded. "You
won't sleep late here because you carried on like a
tramp, hear? I'll teach you what it means to misbehave
while living with me," he threatened, speaking
through clenched teeth. "I'm not your mother.
None of this goes here. Now, get up!"
"I will. Leave me alone," I moaned.
He started to throw more water on me.
"Reuben, stop!" Aunt Clara cried from the
hallway.
He glared at me and then nodded and left the
room, pausing at the doorway to speak to Aunt
Clara.
"Don't baby her, Clara. She needs strict discipline.
She's no more than a wild animal."
He walked ofE
When I began to move, the pain from my beaten
body shot up my spine and made me cry out.
"What is it?" Aunt Clara said, coming in.
"What's wrong. Raven?"
"He beat me. Aunt Clara. He beat me with a belt
last night."
She shook her head in denial, but I turned on my
side and lifted the blanket from my legs and rear.
Then she gasped and stepped back. "Oh, dear,
dear."
"Is it bad?"
RAVEN

"It's inflamed, welts," she cried. "Reuben, how
could you do such a thing?" she asked, but far from
teudly enough for him to hear. It was more as if she
was asking herself how her husband could have
^turned into such a monster. There were other
Questions to ask, but this was hardly the time to
suggest them, I thought.
"* "I'll get some balm," she said. "Just stay there,
jlaven. Oh, dear, dear," she muttered, and hurried
out.
I collapsed back onto the pillow, my head pounding.
What tortured me was not the beating I had
been unfairly given as much as the realization that
there was no one I could depend on now that
Mama had gotten herself into even deeper trouble.
Aunt Clara was too weak. I had no other relatives to
run to for help. I was in a strange town in a school
where I was still so new that I hadn't had time to
make close friends. I was truly trapped.
"Here, dear. Let me see what I can do," Aunt
Clara said, hurrying back.
I turned over to let her apply the medicine. It did
bring some cool relief.
"I can't believe he did this," she muttered. "But
he was so upset. He has such a temper."
' "I didn't mak& Jennifer drink the vodka. Aunt
Clara. Those kids are all her friends, not mine."
"I know, dear. I know."
"He won't believe anything bad about her," I
said, turning when she was finished. She stared at
me. "It's not fair, and it's not right," I continued.
"I'll speak to him," she promised, nodding.

105

V. C. ANDREWS

"It won't matter. Aunt Clara. He has a bad
opinion of me and my mother, and he hates me for
being alive and a problem for you. I should just
leave."
"Of course not. Where would you go? Don't even
think of such a thing. Raven. He'll calm down.
Everything will be all right," she insisted, just as
someone living in Never-Never Land would.
"It won't be all right. He'll never calm down," I
said. "He's an ogre. He's more than that. I know
why he favors Jennifer so much, too," I added,
more under my breath. Aunt Clara either didn't
hear me or pretended not to. She quickly turned
away.
"I'll make us some hot breakfast, and we'll all
feel better. You take your time, dear. Take your
time," she said, and left before I could add a word.
I sat there fuming. All I wanted to do was get my
hands on Jennifer and wring her neck until she
confessed the truth. I wasn't going to let her get
away with this, I thought. I took the beating that
should have been meant for her.
I stepped out cautiously, hating even the thought
of facing Uncle Reuben now. I heard no voices, just
the clanking of dishes and the sounds of Aunt Clara
moving about the kitchen. When I peered in, I saw
William alone at the table. Jennifer was permitted
to steep off the effects of last night, but not me.
Anger raged up in me like milk simmering too
long in a pot. I felt the heat rise into my face.
Without hesitation, I turned and started up the
RAVEN

. If I had to drag her down these steps and
<tta-ow her at her father's feet, babbling thelruth, I
would do it, I thought.
As I turned at the landing, I saw that her bed- ^loom door was slightly ajar. I started for it and
stopped when I heard the distinct sound of whimpering.
Then I heard Jennifer's voice, tiny and
apathetic, sounding more like a girl half her age than
s. lier usual cocky self. I drew closer, curious and
t wafused.
,' "I'm sorry. Daddy. I didn't want to do it, but
"Aaven and the other girls started to make fun of
the. They said I was immature, a baby, and I
shouldn't be at parties yet."
"Don't you let them say those things about you,
princess. Don't you even think it," I heard Uncle
Xeuben say.
If only he knew the whole truth, I thought, then
what would he think of his little princess?
A moment later. Aunt Clara called for me. "Raven?
Are you upstairs?" Uncle Reuben heard her
call me and appeared in Jennifer's doorway.
"What are you doing up here?" he demanded.
"I came up to see Jennifer," I said.
"She's not well this morning, as you should
know," he said. "Just tend to your chores."
"Daddy!" I heard her cry behind him.
"Go on!" he shouted at me.
I started down the stairs, turning to look up when
I was almost halfway to the bottom. Jennifer's door
was closed.

107

V. C. ANDREWS

"What is it, dear?" Aunt Clara said.
I looked at her for a moment and thought about
telling her about last night.
"It's nothing. Aunt Clara. I'll be right down." I
wasn't ready to stoop to Jennifer's level. Not yet, at
least.

Aunt Clara knew something was wrong, but she
didn't press me for answers. I suppose she didn't
want to know about Jennifer's behavior any more
than she wanted to know about Uncle Reuben
terrorizing William. Deep in her put-away heart,
she couldn't be happy with the person Jennifer was
becoming. She had to be aware other deceitfulness,
her laziness, and her meanness. I knew she was
upset about the way William shut himself off from
everyone, even her, and wanted the best for her
son. So what about her daughter? What'did she
want for her?
And then I would reconsider and stop hating her
and start pitying her. I had been here only a short
time. I had no idea what sort of horrible things she
had endured before I arrived. It was easy to see she
was afraid of Uncle Reuben, maybe even more
afraid of him than I was. All he had to do was raise
his voice, lift his eyebrows, hoist his shoulders, and
she would stammer and slink off, pressing her
hands to her bosom and lowering her head. There
were times when she didn't know I was looking at
her, and I saw the deep sadness in her face or even
caught her wiping a tear or two from her cheeks.
Often, with her work done, she would sit in her
Hiking chair and rock with her eyes wide open,
Istaring at nothing. She wouldn't even realize I was
IjTaround.
I-1 I never doubted she loved her children, and
l^aaybe she once had loved Uncle Reuben, but she
|:^"as someone who had been drained of her inde-
B^endence, her pride, and her strength, a hollow
ishadow of her former self who barely resembled the
^yretty young woman in the old pictures, a young
|woman with a face full of hope, whose future
Ijboked promising and wonderful, who had no rea- ^>n to think that anything but roses and perfumed
^l|fm would fall around her.
^. Some adults, I thought, fall apart, drink, go to
IHrugs, become wild and loose like my mother did
ipghen they lose their dreams. Some die a quiet sort
|J|of death, one hardly noticed, and live in the echo of
[Other voices, their own real voices and smiles
Lcarried away in the wind like ribbons, gone forever,
j-but of sight, visible only for a second or two in the
Iglimmering eyes or soft smiles that come with the
Itnemories.
Late in the day, Jennifer emerged with that
triumphant sneer on her face. I was dusting furniture
after having vacuumed the living room. Uncle
Reuben was taking a nap. William was in his room,
aad Aunt Clara had gone for groceries. Jennifer
plopped on the sofa and put her feet up, shoes and
all. I stopped and looked at her with disgust.
"I'm so tired," she said. "Lucky we didn't have
school today."
V. C. ANDREWS

"You got me in a lot of trouble," I said. "Whal|
stories did you spread around school about me
How could you tell so many filthy lies?"
"Your reputation preceded you," she said with
laugh. "I didn't have to spread any stories."
"You're really pitiful, Jennifer. You could at leas^
tell your father the truth."
"Yeah, right. Then I'd be in trouble," she said,
and laughed. "You can keep cleaning. I won't be in
your way. Just don't make too loud a noise, "^
"You're disgusting," I said, my anger boiling^
"And in more ways than one."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she askedj
making her eyes bigger. "You never drank too :
much, I suppose. In your house, it was probably a;
daily occurrence."
"For your information, it wasn't, at least for me." I stared at her a moment, debating whether or
not I had the courage to say it. Finally, I did. "How
could you let Brad do that to you? Don't you have
any pride?"
She gazed at me, barely blinking. "What are you
talking about now. Raven? What sort of lie are you
trying to use to get out of trouble?" she asked.
"You know what I'm talking about, and you
know it's not a lie," I said firmly.
Her expression didn't change. Then she looked
away for a second before turning back to shake her
bead. "I don't know what you're talking about,"
she said, "and I'm warning you not to say anything
that will make Daddy angry."
"He already got angry," I said. I put down the
RAVEN

rag and undid my pants, lowering them and
panties. I turned to show her my welts.
"Ugh," she said, grimacing.
He enjoyed doing it to me," I said, closing my
its. "He's a sadist, and he's perverted."
Stop it!" She jumped off the sofa. "He's my
sc, and if he had to punish you, it was because
did something wrong. He's really kind, and he
ss about me."
'"kbu'rejust afraid of him. And you should be. If
lise knew how you really behaved, you'd get a far
B^worse beating than I got," I said, drawing closer
^
||and staring into her face.
1| "Stop it!" she whispered. "He could hear you."
H She stamped her foot on the floor. "What the
pBell's going on down there?" Uncle Reuben
B|?shouted from his bedroom.
l^ Jennifer hesitated, staring at me with wide,
l^eared eyes.
I "Should I tell him?" I asked. "Should I tell him
|b*hat realty happened last night?"
} She seemed to think, and then bet against me
facing Uncle Reuben.
? "Nothing, Daddy," she called back.
"Well, keep your voices down. I'm trying to get
<ome rest. I didn't get much last night thanks to
someone in this house," he added.
"Okay, Daddy. Raven's sorry," she said.
"^fou're sicker than he is," I said, shaking my
head.
? "Ifou're just jealous because you don't have a
father," she spit at me, her eyes narrow and hateful
V. C. ANDREWS

but also filling with tears. "You never had a father.1
You have a mother who is a tramp and a drag|
addict, and now you don't even have her," she said,|
gloating. I
"No," I spit back at her, "but at least I still havel
some self-respect."
I threw down the dust rag and marched past her,
practically knocking her out of my way.
"Who else would respect you?" she called after I
me. "You're worse than an orphan. You're nothing. 1
You don't even have the right name! Hat's righi»i
Daddy told me your mother was never even mat-|
ried, so don't go throwing stones. You're an illegitimate child!" she shouted.
I slammed the door closed behind me.
She was right, of course. Nothing she said wasn't]
true, but I'd rather be no one, I thought, than|
someone with a father like hers. J
"Didn't I tell you two to shut up down these?" Ij
heard Uncle Reuben scream. |
"It's all right. Daddy. I'm taking a walk over to |
Paula's. If there's any more noise, it's not me'|
making it," she shouted back. A moment later, I1
heard her leave the house, and it was all very quiet
again. ]
I took a deep breath and went to the window. It
was still gray and dismal outside. Jennifer had
guessed correctly. I wouldn't tell Uncle Reuben.
Why would he believe me? I'd keep tier little secret.
For now.
And then I saw someone on the corner standing
under a sprawling maple tree. She wore a raincoat
RAVEN

a bandana over her hair just the way my
tier often did.
."Mama?" I called, my eyes filling with tears.
The woman turned and disappeared down the
vgCt, street.
I shot out of the room and rushed to the door.
hen I ran down the walk and up the street to the
amer, but by the time I got there, there was no one
^ sight. I stood there looking. Had I imagined it?
"Mama!" I screamed. My voice died in the wind,
ad no one appeared.
Mhit what if it had been Mama? I thought. In my
eart of hearts, I wished it had been, just so I knew
Ie was thinking about me, just so I knew she did
Iff® a little, even if she hadn't come back for me.
"Maybe, I thought, looking down the long, empty
Seet with barely a car moving along it, maybe I
Mated it so much that I simply imagined it
Just like everything good i wanted for myself,
lis was only to be a dream, an illusion, another
qpe tied to a bubble that would burst, leaving me
s lost and as forgotten as ever.
«S, turned and went back to the hell I had to call

