Storms 01 - Family Storms

junk. Then I can have them here two or three days a week.” she turned back to me. “I heard you made quite an impression on some of the girls in your class.”
    “Oh?” Mrs. March said.
    “Yes,” Kiera said. “She’s got them all limping.”
    She laughed at her own joke just as Mrs. Duval brought in her dinner. Mrs. March sat back, looking as if all of the air had gone out of her lungs. I began to eat my dessert. Kiera was an expert when it came to throwing her mother off, I thought. First, she frustrated her with her responses, and then she went on to talk about things that she knew would interest her mother: what the other girls were wearing, what she had learned about where their parents went for the summer, and who had bought what for their homes.
    I began to feel invisible again and asked to be excused.
    “I want to finish my homework and practice the clarinet fundamentals,” I said. They were like magic words for Mrs. March. I, too, knew how to manipulate her when I wanted to do that, but it didn’t make me feel any better to compare myself with Kiera. She looked at me with a mixture of anger and awe. She realized then that I was more than a street girl. I could play on her field. I was a much faster learner than she had expected, and for the first time, I thought she might be afraid of me. I could almost hear her concerns.
    For the first time in a long time, since Alena’s death, actually, there was real competition in the house for herparents’ attention. Soon it might be for their love, as well, and that was more than she could stand.
    Maybe, Mama,
I thought,
this is how we get our revenge, our justice.
    Why else would I be there?

19
Nightmares
    B ecause I really believed I had seen those things in Kiera’s face that night, I began to settle more comfortably into school, as well as into the mansion. I made some acquaintances in my classes, but no one struck me as a possible best girlfriend. Maybe it was because of my limp. Maybe it was because of my looks. Or maybe it was because of the rumors that circulated about me, rumors Kiera probably had planted. Whatever the cause, I felt a gap between me and the other girls, a gap that seemed to be widening and not narrowing with every passing day.
    As the first weeks and then months went by, I heard of parties some girls in my classes had, but no one ever invited me to any. I knew there were girls who got together on the weekends and went to movies or to hang out in malls, where they could flirt with boys, but no one had asked me to join them. Sometimes I felt that girls were friendly to me just in the hope that I would invite them to the Marchhouse. When they talked about it and I said nothing, they usually drifted away.
    Mrs. March continually asked me about my days at school and how I was getting along with the other girls. I tried to sound as upbeat as I could, and she accepted it, either because she believed it or because she wanted to believe it. Reports about my initial work began to flow back to her and Mr. March. When he was home for dinner, he would compliment me about it, and Kiera would either sulk or try to ignore it. What really got to her, I thought, was how quickly I was picking up the skills to play the clarinet. Mr. March was even more impressed than Mrs. March and came to my suite a few times to listen to me practicing.
    Kiera tried her best to make my accomplishments sound insignificant, especially after I played my first piece of music just before dinner one night in the living room. She didn’t want to listen, but both Mr. and Mrs. March insisted. I tried not to look her way, because her sour expression was enough to make Mr. Denacio himself fumble the notes.
    “I can’t believe how quickly she learned how to read music,” Mr. March said when I finished.
    “Maybe she already knew,” Kiera suggested. “From her old school.”
    “We had no orchestra, no band,” I said. “The school had major cutbacks in financing, and art and music were dropped.”
    “We know that to be true,” Mr. March said.
    “Well, her mother might have taught her stuff,” Kiera insisted.
    “I don’t think so,” Mrs. March said, her eyes fixed on mewith such adoration I had to blush. “She had other things on her agenda.” She turned to Kiera. “Like survival.”
    Frustrated, Kiera went into retreat. She didn’t say anything more about me or my past. When our first report cards came out and I had all A’s, she was practically a candidate