a deadly storm, an unsolved disappearance, and a small town brimming with secrecy;
an outcast girl, a boy who only knows how to hide, and the world against them;
what could go wrong?
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Dinner the previous night had been more than uncomfortable. After her weird encounter with the neighbor, Boo stayed in the house taking care of a few odds and ends until Martha returned. She'd then been on the receiving end of a stern scolding from Martha, demanding she get along with Lori.
"I can't promise anything," Boo said, rather facetiously. "I'm a calm individual but Lori has the ability to make the Pope swear."
Her punishment is accompanying Martha the next day to the shelter downtown to help prepare for the impending hurricane. Boo is forced awake at the crack of dawn, fueled by two strong cups of coffee and a generous serving of scrambled eggs.
"How come Lori never gets roped into helping?" Boo asks from the passenger seat of the truck.
"Because your mother never picks up when I call her," Martha answers bitterly, although Boo can detect a melancholy edge to her words. As hard as Martha tried, Lori would never love her in the way she wanted.
Boo decides to take her grandmother's advice and swallow her pride. She puts a hand on Martha's arm and offers her a genuine smile. "I love you, Nana."
Martha suddenly appears to be welling up. She gently pats the back of Boo's hand. "I love you too, baby."
It isn't until then that Boo realizes that while she often thought of Martha as the mother she never had, it never occurred to her that to Martha, Boo is the daughter Lori could never be.
At the shelter, Boo does her best not to complain. She folds blankets, organizes donated clothes by size, stacks hundreds of cans of perishables, and does anything else requested of her with a bright smile and an eager nod.
Chin up, big smile. Good girl, Melita. Sit. Roll over.
Anything to blend into the woodwork for a day.
At one point, she even tries to make conversation with the shelter workers around her. During a packed-lunch-making session, Boo and four other people are standing in strategic places around a folding table. Each person has a specific item to contribute to the myriad of paper bags laid out on the table; Boo's prerogative is adding an applesauce and plastic spoon to each bag.
"So, how was everyone's morning?" Boo asks genially, glancing up to find that only two of the four people at the table are even looking at her. The girl holding a stack of sandwiches keeps her back to Boo as she slowly rounds the table, dropping a sandwich into each bag with a gentle thump. The boy to Boo's right has shaggy blonde hair that just brushes the tops of his ears. He flashes her a grimace in response and returns to glumly putting pretzel sticks into snack bags.
The other two at the table, a brother and sister pair, exchange wordless, dubious looks with one another. The boy keeps his head down while the girl sneaks a daring look up at Boo; when their eyes meet, she rapidly looks away and goes back to her work.