113

Innocence Logt

The guidance counselor at my old school, Mr-l
Martin, once told me it's harder to look at yourseli
than it is to look at others. Some of my teachers ha
been complaining to him about me, and when I ha
my meeting with him and he read off the list <
complaints, I had an excuse for everything. I was t
good at dodging that he finally sat back, looked.
me, and laughed.
"You don't believe half of what you're telling me,|
Raven," he said, "and you realize that when yo»]
walk out of here, you will walk out of here knowing!
that I don't believe you, either. The truth is, you
have been irresponsible, neglectful, wasteful, and
to a large extent self-destructive. You want to know|
what I think?" he asked, leaning forward and I
clasping his hands on the desk.
He had rust-colored hair and eyes as green as
emeralds. Tiny freckles spilled from his forehead,
his temples to the crests of his cheeks. He
s had a friendly hello for anyone. I never saw
lose his temper, but be had a way of making a
ibled student feel bad about himself or herself.
spoke softly, sincerely, and acted as if he was
sryone's big brother, taking each disappointment
•sonally and asking questions that forced you to
s honest.
My heart seemed to cower in my chest as I
kited for him to drop his bombshell. I had to look
wn. His eyes were too penetrating, his gaze too
ananding.
"No," I finally said, "but I guess you're going to
?8 me anyway."
^"^es, I am. Raven. I think you're a very angry
ing woman, angry about your life, and you think
i're going to hurt someone if you do poorly and
lave poorly. However, the only one you're really
rting is you."
I turned to look past him, to look out the office
|lB»indow, because I could feel the tears welling
I'fender my lids. Few people were ever able to pene-
'- Irate the wall I had built around my true feelings,
-jSted whenever anyone did, I always felt a little
naked and as helpless as a child.
"**Your mother doesn't respond to any of my calls
W letters. She's never been available to meet with
your teachers."
* "I don't care if she comes here or not," I
snapped.
, "Yes, you do," he said softly. He sat back again.
"Sometimes, actually most of the time, we can't do
V. C. ANDREWS

much about the hand we've been dealt. We've got
to make the most of it and get into the game. It <i
doesn't do any good whining about it, right? Yott i
know that." " 'i
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mf.1
Martin. I failed some tests, big deal. My teacher
are always picking on me because I'm an easy
target. Other kids talk and pass notes and forget their
books and stuff and don't get into half as
much trouble."
Mr. Martin smiled. "When I was on the college
basketball team and I gave my coach excuses like
that, he would start to raise and lower his legs as if
be were walking through a swamp," Mr. Martin
said. "You know what I mean?"
I felt my throat close up and just shifted my eyes
down.
"All right. Raven. I won't keep you any longer,
You think over the things we discussed, and just
know I'm here for you if you need to talk," he said.
I got up quickly, practically fleeing from his eyes
and his probing questions. After I left his office, I
stopped in the bathroom and looked at myself in
the mirror. My eyes were red from the strain of
holding back the tears. Mr. Martin was right: it was
harder to look at myself, especially after he had
held up a mirror of reality and truth.
Thinking back to that, I realized how much
harder, if not impossible, it was for Jennifer to look
at herself in a mirror. Everyone in my uncle's home
suffered from the same self-imposed blindness,
ly Aunt Clara, who not only turned away
kept her eyes down but also pretended she
si't know anything was wrong.
hUeft Mr. Martin's office feeling even more sorry
^myself and a little guilty. Many of the students
>• behaved poorly or performed poorly left Mr.
•tin's office angry at him for making them look
i that mirror. I should have expected the same
of behavior from Jennifer. After all, I had
atened to expose her to Uncle Reuben.
t.The rest of the weekend went as usual. I kept to
if, did my chores and my homework. Aunt
i was always inviting me to join them in the
I room to watch television, but the few times I
ijjxad, I felt Uncle Reuben's eyes burning into me.
|,aSnen I glanced at him, he immediately looked
disgusted or angry. He made me fed like a pebble
in everyone's shoes. I felt as if I had to thank him
for letting me breathe the very air in his house, and
I knew that he would never give me anything
willingly or with a full heart, not that I wanted
anything from him. It hurt more that I had to
depend on him for anything. This was truly what
to& called the burden of family relations, only it
wasn't he who carried the weight of all that distress;
it was me.
If I needed any reminders of the awkwardness
between us, Jennifer was more than happy to
provide them. She had ignored me most of the
remainder of the weekend, but on Monday, as
usual, she joined her friends at the bus stop,
V. C. ANDREWS

pretending I wasn't coming out of the same hoi
with her. Our short-lived friendship to mak«
possible for her to attend the party was ovi
Ironically, because she had gotten herself sickty|
drunk and fooled around with Brad at Missyi
Taylor's, she was even more of a heroine to her I
friends. They were all waiting anxiously to hear the ^
nitty-gritty details, as if throwing up your guts wasJ
a major accomplishment.
I sat in front with Clarence, but it was hard to
ignore the raucous laughter coming from Jennifer
and her clan in the rear. It wasn't until I was
halfway through my morning that I began to understand
why there were so many other students
smiling at me, hiding their giggles, and wagging
their heads. Just before lunch, some of them called
out to me as they walked past Terri and me in the
hallway.
"Heard you had a helluva weekend. Raven."
"Surprised you can walk."
"Who's next on your list?"
"Is it true what they say about girls with Latin
blood?"
No one waited for a response. They just kept
walking, their bursts of laughter trailing after them.
The questions were tossed at me like cups of red
paint meant to stain and ruin.
"What are they talking about?" Terri asked.
"I have no idea," I said. Afterward, when we sat
in the cafeteria, I told her what had happened at
Missy Taylor's party.
RAVEN

fc.^0 you rejected Mr. Wonderful," Terri said.
Hue's not going to let anyone know that."
feTWhat do you mean?" I asked.
ti saw Jimmy and Brad had joined Jennifer and
er friends at a table, and they were all talking
uickly and laughing. Once in a while, they turned
3 look at me. Someone made another remark, and
hey all roared. They sounded like a television
paagh track. I felt the heat rise in my neck and into
Play face.
i.; "I don't know what's going on," I said, "but it's
I' coming to an end."
"What are you going to do?" Terri asked as I rose
from my seat.
"Watch," I told her, and started to march across
tile cafeteria. I heard the laughter and chatter die
down and saw that heads were turning my way.
Everyone at Jimmy's table stopped talking and
looked up.
"I hear that you're making up stories about me,
Jimmy," I said, glaring down at him.
He shrugged. "Hey, in some cases, you don't
have to make anything up," he said.
Jennifer grunted, and her friends smiled.
"In your case, I imagine it's ninety-five percent
invented," I said. "After spending only a few
minutes with you alone, I can understand why
you're always looking for a new girl."
Smfles faded. I heard someone suck in air. Jimmy
turned, his face was turning bright red. "And
what's that supposed to mean?"

119

V. C. ANDKEWS

"You're a lot better at basketball than you are:
making love," I said. "I guess you waste all yc
talents on the court. If you don't stop making
nasty stories about me, I'll tell everyone why 11
the bedroom so quickly."
For a moment. Jimmy was unable to respor
Everyone at the table turned from me to him, the
eyes widening with new awareness. I knew the
was no better way to make a boy like Jimmy afraid|
than to attack his manliness and his souped-upl
reputation. |
"Huh?" was all he could utter. 1
I started to turn away when Jennifer piped up. J
"Stop trying to cover up. Raven. You're the one |
who's always fouling out," she shouted. "That's]
why you're here, living as a servant in my house."1
Her friends laughed. ;
I froze for a moment, feeling my spine turn to i
cold steel. Then I turned slowly and stepped back
toward the table.
"Me? Cover up? Please, Daddy," I whimpered.
"I didn't mean to throw up all over the place.
Raven made me do it."
"Shut up!" she screamed.
"I'm a good girl. Daddy's little good girl," I
mimicked.
Everyone held their breath. Jennifer turned so
red I thought she might just burst into flames.
Instead, she reached down, seized a half-eaten bowl
of tomato soup, and threw it at me. The hot soup
splattered my clothes and face, and the bowl
crashed to the floor, shattering.
r. Wizenberg, the cafeteria monitor, came run-
over. "What's going on here?" he demanded.
10 did this?"
?eryone at the table stared at him. He turned to
"Who threw that at you?"
|**No one," I said. "It flew up on its own." I
reuldn't be a tattletale, not even to get Jennifer in
touble.
l^rustrated, Mr. Wizenberg sent the whole table
Khfie to Mr. Moore's office. Unable to^et anyone
^rat, Mr. Moore put us alt in detention and sent
ters home to each and every student's family.
aturally, they all blamed me.
Before our letters arrived, Jennifer went crying to
pcle Reuben, claiming I had started it all. This
Ine, Aunt Clara interceded before he could un-
uckle his belt.
^Don't, Reuben," she said. "It can't be entirely
er fault, and you've punished her enough al-
sady."
Uncle Reuben was angrier about Aunt Clara's
feierference than anything, but he didn't say a
|jnrord. He pointed his finger at me and shook his
l^and without speaking. To me, that was more
| frightening. He looked monstrous, capable of mur-
; <ier. I retreated as soon as I could and let him vent
1" nis rage to Aunt Clara.
^ "She is obviously the one who needs discipline,
Clara. We can't keep her here if we don't try to
control her bad ways. Look at all the trouble she's
caused in the short time she's been with us. Don't
V. C. AJVJMUSWS

ever interfere again, understand? Understand?" hert
threatened.
"Yes, Reuben, yes. I'll have a talk with her."
"Talking doesn't help that kind. She's 1
spoiled, too far gone. I'm her only hope," fae^
declared. 2
If he was my only hope, I was long gone. / -j
When the letter arrived, he pinned mine on thej
inside of my bedroom door. |
"Don't you dare take this off here, understand?" I
he declared. "I want you to see this each and every |
time you walk out of this room." *|
"Are you pinning Jennifer's to her door. too?" It
asked, j
"Don't you worry about Jennifer. You worry!
about yourself. That's enough," he snapped. J
I couldn't keep the emotion from my face, and 1^
saw him tilt his head as he looked at me, his own,
eyes focusing like tiny microscopes to look into my|
thoughts. |
"You might have Clara fooled with that sweet act 1
you put on," he said in a hard, coarse whisper, "but
I know your mother. I knew your father. I know;
from where you come. You can't fool me."
"If my mother was so bad, why aren't you?
You're her brother. You came from the same parents.
You grew up together, didn't you? You're not
perfect," I said. ""Yfou've done some bad things."
The moment I said that, I knew I had gone too far,
but I had no idea just how far.
He stepped farther into the room.
"What did she tell you?" he asked. "Did she
i up some lie about me? Spit it out. Spit out the
ige. Go on," he ordered.
1 shook my head. "There's nothing to tell," I
sid, my heart pounding. He seemed to expand,
sflate, rise higher, and grow wider.
s^l never did anything to her," he said. "If I ever
sar you say anything, I swear I'll tear out your
ague."
I stared at him, and then I looked down quickly.
e hovered there like a giant cat. I could almost
el my bones crumbling under his pounce.
"She was disgusting, parading around naked and
ging whatever she wanted, trying to get me to
we in to her evil ways. Well, I showed her. It was
?od when she ran off, only she didn't run far
lough," he declared,
^1 could almost feel his hot breath on the top of
y head, but I didn't move, didn't twitch a muscle.
tried to stop breathing, to close my eyes and
etend I was somewhere else. After what seemed
ce an eternity, he turned and marched out. It felt
i if a cold draft had followed him and left me in a
vacuum of horribly dark silence. I was afraid to
think, even to imagine what sort of things he
meant.
® Suddenly, I felt I had to get fresh air. I threw on a
sweater and went out. All the houses on the street
and the next were well spaced apart. There were
only about six or seven on each avenue. At the
moment, there was no one on the street and apparently
no one outside his or her home. I folded my
arms under my breasts and walked with my head
V. C. AMXRBWS

down, not really paying attention to where I
going. I was so deep in thought that I never realize
I had crossed the street.
"Hey," I heard, and/looked up at Clarence Dui
sen. "Wh ... where are you ... you going?"
He had a garbage hag in his hand and had just |
lifted the lid of the can when he saw me.
I stopped and looked around, surprised at
far I had traveled.
"I'm just taking a walk," I said. J|
He put the garbage in the can and closed it. Then j
he simply stood there looking at me. ;
"Is this where you live?" I asked, nodding at the]
modest ranch-style home. It had gray siding witK|
charcoal shutters, a large lawn with some hedges
around the walk, and a red maple tree in front. The-|
garage door was open, and a station wagon and a
pickup truck were visible. I saw a bike hanging oaj
the wall as well and what looked like some tools,)
wrenches and pliers, clipped to another wall. ' f
"Yeah," he said. "I live in the has... has ...'
basement." 1
"The basement?" I smiled. "What do you mean?" '
"That's where I... slee ... sleep and stuff," he
replied. He smiled. "I have my own door."
I shook my head, still confused.
"Corn ... come on. I'll shhh ... show you," he
urged .with a gesture. He took a few steps toward
the side of the house and waited. I thought a
moment, looked around the empty street, and then
him to steps that led down to a basement
r. He pointed. 'There," he said.
If^You live down there?"
^A-huh. Wanna sssssss ... see?"
"No one had ever told me about this, not even
Ettifer, but then again, no one really took any
Brest in Clarence except to make fun of his
ttering. I nodded again and followed him down
i steps. He opened the door to a small bedroom
at contained a desk and chair, a dresser, a cabinet
at served as a closet, and a small table on top of
inch sat a television set. The floor was covered in
lark brown linoleum with a small gray oval rug at
e foot of the bed. Under the bed were a few pairs
'shoes and some sneakers. There were two etec-
ic heaters along the sides of the room.
^'His clothing was tossed about, shirts over the
tir, a pair of pants dangling over the door of the
?et^ and some T-shirts folded and left on top of
television set. I saw magazines on the floor,
ae books, and a few boxes of puzzles.
"Why do you have to live down here?" I asked
im. The room had no windows and was lit by a
iiling fixture and one standing lamp beside the
l^desk.
^, "My mom's new bus... husband fixed it for...
for me so the baby could have my old rooo...
^oom," he said.
The dull gray cement walls had chips and cracks
in them. It smelted dank and musty. The floor
rafters were dearly visible above us, and there were
V. C. ANDREWS

cobwebs in them. This was more like a dunge
than a bedroom, I thought. Why would his mod
want him down here? I could hear footsteps abc
us, the sound of chair legs scratching the floor, anc
then a baby's wail.
"That's Donna Marie," he said.
I nodded and continued to look around the
room. "Where is your bathroom?"
"Upsta ... stairs. You got to go?"
"No," I said, smiling. "I just wondered. You d<j|
puzzles?" I asked, nodding at the boxes on thil
floor. |
"Yeah,- sometimes. Aft ... after I do one, I take,|
take, take it apart and do it again." ^|
I laughed, and he smiled. J
Just then, the door of his room was pulled open,!
and a tall, lean, dark-haired man in a pale white]
athletic undershirt, jeans, and old slippers api
peared. He was unshaven and had a square jaw^
with a deft chin and a thin nose under a pair of I
dark brown, tired eyes that brightened with interest
when he saw me.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
"I'm Raven Flores."
"Who's this, Clarence?" He smiled. "A girlfriend?"

"Nnnnn ... no," Clarence replied, turning a
deep red. He glanced at me with terror.
"I'm just a neighbor," I said. "I'm living with my
uncte."
"Who's that?"
"Reuben Stack."
RAVEN

smile widened. "Reuben, huh? He never
>ned you. I work with him." He turned back
Clarence. "We was wondering why you didn't
me back upstairs after you took out the garbage.
s time for dinner. I hate to interrupt," he said,
tiling at me. "Come on back later, if you want."
^That's all right. I'll see you tomorrow, Clar"
B<nw," I said.
^ "Sure you're not coming back tonight?" his
B|ttepfather asked. I ignored him and went to the
B|Noor. His laughter followed me out.
||t 11 hurried back, feeling sorrier for Clarence than I
l^id for myself. Where was this magical family in
||Mnerica, the one I saw on television? You can have
| parents and still be an orphan, I thought.
k-i "Where the hell have you been?" Uncle Reuben
|asked when I entered the house.
"I just went for a walk."
t, "It's suppertime. You know you have to be here
to help," he said.
I hurried toward the kitchen.
. "Jennifer's already set the table," he said.
"All by herself?" I retorted.
"Don't get smart," he snapped. "Just help Clara
bring in the food, and next time, you let someone
know when you're leaving the house, hear?"
"Yes, sir," I said. I nearly saluted.
He stared daggers at me, so I continued into the
kitchen, where Aunt Clara was busy getting the
food into serving bowls. She worked quickly and
quietly. I had the feeling Uncle Reuben had already
blamed her for my not being there.

127

V. C. ANDREWS

"I'm sorry I'm late. Aunt Clara, but.
"Just take this in, dear," she said, handing raft;
the bowl of mashed potatoes.
When I entered the dining room, I.found Jennifer
sitting back with a wide, self-satisfied smile on
her face. William looked as meek and beaten down
as ever, and Uncle Reuben sat in his throne, his big
arms on the table, waiting like the king he thought
he was.
"It's about time," Jennifer said. "I'm starving. I
got the table set for you."
I put down the bowl and looked at the plates and
silverware.
Dorics aye on the wrong side," I said, and
winked at William, who gave me a small smile.
Then I returned to the kitchen before Jennifer
could offer a smart reply.
It was another dinner with Uncle Reuben pronouncing
his opinions about women and young
people. The world was out of control. Values were:
being destroyed, and the fabric of the country was
being torn apart. It was all the fault of women who
wanted too much and children who weren't disciplined
property. No one contradicted him. I tried
to drown him out with my own thoughts, but he
bellowed and knocked on the table when he wanted
to force home his conclusions.
All Aunt Clara could say was, "Don't excite
yourself when you're eating, Reuben."
I hurried to clean up afterward. As usual, Jennifer
just rose and went upstairs, not even bringing
her own plate to the sink. I saw that William
^
RAVEN

B|wanted to help, but he was afraid of angering his
llather, who had just finished declaring that women
|were getting men to do their work and that was one
|of the things wrong with this country.
^
|t After my chores, I went to my room to start my
I homework. I could hear Jennifer in the living room
^watching television with Uncle Reuben and Aunt
1Clara. Her laughter sounded loud and obnoxious to
line. Why didn't they ask her about her schoolwork?
^
Ill wondered. I heard the phone ring, and a few
minutes later, my door was thrust open.
Uncle Reuben stood there gaping in at me.
"What?" I asked, turning from my small table.
[ "Where'd you go before?" he asked, stepping
t'mto the room and closing the door behind him.
;"Huh?"
^
"I told you. I went for a walk," I said.
[ "That's a lie. You went to the Dunsen house,
l«lidn'tyou?"
S" "I saw Clarence, and he wanted to show me his
^room in the basement," I said.
Uncle Reuben smiled coldly and shook his head.
^You know that boy's retarded."
"He's not retarded. He just has a speech problem,"
I said.
"It's easier to take advantage of someone like
that. What were you trying to do, seduce him?"
"No!" I cried. "Leave me alone."
"I got to get a call from one of the men who
works under me gloating that he caught you with
his stepson? I got to get that call? What are you
doing to our reputation in the neighborhood?"

129
V. C. ANDREWS

I turned away, the tears coming so fast and hard!
couldn't stop them this time. I wasn't the one wh®
was fooling around with boys, and yet I was getting,,*
accused! 1
"Looks like you need more than one lesson, and]
more than one lesson you're going to get," he said, j
and pulled off his belt. "Get on that bed." j
"No. Leave me alone!" I cried. I
"If you get on it yourself, I'll only give you six |
whacks. If you make me do it, it's ten," he said. He
hovered between me and the door. I could never get
around him. "Well? Which will it be?"
"I didn't do anything wrong," I moaned.
"Please."
"Looks like ten," he said, moving toward me.
"No," I cried, holding up my hands. I got up and
backed toward the bed.
"Reuben, what's going on in there?" I heard
Aunt Clara ask.
"Just keep out of this, Clara, or it will go down
.. harder for everyone," he shouted. He turned to me.
| I couldn't stop sobbing. I didn't want to be hit
once, much less ten times. What could I do?
I went to the bed.
"Lower 'em," he ordered.
Sobbing harder, I reached under my skirt and
I lowered my panties. He pushed me forward and
i once again held me down as he whacked me six
times with the belt.
'"You don't go to any boy's room alone," he said.
"And stay away from that retard, hear?"

; 130

f RAVEN <

^ I couldnt talk. I bit down on the blanket and
| waited. I felt him run his palm over my rear, and
| then I heard him march to the door and leave,
t closing it behind him. It took me a while to catch
- say breath and pull up my panties. I lay back in the
^ bed and cursed him over and over, praying he
1 would fall down the stairs and break his neck. I
, fantasized standing over his corpse, spitting on it,
I kicking it. I didn't think it was possible to hate
'' anyone as much as I hated him.
; My door opened again, and I turned in terror. It
^ was Jennifer. She stood there shaking her head.
"Clarence Dunsen? You walked out on Jimmy
Freer and went to Clarence Dunsen?"
"No," I said.
; She smiled and shook her head. "Wait until
| everyone hears about this. If I were you, I would
crawl under that bed and stay there," she advised,
and walked away, laughing.
I lay there, my body like an empty glass filling
with red liquid hate. Nearly two hours later, I heard
them all go upstairs to sleep. I waited a little longer,
and then I went to the door, my hands clenched in
fists, my chest so tight my heart had trouble beating.
Quietly but determined, I marched up the
stairs. It was dark and still. Uncle Reuben and Aunt
Clara's door was shut, as were William's and Jennifer's.
I could hear Jennifer talking softly on her
telephone and then laughing.
I opened the door, and she looked up from the
floor where she was curled.

131

"What do you want?" she demanded.
"If you spread that story about me," I said, "I
will tell your father what really happened the night
of Missy's party."
I closed the door and walked down the stairs,
somehow forgetting and ignoring the pain from my
belt beating.

132

I'm Not Ooing to
Take It

Jennifer was so quiet the next morning, she made
me nervous at breakfast. She wouldn't look at me,
and if she did have to gaze my way, it was as if she
was looking right through me. She looked tired, her
eyes dark. I imagined she had been sleeping on my
threat, and it had played like a pebble under the
sheet, causing her to toss and turn, flitting through
her nightmares.
My hands fluttered around so that I nearly
dropped a dish. Uncle Reuben was poised to
pounce if I did. He kept looking at me with sparks
in hi&eyes when I rattled cups and saucers. Jennifer
kept her eyes down. Every once in a while, she
would lift her chin, and I saw her puckered little
prune mouth drawn up like a drawstring purse. She
ate and gathered her things together with barely a
syllable escaping from those tight lips.
"Are you feeling all right, Jennifer?" Aunt Clara

133

V. C. ANDREWS

finally asked her. I wasn't the only one who noticed
a marked difference in her behavior. Usually, she
didn't shut up, blabbing like someone who loved
the sound of her own voice and expected everyone
else to adore it as well
Jennifer stabbed me with her nasty glare immediately
after Aunt Clara's question. I half expected
her to burst out with new accusations, revealing my
threat. I braced myself in anticipation.
"I'm fine,'* she said. "I'm just tired."
"I hope you're not coming down with anything,"
Aunt Clara said.
Uncle Reuben's eyebrows jerked upward as if
pulled by strings. "Everyone's been healthy in this
house up until now," he muttered.
Did he really see me as some sort of walking,
talking germ, a carrier of disease and illness, someone
full of infection and decay?
"Maybe you should stay home today," Aunt
Clara suggested.
"Oh, no," Jennifer said with a deep and painful
sigh, "I have tests to take, and I just can't afford to
miss any work."
Please spare me, I wanted to say. Since when did
she care one iota about her work? She either
cheated or borrowed other people's homework, and
if she could find a way to get out of a test, she
wouldn't hesitate. Suddenly, poor Jennifer was
going to be the martyr? Now I did think what I ate
would come back up. I rose from the table, clearing
off dirty dishes.
Jennifer was out of the house ahead of me as
RAVEN j

usual. With the chores I had to complete--helping ;
with the breakfast dishes, cleaning the table, orgaizing
and fixing my little room--I nearly missed
the bus. Aunt Clara hurried me along, and I
charged out of the house, running down the sidewalk
just as the last student boarded. As usual,
there was an empty seat next to Clarence. He
looked up timidly, and I smiled and sat beside him.
Jennifer was in the rear with her friends.
"I'm sor ... sorry about my ... my ...
stepfa ... fa ... father," Clarence said. "He's a
jerk."
"It's all right, Clarence. Don't worry about it. I
didn't think much of him," I said. ;
"He^s got a nas ... nasty mind. He made a lot of
jokes after," Clarence said.
"Where's your real father?" I asked, i
He shrugged^ "I don't know. Maybe he's in
California. I can't hardly remem ... remem ...
her him anymore," he said sadly, and looked out
the bus window.
There was a slight drizzle, the drops flattening
against the glass and then spreading out wider to
form what looked like spider webs. Gray skies
made the morning seem more dismal than usual.
Everyone on the bus was subdued. The conversations
were quiet, and there was little laughter.
When I gazed back, I saw Jennifer glaring my way,
holding her books and bouncing with the bus. Even
her normally buoyant and noisy friends looked half
asleep.
The school became darker and darker inside as I
i
135 I
V. C. ANDREWS

the clouds thickened outside. Some of the corridors
weren't as well lit as others, and it felt as if I were
moving through tunnels to get to my classes this
particular morning. As the rain grew stronger and
pounded in sheets against the school walls and
windows, students grew sleepy. Even the teachers
seemed to struggle with enthusiasm for the work.
Just before lunch, however, the rain stopped, and
a bit of sunshine broke through. It washed away the
drowsiness, and voices grew louder. Students
walked faster, teased and joked with each other.
At lunchtime, Terri and I headed for the cafeteria,
talking about an upcoming movie. I used to go
to the movies once in a while when I lived with my
mother, but now I didn't know when I would get to
go again.
Suddenly, we heard a burst of loud laughter from
a corner of the corridor. At least a dozen or so boys
were gathered in a huddle. When they turned, I saw
that Jimmy was there. I stiffened instinctively, but
as the boys continued to separate, I discovered they
had been surrounding poor Clarence Dunsen. He
looked terrified.
"Here she... she... eome... comes, Clarence,"
Jimmy said. "Why don't you tell her how much you
la ... la ... love her,'* he shouted, and all the boys
laughed.
"Leave him alone," I ordered.
"We're not bothering him. Clarence was just
telling us about your rendezvous in his bedroom
the other day," Jimmy said loudly enough for
everyone around us to hear.
RAVEN

"You bastard," I told him, which only made him
and the boys laugh harder.
I hurried into the cafeteria, Terri trailing quickly
behind.
"What's that all about?" she asked.
- "My cousin has been at it again," I said, fuming.
I threw my books on the table and folded my arms.
" "Don't do anything violent," Terri advised. She
nodded toward Mr. Wizenberg, who was watching
me like a nervous rabbit. I searched for Jennifer
and found her holding court at a table across the
cafeteria. She looked so self-satisfied, I felt like
ripping out her eyes.
The boys erupted into the cafeteria behind Clarence,
who tried to get to his usual table. They were
chanting behind him.
"I la ... la ... la ... love you. Ray ... Ray ...
Raven."
The whole cafeteria turned, and Clarence, who
was bright red, dropped to his seat and stared down
at the tabletop.
"Quiet!" Mr. Wizenberg shouted. "I said qwet!"
The boys stopped and spread out to their tables,
laughing and congratulating themselves with pats
on their backs. Jimmy went to Jennifer, and they
had a good laugh together.
"What's going on?" Terri asked.
I told her what had happened, but I didn't say
anything about telling Uncle Reuben about Jennifer
and Brad. I couldn't get myself to fall to
Jennifer's level. Maybe she had known that all the
V. C. ANDREWS

while. When she rose to go to the lunch line, I
jumped up.
Terri seized my forearm. "Careful," she warned.
"'You'll get suspended this time for sure."
I nodded but charged forward. "You're a horrible
person, Jennifer," I said, pushing my way behind
her. "Don't you care who you hurt?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't
tell anyone anything," she said, flipping her hair
back. "Clarence bragged about you and him to a
couple of his friends, and it got out."
"That's a lie. You're such a liar." I stepped closer
to her, and she backed away.
"If you cause any more trouble. Daddy will put
you in the street," she warned.
"I'd rather be in the street. There's less dirt."
A surge of panic ran through her eyes as she
looked around to see if anyone was really listening
to us.
"Don't you dare say anything terrible about me
or my family. Raven. Don^t you dare," she said in a
t weak whisper.
I "You're so disgusting," I said, shaking my head.
Some of the girls did pause to listen. I hesitated.
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't get down in the
mud with you."
She smiled, crooked and mean.
I left her and returned to my table, frustrated,
raging, my anger simmering my blood into a rolling
boil.
"Easy," Terri said, putting her hand on my arm
and nodding toward the rear. Mr. Wizenberg had
ae up right behind me. He rocked on his heels a
ment with his hands behind his back, and then
glared a stem warning at me as he continued
ross the cafeteria.
, "Everyone thinks Fm the cause of trouble here,"
I moaned. "It's not fair."
r "She'll get hers," Terri predicted. "Someday."
K Sor now, that had to be how I would leave it. I
»at to my classes after lunch, the rest of the day
loving more quickly. I was relieved when the last
eU rang and we headed for the buses to go home.
his time, when I boarded the bus, I hesitated. I
new if I sat with Clarence, Jennifer and her
tends would make more fun of him. It was for his
enefit that I passed him by. He looked up at me
sath sad eyes. I tried to smile to indicate it was
(etter I didn't sit next to him today. He seemed to
understand, and I moved deeper into the bus,
inding an empty seat. No one sat beside me,
;- We-started for home. At first, there was just the
usual sound of chatter and hilarity, but suddenly,
^fhere was a shrill laugh I recognized as Jennifer's. I
turned just as she and her friends began their
chanting.
"I la ... la ... la ... love you. Ray ... Ray ...
Raven."
A sea of laughter swept over the bus. Everyone
was smiling, and soon everyone was into the chant.
The bus driver looked confused, a silly smile on her
lips. She was a stout woman named Peggy Morris
with hair chopped short about her ears. She wore
flannel shirts and jeans and had the sleeves of her
V. C. ANDREWS

shirt rolled to the elbows. Despite her tough
pearance, J always found her pleasant and friendly^
I looked at Clarence. He slapped his hands o
his ears and rocked in his seat.
"Stop it!" I shouted, which only brought me
laughter. "You idiots. Stop!"
They chanted louder. I was hoping Peggy Morris|
would do something, but she was too involved with^
a car that was slowing and speeding erratically iaiJ
front of us. <q
Suddenly, Clarence shot up from his seat axuf*
screamed like a^ wounded animal. His voice roves"-!
berated through the bus, but instead of bringing the
chanting to a halt, it drew more laughter and then;
louder chanting. Clarence covered his ears. I watfj
yelling for them to stop, too. It all sounded like1
bedlam, likfra bus filled with insane people. Peggy
had just started to turn, slowing the bus down,
when Clarence surprised everyone by deliberately?
smashing his fist against the window. The first slam
brought the chanting to a halt. I could barely utters
sound, my throat choking up.
"Clarence!" I managed, but he did it again,
harder this time, and the glass shattered.
He stood there, the blood streaming down the
side of his arm. Girls screamed. Even some of the
boys cried out. Peggy Morris jammed her foot on
the brakes and pulled the bus to the side just as
Clarence felt backward. She caught him before he
rolled over the railing and onto the bus steps.
Everyone grew deadly quiet. I made my way
down the aisle. Peggy shouted for me to band her
RAVEN

s first aid kit, and I hurried to do so. She opened
JItBnd pressed a fistful of gauze against Clarence's
OStd and arm. Then she looked up at me.
f-"Go out and get to a phone," she said. "Call for
S ambulance. Quickly!"
MWhen she opened the door, I shot down the steps
into a convenience store on the corner. The
behind the counter called 911 for me, and I
med to the bus. Everyone remained subdued,
i Jennifer. The driver did the best she could to
i the now of blood. Clarence lay there with his
i dosed. What seemed like an hour but was only
mutes passed before we heard the sound of an
abulance followed by a police car. Chatter began
am as the paramedics boarded the bus quickly,
ard what had happened, and tended to Clarence.
oments later, they were carrying him off the bus
i a stretcher. As soon as he was placed in the
abidance, Peggy Morris returned and stood with
t hands on her wide hips, glaring angrily at
veryone, her face still pale from the shock and
pexcitement.
^ "I don't want to hear another peep," she said
| shakily. "Not another peep."
She started up the bus, and we rode to our stops
in funereal silence. My heart was thumping. I had a
revolting nausea whirling in my stomach. When
our stop appeared, I rose and walked slowly down
the steps.
"Thanks for your help," Peggy Morris said. I
nodded and got off.
As I started up the sidewalk, Jennifer whipped

141

r. C. ANDREWS

past me, pausing only to say» "Yovi have oe
yourself to blame."
It took every ounce of restraint, to keep fi
rushing up behind her to seize the back of her:
ana pull out every strand as I kicked and pui
meled her sneering, ugly face. But I knew I gw
never sink to her level, no matter what. I wor
never be that evil.

Uncle Reuben knew about Clarence before
came home that night. Clarence's stepfather 1
been called at work and had to rush over to
hospital. Uncle Reuben didn't know any of
details, but I saw from the way he looked at
when he asked questions that he assumed I
something to do with it.
"What happened?" he began.
"Clarence went nuts," Jennifer said.
"Why?"
"The kids were teasing him, and he went m
He's nuts anyway," she said.
"What do you mean, they were teasing hn
How were they teasing him?"
"Making fun of his stuttering," she said.
"That's all?" he followed, still eyeing me suspi'',
ciously.
"I don't know. Daddy. I wasn't paying attention.
Suddenly, he smashed his hand into the window.
Now, isn't that nuts?" she cried.
"How horrible," Aunt Clara said.
"Was he bleeding?" William asked.
"A lot. That's why they had to get the ambu-
e," Jennifer told him. William grimaced and
ked to me.
"Mighty strange how all these terrible things are
idenly happening," Uncle Reuben declared.
Afterward, Jennifer had the nerve to come to tell
? she had done me a favor. "I protected you," she
id, "so don't go blaming me for anything."
Jfe'"How did you protect me?" I said, amazed at her
boldness.
fc<^l didn't tell Daddy why Clarence was being
"sased. He'd be real mad then, so you just better be
ice to me, or..."
-'I shook my head. "I'd rather be nice to a rattle-
lake," I told her. "You and Uncle Reuben deserve
Rch other."
"I'll tell him you said that," she threatened. "You
eant another beating?"
"Leave me alone."
"I need some of my blouses ironed, and I don't
ave the time," she said. "I'll send them down with
filliam, and you better not damage them, or else."
Later that evening, I heard Uncle Reuben tell
dint Clara that Clarence's stepfather had called.
iMe said Clarence had to have twenty stitches and
I/was being kept in the hospital for observation^ He
? said he might even have to go to the psychiatric
ward.
"I don't know how yet," he concluded, "but I'm
sure Raven had something to do with this."
"Oh, Reuben, no. She wouldn't," Aunt Clara
assured him.
"I'll find out. Trouble, that's all she is, trouble

143

V. C. ANDREWS

just waiting to happen. Damn my sister. She shou
have been sterilized."
What a horrible thing to say, I thought, but I d
feel just terrible about Clarence. In a strange sort^
way, I supposed I was responsible. If I hadn't 1
him talk me into showing me his basement root
the kids wouldn't have made up the chant. I bri]
disaster to everyone I touch, I thought. Unc
Reuben isn't so wrong.
Clarence's self-inflicted wound and the enti
event on the bus were the big topic of discussion
school the next day. The kids who had torment*
him didn't feel any remorse. If anything, thi
behaved as if they had helped bring out his meni
illness. Now he would be where he belonged ...
a nut house. They were so smug I couldn't stand
Clarence did not return, and in my way ofthinkic
he was the one who was better off.
Later that week, Clarence's stepfather somehc
found out about the subject of the chanting ai
teasing, and he told Uncle Reuben. When he cac
home, armed with the knowledge, he wore a look
self-satisfaction on his face. He proudly announo
to Aunt Clara that I was indeed the cause of ti
trouble. For the time being, he seemed conte
being proven right. Aunt Clara retreated even mo
deeply into her shell, and Uncle Reuben's tyram
raged unchecked. He was what he wanted to t
king of his own home, supreme judge and jury, as
we existed only for his pleasure and comfort.
My chores were increased. I wasn't permitted
go anywhere with anyone on the weekends for

144

10
Home Alone

^

Being confined to the house while everyone e6s
was out doing things on the weekend wasn't actu
ally all that bad. I would have enjoyed it even nao»
if William, who seemed to enjoy my company
more than he did anyone else's in the family, ha<
been able to stay home, too. However, Aunt Claa
took him to the mall to buy him new clothes and.
new pair of sneakers Saturday afternoon. Jennife
went to a matinee with her friends. Before she lefl
she stopped to gloat by the sewing room, where
was ironing clothes.
"Everyone's meeting for pizza, and then we'r
going to the movies. I'm sitting with Brad," sh
bragged, "so no matter what you think, he really i
interested in me."
"I'm happy for you," I said dryly.
"If you weren't so mean to me, I might get th
kids to like you, too," she offered.

146

RAVEN

"Me? Mean to you?" I smiled. "Do you really
believe that, or do you think I'm that stupid?"
"I think you're that stupid," she said, pulling her
thick lower lip into her cheek.
"You know," I said, spinning around on her, "I
came here feeling sorry for myself and even envying you. You have parents, a nice house, a very nice
Little brother. You seemed to have everything I ever
wanted, and then I got to know you better and see
what really goes on here, and now you know
what?"
"What?"
"I feel sorrier for you than I do for myself," I
said, and turned back to my ironing.
"I have no idea what you're talking about.
You're nuts, just like Clarence. I don't know why I
even bothered trying to be your friend," she
snapped.
"Becoming your friend is like becoming friends
with a black widow spider," I retorted.
She spun on her heels and charged out the front
door, slamming it so hard the whole house shook
and the windows rattled. I smiled to myself, turned
on the radio, and started to enjoy my solitude.
Uncle Reuben had already left to bowl with his
team. There were so few times when I had a chance
to be alone and not feel I was being watched or
judged.
I had to face the fact that my mother would never
come for me or be able to take me to live with her
again. When she was caught, they would put her in
a real jail this time, and even if she behaved and

147

V. C. ANDREWS

was released, she would probably be released to
another drug rehabilitation clinic. After that, she
still might not be allowed to have me live with her,
and who knew if she would even want the responsibility?

Perhaps I should stop fighting reality, I thought. I
was only hurting myself. I was like someone bound
with piano wire, struggling and squirming to be
free and only tearing myself to pieces. I had to learn
to ignore, to took the other way, to pretend, to
make up my own world. Maybe Aunt Clara wasn't
all wrong behaving as she did. At least she found
some peace in her life by deliberately blinding
herself to the unpleasantness in her family. She was
able to go on, to face every new morning with fresh
hope.
I was really like someone caught in a strong
current being carried downstream. I could struggle
and struggle, desperately try to fight the water and
only waste my strength, or I could turn in the
direction the water was flowing and try to swim a
little faster than the current. Maybe, if I stayed even
a few inches ahead of my fate, I would feel some
sense of purpose, some meaning and identity, and
be able to think of myself as real, a person with a
name, with some control over what would happen
to her. The current couldn't go on forever and ever.
It would take me someplace, drop me at some
shore, and if I endured and stayed strong, I would
be able to stand on my own two feet and then, then,
make a new life for myself.
That was the only hope I had, the only choice
RAVEN

left. Realizing it was like lifting a weight from my
shoulders. I actually began to feel good and swayed
my body to the music as I worked. I sang along with
the singers. I went to the kitchen and poured myself
a soda and returned to my room to finish the
ironing. After that, I thought I would take a shower
and just spend the rest of the day reading, catching
up with my English assignments.
It was turning out to be one of the nicest days I
had spent living with my uncle and aunt. I laughed
to myself realizing that the reason it was so nice
was that no one else was home. I washed my hair in
the shower and then sat before the small mirror in
my room and dried my hair, first with a towel and
then with Aunt Clara's blow dryer. My hair was
truly my crowning glory, long and thick. My mother
always coveted my hair, moaning about her own
thin, split strands and then running her fingers
through my hair and bringing it to hers as if
touching mine might transfer some of the richness
to her own.
I sat there in the blue cotton robe Aunt Clara had
given me and fantasized, dreaming myself into
scenarios with a handsome young man who would
come along and see me for myself, fall in love with
me, and sweep me away from all this. Why couldn't
I be a real Cinderella? Somewhere out there surely
was a young man destined to be my lover, my
husband, my prince, a young man who would see
my strengths as well as my beauty and want me at
his side forever and ever.
I was in such a reverie, actually hearing the
V. C. ANDREWS

music, the voices, feeling the wind in my hair as we
drove along picturesque country roads, laughing,
kissing, and promising our love to each other, that I
never heard Uncle Reuben come into the house,
nor did I hear him come into my room. It wasn't
until he was actually standing behind me, swaying,
his eyes glassy, that I realized he was there. I spun
around on my chair and looked up at him.
"Getting yourself all dolled up for someone else,
are you?" he asked with a cold, crooked smile on
his face.
"No. I did all my chores and just wanted to clean
up and do my homework,"! said. I couldn't believe
how timid I sounded. I was wrapped so tightly
inside my heart could barely beat.
"Get clean? You?" He shook his head and
snorted. "You're dirty through and through," he
said. "All the soap and hot water in the world
couldn't clean you up."
"That's not so. I'm not dirty!" I insisted.
"You're your mother's daughter. You've proven
that in just the short time you've been here," he
responded. "Seducing that retarded boy," he muttered.

"I didn't do that."
"Go on with you," be said, waving his hand.
"You'll never change. It's just bad blood."
"If there's bad blood in this family," I said,
making my eyes small, "it's more in you than in my
mother and me."
He stepped back and blinked as if I had reached
up and slapped his face.
RAVEN

"Z'at so?" he said. "You still have a big mouth,
eh?" He wobbled as he stared down at me. I could
smell beer on his breath. It churned my stomach. "I
oughtta just throw you out or turn you over to the
court and let them put you in one of them orphanages."

"I wish you would. Then I would tell everyone
how awful you are--how you terrorize your family
with threats-and beatings," I blurted.
This time, his eyes widened, and he opened and
shut his mouth without a sound. He wobbled, and
then his face reddened.
"What are you talking about? What kind of filthy
lies have you been spreading? Who did you tell
such stories?"
"Nobody," I said. "Yet."
Despite his unsteady stance and his dull, dizzy
took, he managed to bring his hand around so
quickly and accurately that he struck me across the
cheek before I had a chance to lift my arm to
protect myself. The blow stung, and the force of it
drove me off the seat. I fell to one knee. Before I
could turn to stand, he had the back of my robe up
as he pulled me closer.
"Naked? Naked sitting here?" he cried.
"It's supposed to be my room," I wailed.
"With the door wide open? You're a tart, a tease,
just like your mother was. I'll have to teach you the
same lesson I taught her. I'll show you what happens
to giris like you."
He reached down and seized me at the waist,

151

V. C. ANDREWS

lifting me as if I weighed nothing and dropping me
on the bed.
"No!" I screamed. "Don't touch me!"
He slapped me sharply across my buttocks and
then sat beside me as he pulled my robe up farther
until it was at my waist.
"That's all you do want is to be touched," he
said, suddenly in a softer voice. Nevertheless, that
frightened me more. I felt an icy chill travel up my
spine, and I turned to get away, but he rested his
heavy torso against my ribs and back, and I was
pinned beneath him.
I felt his hand on my rear end again and then
down between my thighs.
"Just like your mother, all you want is to be
touched," he said. I jumped and screamed when
his fingers traveled to where I hesitated even to
touch myself. "You're bringing shame into my
home," he muttered as he continued.
Then, as if he had suddenly realized what he was
doing, he stopped and slapped me again.
"Everyone at the bowling alley was talking about
the Dunsen boy and what you done. It was embarrassing.
They wanted to know what sort of niece I
had living with me. You don't listen. You. keep
being bad," he said. "I've been too easy on you."
He leaned forward and found my hairbrush. The
first blow stung so badly I really did see stars.
Lights flashed in my eyes. The pain spread out
along my back and sides as if I were a plate of glass,
shattering. He hit me again and again^his aim was
off so that some of the blows fell on my thighs, each
taking the breath out of me. When he was finished,
he remained on the couch, breathing hard over me.
"Youll get worse if you do another bad thing. I'll
burn the skin off you, understand?"
He pinched the flesh under my buttocks harder
and harder. "Understand?"
"Yes," I cried. "Yes."
"Good. Good," he said, rising. "Don't you go
crying to Clara about this, either, understand? If
you do ..."
I 'didn't move until I heard him stumble out of
the room, dosing the door behind him. When I did
move, I couldn't believe the burning and the pain.
It was the worst beating of all and the most
degrading. ,
I groaned, turned over on my back, and lay there
staring up at the ceiling. It was how Aunt Clara
found me later. She thought I was sick, and I told
her I was just having a bad time with my period.
She believed that and let me be, offering to do all
the preparation for dinner. As if he wanted to play
along. Uncle Reuben did not challenge my story.
Jennifer couldn't care less and never even poked
her head in to tell me how much of a good time she
had had with her friends. William looked in on me,
and I tried desperately to hide my pain and agony
from him, but he seemed to sense it anyway. His
eyes were full of .suspicion and fear.
Later, when I came out of my room to join them
at supper, I did walk like a girl who was suffering
V. C. ANDREWS

menstrual cramps. Aunt Clara talked about how
terrible it was that modem medicine could find
cures for almost everything but that.
"Maybe that's because most doctors are men»"
she muttered.
"That's nonsense, women's lib propaganda,"
Uncle Reuben piped in, and then went into one .of
his tirades about the standards in our society
crumbling with all the liberal movements in politics
and government.
I went to bed early and spent most of the next
day in my room lying in bed. The pain went so
deeply this time that it changed from a stinging to
an aching. I ate little and slept as much as I could.
The next morning, Monday, Uncle Reuben did
order me to get up and help with the morning
chores.
"And don't try to stay home from school, either,"
he warned. "I know you did a lot of that
when you lived with my sister. She probably lost
track of the days," he added.
Walking was still painful, but I was terrified that
he would think of another excuse to hit me if I
didn't obey him. I boarded the bus and rode
silently to school. During my morning classes, I
had to fidget and squirm a great deal to find
comfortable, less painful positions. Only Mr. Gat-
tin noticed and asked if I had ants in my pants.
That drew laughter and more whispering and teasing
in the halls between classes.
My real problem was in gym class. I tried using
my period as an excuse, but Mrs. Wilson wanted
RAVEN

me to suit up anyway and stand at the sidelines. I
pleaded, but she was insistent.
"My girls always suit up," she claimed. "Those
are my rules. No loafers here," she added. She
watched me leave her office, and minutes later,
while I was changing, she came into the locker
room and spied on me.
"My God," she cried, "what happened to you?"
I spun around, holding my uniform to my chest.
The welts and black-and-blue marks on my upper
thighs were still quite vivid, especially where Uncle
Reuben had pinched me.
"Nothing," I said.
"That's far from nothing. You get your clothes
on, and you go right to Mrs. Millstein this minute,"
she ordered.
"But..."
"Do what I say," she screamed. She looked
horrified as I began to put my school clothes back
on. Then she left to go to her office. By the time I
arrived at the nurse's office, Mrs. Wilson had called
and Mrs. Millstein was waiting, prepared for what
she would find.
"Come in. Raven. Please," she said when I
opened the door. She had me go into one of the
private rooms. "Mrs. Wilson told me about your
injuries. Do you want to show them to me?"
"I'm all right," I said.
"I'm sure, but just in case there is something else
to do, it might be a good idea to let me see them.
Okay?"
I hesitated. And then suddenly, the whole world
V. C. ANDREWS

seemed to come apart for me. I couldn't control
myself. The tears that had welled up in my eyes
time after time, tears I had driven back or shut off,
flooded, poured out of me with no restraint. I
began seemingly unstoppable sobbing. Mrs. Mill-
stein had to help me to the chair.
"There, there now. Raven. I'm sure it's not as
bad as all that," she said.
"It is," I cried. I lifted my skirt slowly, and she
looked at the bruises. Then I stood up, and she
examined the others.
"How did this happen. Raven?" she demanded
in a firm voice. Again, I hesitated. "You must tell
me. Raven. Who did this to you?"
I took a deep breath. Did it matter anymore who
knew and what sort of a horrible life I had? I sat
again and stared at the floor. The tears dripped off
my chin.
"Raven?"
"My uncle," I said in a tired, defeated voice.
"How did he do this?"
"He beat me with a hairbrush," I said, "and he
pinched me after... after..." My tears rushed
out again. My chest felt as if it would cave in and
crush my heart. Mrs. Millstein fed me tissues and
then took my hand.
"Tell me slowly. Raven. Take your time, but tell
me everything. I'm here to help you, sweetheart.
Go on," she said, kneeling in front of me and
holding my hand. "What else did he do to you,
honey?"
"After he began to beat me, he touched me where
^ RAVEN

| he shouldn't," I blurted. "Then he hit me with the
?, brush until I nearly fainted."
t "Did this happen before?" she asked.
I "Yes," I moaned. "Last time, it was with a belt."
| I started to cry softly.
| She stared quietly for a long moment, and then
1 she stood up. "Just rest now. Raven. You're going
' to be fine," she said. "I'll be right back."
E Everything that happened afterward happened
I so quickly it all blurs together like a movie running
t too fast in my head. Soon afterward, a woman from
s the children's protection service, Mariorie Rosner,
arrived, and Mrs. Millstein urged me to describe
what had happened to me. She questioned me in
>" more detail, and then she and Mrs. Millstein went
^ off to confer. Minutes later, I was escorted out and
- taken to a doctor who examined my injuries and
| gave Marjorie Rosner a. written report. All the
while, things were buzzing around me, telephones
ringing, policemen arriving, and then I was taken
to a temporary foster home run by an elderly
[ couple. They provided me with a hot meal and a
^ place to sleep. I didn't think I would, but the
moment my head hit the pillow, I drifted off,
feeling my body sink into the mattress.
In the morning, Marjorie arrived and explained
that I was going to a courthouse to be questioned
by a family court judge. She warned me that my
aunt and my uncle might be in the courthouse as
well.
"Your uncle was questioned by the police, as well
as your aunt," she told me.
V. C. ANDREWS

"What about what he said he did to my mother?"
"Let's just concentrate on you for now," Mar-
jorie told me.
I was so frightened I could barely walk to Mar-
jorie's car. She kept reassuring me that everything
would be all right.
"He'll never lay a hand on you again. Raven. I
promise," she said.
When we entered the courthouse, I saw Aunt
Clara sitting alone on a bench in the corridor. She
had her head down, her hands in her lap. She
looked so small and lost. I felt sorry for her. When
she heard us in the hallway, she looked up. Her eyes
were bloodshot, her face pale.
"What have you done. Raven?" she asked in a
tiny voice.
"It's not what she's done, Mrs. Stack. It's what
your husband has done," Mariorie Rosner said.
"He wouldn't do those things," she said. "He
wouldn't." She looked up at me hopefully.
"I'm sorry. Aunt Clara. I think you know he
would," I said.
Aunt Clara brought her small fist to her mouth to
stop the cry that strangled in her throat.
Marjorie moved me ahead. I looked back just
before we entered the judge's chambers. Aunt Clara
had her hands over her face and was rocking gently
on the bench like someone in great pain. My heart
felt like a lump of lead.
"I hate hurting her," I said.
"Itbu're doing the right thing. Raven. Just answer
the judge's questions," Marjorie said.
RAVEN

I sucked in my breath and stepped in, feeling like
someone on a roller coaster who was just reaching
the top of another incline. In moments, I knew I
would be raging downward, holding on for dear
life, closing my eyes, screaming, wondering where
the next turn would take me.

Epilogue

^

Uncle Reuben denied everything, of course. He
admitted beating me but claimed that I was so
rotten to the core he had no choice. The judge
didn't believe him and certainly had no intention
of placing me back in Uncle Reuben's home. With
my mother gone and no other relatives who could
bear responsibility for me, I became a ward of the
state. It was what Uncle Reuben had predicted for
me all along, so in a way, I suppose he got what he
wanted.
I felt sorrier for William and Jennifer, since they
had to stay in the home, and told Marjorie so. She
thought William eventually might be the one who
came out of the family's self-imposed cocoon and
eventually helped everyone, especially Aunt Clara.
"In therapy," Marjorie said, "it will all be exposed."

I didn't know whether to believe her or not, and
V. C. ANDREWS
i
at the moment, I couldn't think about anything else
but what was happening to me. She saw how
anxious I was and decided she would be the one to
bring me to the new foster home herself.
"It's one of our best facilities," she explained the
morning she drove me there. "It used to be a small
hotel, and the couple who ran the hotel, Gordon
and Louise Tooey, now run the home. The grounds
are beautiful, and there is lots of room in the
building."
She made it sound as if I was going away to
summer camp. She said there were other girls my
age, and the school I would be attending nearby
was one of the better schools in the state.
"Prospective adoptive parents come by frequently,
too," she told me.
I didn't know if I wanted another mother. I had
never had a father, and my experience with Uncle
Reuben made me anxious about being in anyone
else's control.
Why would someone come along now to adopt
me, anyway? I thought. If I were a woman looking
for a child to adopt, I would try to find one who was
relatively young, one I could teach and develop. I
wouldn't want a daughter who had lived the life I
had already lived.
Mariorie saw the pessimism in my face but
nevertheless talked continuously about the bright
future that awaited me. She promised me that the
worst was behind me. She assured me that the state
would make sure I was never in the hands of

162

RAVEN

teone as perverted and cruel as my uncle or as
ibled as my mother.
""We don't let just anyone take in one of our
aldren," she said, as if the state were a gigantic
lother hen with eyes that really saw and examined
sd knew each and every one of her young chicks.
I was too tired and too depressed to argue or
?en to care. This would be the third school I
feffould attend in less than six months. There would
|te new faces, faces with distrustful, cautious eyes.
l.lfhe hardest thing in the world was making a real
rfriend, developing a relationship with another human
being who trusted you and eared for you and
; tod confidence that you trusted and cared for her
[ as well. I really never had a friend like that, and
now I wondered if I ever would.
' A little more than an hour later, we drove up to a
place called the Lakewood House. The first thing
Marjorie had told me proved to be true. It was a
very large building with the biggest wraparound
porch I had ever seen. Marjorie helped me with my
things and gazed at the grounds. She took a deep
breath as if the air was fresher.
"Isn't it beautiful here? Look at the lake back
there and the flowers. It's very nice that these
people decided to become foster parents and share
all this."
Why would they? I wondered.
We started up the steps. There was a screen door,
and the door behind it was open. We heard a
woman's voice.
"Coming," she cried.

163

V. a ANDREWS ^

Mariorie opened the screen door, and we faced a |
tall brunette with shoulder-length hair. She looked |
about fifty, with vibrant and friendly blue eyes. I
"This is Raven Flores," Maqorie said. "Raven, J
meet Louise looey." ]
"Hi, darlin'," Louise said, reaching for my free ^
hand. "You just come right in. I know all about |
you," she continued in a soft, sad voice. Her eyes |
actually became teary. "What we are doing to our ;
children," she remarked to Marjorie, and shook her head. She smiled at me again. "Come on. I'm going |
to introduce you right away to your roommate. Her j
name's Brooke, and I'm sure you two will be fast ;
friends. We're like one big family here. We all look 'out
for each other."
I gazed at Mariorie, who nodded and smiled
again. I couldn't help being skeptical. I was like the
girl who had so many unfulfilled promises that ow
more just weighed her down deeper into a well of
sadness. I'd rather not be promised anything, I.
thought. Disappointment lingered in the shadows,
hungry, eager, ready to pound on my little bit of
hope.
"Louise," we heard, and looked up the stairway.
"The toilet is running over again."
A tall, thin girl with braces and stringy dark hair
looked down at us, her hands on her hips.
"And I wasn't the last one in there," she added
quickly. "Please tell Gordon."
"All right, dear. Don't worry. I'll get him."
Louise laughed. "They get so nervous when something
goes wrong. Gordon fixes everything so

164
RAVEN

quickly. He should. He's been doing it long enough.
I'll just take Raven upstairs," she told Marjorie,
"and then come down to meet with you in the
office."
"Fine. Good-bye, Raven," Marjorie said, hugging
me. "You're going to be just fine," she said.
"I don't know why," I said. "I've never been
before."
She and Louise exchanged troubled looks, and
then I followed Louise up the stairs. The tall girl
watched us for a moment before turning to hurry
down the corridor. I imagined it was to announce
my arrival. We stopped at a room on the left, and
Louise knocked.
"Yes?" a voice called.
Louise opened the door.
"It's just Louise, Brooke, with your new roommate
that I promised."
"Lucky me," Brooke replied. She looked up from
the table upon which she had a tape recorder with
its casing apart. It looked as if she was repairing it.
When she set eyes on me, however, her head
snapped around in a double-take, and she stopped
what she was doing.
"This is Raven. Raven, this is Brooke. You two
are about the same age, so I imagine you have a lot
in common."
"I doubt it," Brooke said.
I smiled at her. "I doubt it, too."
"Oh. Well, Brooke will tell you all about the
Lakewood House and introduce you to the other
girls on the Hoor, won't you, Brooke?"

165

V. C. ANDREWS J

"Do I have a choice?"
"Of course you do, dear."
"Come on," she said in a tired voice. "I'll fill you J
in on Horror Hotel." |
"Brooke!" I
"I'm just teasing, Louise. You know that," i
Brooke said. |
"Of course you are. My girls love it here," Louise |
said. "I'll just go finish with Marjorie, and then I'll |
see you soon after," she told me. "Make yourself at |
home, dear." |
She stepped out, closing the door behind her. j
Brooke and I stared at each other a moment, j
"You meet Gordon yet?" she asked. I shook my
head. "I thought you looked too calm."
"Why? What's he like?"
"He's big, ugly, and mean. Otherwise, he's
okay," she said. ;
I started to smile.
"Haven't you been at other homes?" she asked.
"Just overnight at one. Before that, I've lived
with family."
"Family? What happened?"
"It's a long story," I said dryly, "with a bad
ending."
"Not yet," Brooke said.
"Excuse me?"
"The ending. It's not written yet."
I shrugged. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to fix Butterfly's tape recorder. Someone
dropped it off the stairway. I think I know who."
"Butterfly?"

166

RAVEN

"She's across the hall with Crystal. You'll meet
t them soon. Put your stuff away. You can have half
I the closet and half the dresser. The bathroom's
| 4own the hall."
I "Thanks," I said.
I "Don't thank me. Thank the state."
t She fiddled with the tape recorder as I put things
[ away.
| Someone knocked.
'f "Enter Sesame," Brooke cried, and two girls
entered, one small and dainty and the other wearing
a pair of glasses with lenses thick as goggles.
They both stared at me.
"We heard your roommate arrived," the taller,
very intelligent-looking girl said. Her eyes were
beady and intense. "I'm Crystal, and this is Janet.
We call her Butterfly."
"Hi," Janet said softly. She looked like a doll
magically brought to life. Why wouldn't someone
have snatched her up by now? I wondered.
"Her name's Raven," Brooke said. "She's had a
terrible family life, and she's overjoyed about being
brought here."
"Now, don't get her more depressed," Crystal
ordered. "We do fine here."
"Sure we do. We're the Three Orphanteers,"
Brooke said.
"Now four," Crystal corrected.
Brooke looked at me. "That's up to her," she
said.
I laughed. "What was it you said, do I have a
choice?"

167

V. C. ANDREWS

Brooke laughed. Butterfly beamed a smile, and
Crystal shook her head.
"Let's go down and get some slop," Brooke
decided, standing.
"Slop?"
"Lunch," Crystal said. "And it's not that bad."
"I like to think of it as bad so I get pleasantly
surprised," Brooke said. "Come on."
I started out with them. Crystal fell back.
"It's hard in the beginning," she said, "but you'll
see. You get used to it."
"It can't be any worse than where I've been," I
said.
She nodded. "That's what we all hope."
She walked faster to take Butterfly's little hand,
and we descended.
Out beyond the Lakewood House, in homes
across the country, girls our ages were having their
lunches, or gathering with friends, or sitting with
their families. Their dreams weren't much different
from ours. Could anyone look at us and know we
had only ourselves now? Was there a look, a
gesture, a sound in our voices that betrayed our
loneliness?
I did see it in the other three, the distrust, the
fear, the hesitation. I supposed that in a real sense,
we were sisters, born under the same small and
distant star, surrounded by darkness, waiting,
watching, desperately trying to keep our light
bright.
How many fewer smiles would we have? How
many fewer laughs? How many more tears than all

168

RAVEN

the safe and loved girls our ages? What did we do to
be brought here to this place?
At the bottom of the stairway, they waited for me
to catch up.
"Stick close " Brooke ordered. "You're one of us
now."
"I think I've always been," I muttered.
Brooke smiled.
Butterfly looked sad.
Crystal looked thoughtful.
We continued down the hallway, together. Four
of us closing ranks, hardening, gathering the
strength with which to do battle against loneliness.
Firing up our precious star.
Ly eyes snapped opened to the muffled sound of
whimpering coming through the walls. These rooms
shrank to closets when you squeezed in our desks and
chairs along with a dresser and two beds with a
nightstand between them. To get the most space
possible, the beds were smack against the walls. My
ear was practically part of the wallpaper when I slept.
Two of the new kids we called The Unborn were in
the adjoining room. They sounded like puppies. We
nicknamed them The Unborn because coming here,
living in a foster home, was like being -born again,
only this time to live in limbo. They had been
delivered here yesterday and had spent their iirst
night at the Lakewood House, the place Crystal,
Butterfly, my roommate Raven, and I had christened
Hell House.
Information about any new wards of the state, as we
were known, spread faster than jam on a fresh roll
around here. When it came to learning about one of
The Unborns, everyone was suddenly an attentive
student, and if you overheard something, you almost
felt obligated to be a gossip.
According to Potsy Philips, one of the orphans who
made a habit of picking on each and every new kid
who came to our foster home, these Unborns had no
father. They were alone with their dead mother for
days before anyone noticed or cared.
So what's new about that? I thought. We've been
here for years, and no one's really noticed or eared.
Actually, that's not entirely true. We care about one
another. Not all of the kids get along, but I'm lucky to
have found true friends here, my sisters—Raven,
Crystal, and Janet, whom we call Butterfly because
she is so fragile. We all arrived at the house within
weeks of one another and became fast friends. When
we feel like crying, or our hopes get so low we can't
imagine them ever being high again, or when we have
happy news to share, we know we can count on one
another. And that means more than anything.
I lay in bed wondering if the new orphans would be
as lucky, then realized that it was almost time to rise
and shine. Louise Tooey, our foster mom, would
come knocking on doors in ten minutes, and if you
weren't up and dressed in time, her husband, Gordon,
might follow soon after her, his boots falling like
sledgehammers on the stairs and wooden floors as he
approached your room. If you were still in bed, he was
capable of ripping the blanket off you and glaring
down at you like some giant buzzard, his eyes wide,
popping, his thick lips curled to show his teeth.
"What do you think this is, a hotel? Are you waiting
for breakfast in bed? I have to interrupt my work to
come up here? That's ten demerits1" he would bellow,
his tan face turning dark red, the muscles and veins in
his neck looking like thick rubber bands about to
snap.
Your name would go up on the Big Board, a large
cork bulletin board in the dining room. When you
reached twenty demerits, it was room restriction, a
day for every five points over twenty.
Just looking around at the rooms would explain
why it was a punishment to be restricted to one. We
weren't permitted to put anything on our walls, no
posters, no pictures. Supposedly, that was to protect
the wallpaper, which looked as if it was ready to peel
itself off and roll itself into the garbage anyway. It was
actually buckling in some spots. No radios or CD
players were permitted because the walls were too
thin, and you couldn't possibly play your music low
enough not to disturb someone, especially Gordon
and Louise. If you were lucky enough to be brought
here with a tape deck or something, it had to be stored
in the utility room, and you could have it only during
recreation time. You actually had to sign out and sign
in for your own things!
AH the rooms had two windows. The older resi
dents, like the four of us, had the rooms that had a
view of the lake. We had no curtains, just faded
window blinds, most of which had something wrong
with them so you had to put a pencil in the roller to
keep the blinds down. We were told they were once a
buttercup yellow, and the wallpaper was once the
color of fresh milk with circles as blue as newly
bloomed violets. Now the walls were more the color
of two-week-old hard-boiled eggs, a bruised gray, and
the circles looked more like dead violets, faded and
dried and stuck in someone's book of memories.
Just to make us appreciate where we were lucky
enough to be, Louise liked to describe the Lakewood
House as it had once been when her parents and
grandparents ran it as a resort. She would stop to
check on everyone in the recreation room and then
gaze around and sigh, her eyes glazed with tears as she
drank in the worn oak wood floors, the tired walls,
and the peeling paint on the ceiling.
"In its day, children, this was the most desirable
tourist house in upstate New York, nestled between
two mountains with a lake fed by springwater that
was once so crystal clear you could see the eyes offish
swimming around."
Some of the younger children might smile. It did
sound nice. Now, however, the lake was brackish, full
of weeds, oily on the bottom, and off limits to all of
us. No fishing was permitted. The old dock was
rickety and rotten, and there were two damaged
rowboats nearly completely submerged beside it. If
Gordon caught you within ten feet of that lake, you
received a full twenty-five demerits and one day's
restriction immediately. No one knew what the punishment
might be for a second violation. Gordon left
it to our imaginations. Maybe he would put you in the
barrel.
There was a story going around that Louise and
Gordon kept old pickle barrels in the rear of the
house, and if you were very bad, they put you in the
barrel and close the top with just tiny holes for air.
You were left cramped up in there for days and had to
pee and do your business in your underpants. When
your sentence was over, the barrel was turned on its
side, and you were rolled hundreds of feet before you
were taken out, shaken and dizzy. Most of the younger Unboms nearly wet themselves just hearing about
it When they then saw Gordon come lumbering
down the hallway, his jaw slack, his rust-brown eyes
panning the room and the children for signs of
misbehavior, they shook in their shoes and held their
breath.
Gordon was enough to give any grade-school-age
kid nightmares for life. The fact that he and Louise
became qualified as foster parents is, as Crystal says,
testimony enough to the conclusion that foster chil
dren are on the lowest rung of the social totem pole.
That's the way Crystal talks. You'd think she was
already a college professor or something.
I ground the steep out of my eyes, ran my fingers
through my hair, and sat up. Raven was still dead
asleep, her right leg out and over the blanket, her long
dark hair fanned out over the pillow.
Raven is by far the prettiest of the four of us. Her
face is as beautiful as a model's, and everyone is
jealous of her shoulder-length ebony hair. All she has
to do is shower and shampoo, and her hair gleams as
if a fairy godmother had touched it with her magic
wand.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," I called. She didn't move.
"Miss Raven, honey, it's time to wake up," I sang out.
Nothing, not even a twitch, was visible in her body.
I reached down and scooped my socks out of my
tennis sneakers, rolled them into a ball, and then flung
them across the room, bouncing them off the back of
Raven's lovely head. That got her attention.
"Wha..." She turned, looked at me, and smirked,
sinking back into her pillow as if it were made of
marshmallow.
"Rise and shine, before you-know-who comes
around and does you-know-what," I said, and rose to
open the dresser drawer to pluck out a fresh pair of
panties. We have to share the one dresser, a reject
from a thrift shop, that was here when the first tourist
arrived from New York City, back when the trains
were running and the Lakewood House was listed in a
resort magazine called Summer Homes.
^
"My grandparents began this as a small farm,
couldn't make a living at it, and started to take in
boarders," Louise told us for the four-hundredth time
yesterday. "From that, they developed a well-known
tourist home. My parents were very successful, but
the economy changed, so Gordon and I decided, why
waste all this? Why not do a good deed and become
foster parents? You lucky kids are the beneficiaries."
You lucky kids? Do a good deed? Louise and
Gordon care about someone else besides themselves?
Crystal, who is smart enough to become president
someday, if women could ever become president, told
us bow Louise and Gordon receive money for each
child and how that money grows as the child gets
older, and then how that money is tax-free!
"It's Saturday. Why can't we sleep later on Satur
day?" Raven moaned.
"Bring it up at the next meeting of the directors," I i;
quipped, "You better move your rump. Raven, before
the rug rats take up both bathrooms."
On our floor, we had to share the bathroom with six ^
other orphans. Gordon was always lecturing us about
running the hot water too long. We were convinced he
was the inventor of the two-minute cold shower. The
Lakewood House had its own well with a submersible
pump, so he could threaten us with the horrible
possibility of our running out of water and having to
bring it up in pail loads from the lake. I wanted to
raise my hand and say, "But we're not permitted near
the lake."
"I hate this," Raven flared. For a moment, I stared
at her as if she had said something unexpected.
Yes, I hate it, too, I thought, but neither of us has
had any prospective parents nibbling around us. And
chances were, we never would. Crystal, who was the
only one of us who was computer-literate, spent the
most time of anyone on the home's one donated
computer. She often presented us with wonderful
facts, especially about foster children. On any given
day, she claimed, there were nearly fifty thousand
foster children who no longer live with their mother
or father and have been declared by courts as free to
be adopted but who usually remained in state-run,
state-funded substitute care. Good luck to all of them.
Crystal told us the population of foster children is
growing thirty-three times faster than the U.S. popu
lation in general. Maybe we'll take over the world, I
joked, but no one laughed.
I slipped into my panties and reached for my jeans
just as Crystal burst into our room, her face flushed.
She was still in pajamas, which for Crystal was very
unusual. She was Miss Punctuality.
"What?"
"She's doing it again! She's worse. She's like ...
petrified wood!"
I looked at Raven, who then leaped out of bed,
threw on her robe, and followed Crystal and me to
Crystal and Butterfly's room. There was Butterfly,
with her legs pulled up and in, her hands clenched
into fists, her eyes shut so tight the lids looked sewn
together. Her lips were pursed stiffly, her nostrils
quivering with her heavy breaths. We looked at each
other. Janet Taylor, whom we had named Butterfly
almost from the first day here, went into these cata
tonic trances more and more lately. It didn't exactly
take a rocket scientist to figure out the reason. She was
lonely, fragile, afraid of rejection. For her, going into
this trance was like crawling into a cocoon. Crystal,
our resident child psychologist, said Butterfly was
trying to return to the womb. Raven thought she was
nuts, but I understood. I never said anything, but I
sometimes wished I could go back as well.
I shook Butterfly's upper arm, and her whole body
moved as if it were one frozen piece.
"Butterfly, come on. We're all here. Stop this, now.
You know what's going to happen. Gordon or Louise
is going to come in here and see you and call for the
paramedics or something, and then you'll end up in
some loony ward in a county-run clinic."
I shook her again, but there was no response.
Crystal stepped up beside me. "We need to join,"
she said.
I looked back at the door. "Shut it, Raven."
She did so, and the three of us surrounded the bed,
Raven and I on one side. Crystal on the other. We
looked at each other and then, as if we were all going
underwater, took deep breaths and leaned over so
that our heads touched one another and then touched
Butterfly's. Linked this way, we began our chant. It
was our secret ceremony.
"We're sisters. We will always be sisters. One for all
and all for one. When one is sad, we're all sad. We all
must be happy for one to be happy. We're sisters. We
•will always be sisters."
Butterfly's eyelids fluttered.
"We're sisters," Crystal continued, and we joined
in once more. "We will always be sisters."
Butterfly's eyes opened, and her mouth moved
softly until she was into the chant with us. Then we
stopped and stood back. Butterfly looked from Raven
and me to Crystal.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You're all right now," I reassured her. "Let's get
dressed and get down to breakfast. I'm hungry enough
even to eat what's here."
It had been Crystal who had come up with the
joining and the chant, and all because of Butterfly. It
was really Butterfly who had brought the four of us
together in the first place. No one was more vulner
able here. Crystal was her first protector because she
was rooming with her, and then Raven and I came in
to keep the older girls from taking advantage of both
of them. Crystal used her sharp wit and tongue to put
down anyone who ridiculed Janet for her size and
shyness. Eventually, the three of us circled her like
three older sisters and inevitably became closer to one
another because of it.
Crystal labeled us the Four Ophanteers instead of
the Four Musketeers. We were always saying, "All for
one and one for all." For now and maybe forever, we
were the only family we had.
Crystal said the ritual and the chanting would
defeat our sense of isolation and loneliness. She really
was like a schoolteacher. "Man is a gregarious ani
mal," she lectured. "Religious and meditation groups
favor group recitations. There's security in hearing
other voices saying the same things or making similar
sounds. Touch is intimate and a commitment," she
explained.
I didn't know what it all meant, but I knew it made
sense because it usually worked.
Once again, it had worked this morning, but I
feared the day when it wouldn't.
AB she wanted was to be someone's little girl....
Fate made her a lonely orphan, yearning for the
embrace of a real family and a loving home. But a
golden chance at a new life may not be enough to
escape the dark secrets other past...

don't MISS ANY OF THE FOUR NOVELS
IN THE orphan SERIES

Butterfly
Crystal
Brooke
Raven

all AVAILABLE THIS SUMMER FROM pocket books'

* * only S3.99!

And look for the thrilling V.C. Andrews novel
that brings these girls together: Runaways
Coming this fall!

LOOK FOR ALL THE
THRILLING NOVELS
IN THE V.C. ANDREWS®
ORPHANS MINISERIES
BUTTERFLY
CRYSTAL
BROOKE
RAVEN
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9780671020323

AND THE SERIES'
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RUNAWAYS
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^
C/)> EAN
It was like a magic carpet
to a glamorous new life. . . .

In Brooke's most secret dreams, her mother would
return to the orphanage, full of remorse for having left
her there so long ago. Brooke never imagined a rich
couple who looked like movie stars saying, "We'll take
her," and whisking her away to be their daughter.

Yet Pamela Thompson and her husband, Peter, seem
thrilled to welcome her to their huge, gleaming house.
Soon Brooke is enrolled in a snobby girls school, and
receiving daily lessons in etiquette. Every hour and
every outfit is planned to prepare her for the beauty
pageants Pamela demands that she enter and win. But
Brooke just wants an ordinary family life--and to
play on the school softball team, where her real talents
are appreciated. For only when she's on the field with
her friends can she escape the dreadful feeling that
she must always be obedient... or risk losing her
golden chance for a name, a home, and freedom from
the terrible secrets of her past.

V.C. Andrews* Soaks

Flowers in the Attic
Petals on the Wind
If There Be Thorns
My Sweet Audrina
Seeds of Yesterday
Heaven
Dark Angel
Garden of Shadows
Fallen Hearts
Gates of Paradise
Web of Dreams
Dawn
Secrets of the Morning
.Twilight's Child
Midnight Whispers
Darkest Hour
Ruby
Pearl in the Mist
All That GUtters
Hidden Jewel
Tarnished Gold
Melody
Heart Song
Unfinished Symphony
Music in the Night
Butterfly
Crystal
Brooke


Published by POCKET BOOKS

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9780671020323

AND THE SERIES'
THRILLING CONCLUSION
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^
03> EAN
It -was lifce a magfic carpet
to a glamorous new life. . . .

In Brooke's most secret dreams, her mother would
return to the orphanage, full of remorse for having left
her there so long ago. Brooke never imagined a rich
couple who looked like movie stars saying, "We'll take
her," and whisking her away to be their daughter.

Yet Pamela Thompson and her husband, Peter, seem
thrilled to welcome her to their huge, gleaming house.
Soon Brooke is enrolled in a snobby girls school, and
receiving daily lessons in etiquette. Every hour and
every outfit is planned to prepare her for the beauty
pageants Pamela demands that she enter and win. But
Brooke just wants an ordinary family life--and to
play on the school softball team, where her real talents
are appreciated. For only when she's on the field with
her friends can she escape the dreadful feeling that
she must always be obedient... or risk losing her
golden chance for a name, a home, and freedom from
the terrible secrets other past.

$4 99 CAN
9780671020323
LOOK FOR ALL THE
THRILLING NOVELS
IN THE V.C. ANDREWS®
ORPHANS MINISERIES
BUTTERFLY
CRYSTAL
BROOKE
RAVEN
AVAILABLE THIS SUMMER
FROM POCKET BOOKS

AND THE SERIES'
THRILLING CONCLUSION
RUNAWAYS
COMING THIS FALL FROM
POCKET BOOKS



C/)> EAN

It ~wa0 like a magfic carpet
to a clamorous new life. . . .

In Brooke's most secret dreams, her mother would
return to the orphanage, full of remorse for having left
her there so long ago. Brooke never imagined a rich
couple who looked like movie stars saying, "Well take
her," and whisking her away to be their daughter.

Yet Pamela Thompson and her husband, Peter, seem
thrilled to welcome her to their huge, gleaming house.
Soon Brooke is enrolled in a snobby girls school, and
receiving daily lessons in etiquette. Every hour and
every outfit is planned to prepare her for the beauty
pageants Pamela demands that she enter and win. But
Brooke just wants an ordinary family life--and to
play on the school softball team, where her real talents
are appreciated. For only when she's on the field with
her friends can she escape the dreadful feeling that
she must always be obedient... or risk losing her
golden chance for a name, a home, and freedom from
the terrible secrets of her past

It "was like a magic carpet
to a clamorous new life.

In Brooke's most secret dreams, her mother would
return to the orphanage, full of remorse for having left
her there so long ago. Brooke never imagined a rich
couple who looked like movie stars saying, "We'll take
her," and whisking her away to be their daughter.

Yet Pamela Thompson and her husband, Peter, seem
thrilled to welcome her to their huge, gleaming house.
Soon Brooke is enrolled in a snobby girls school, and
receiving daily lessons in etiquette. Every hour and
every outfit is planned to prepare her for the beauty
pageants Pamela demands that she enter and win. But
Brooke just wants an ordinary family life--and to
play on the school softball team, where her real talents
are appreciated. For only when she's on the field with
her friends can she escape the dreadful feeling that
she must always be obedient... or risk losing her
golden chance for a name, a home, and freedom from
the terrible secrets of her past.