Heat Lightning

Chapter One

It was a Friday afternoon, on a hot day in June 1984. I had just gotten home from school. My father was in his office, working. My mother was in the kitchen, cutting vegetables. The house was full of boxes, and half of our furniture was gone. Both my sisters were still not home.

"I want you to take a look at this brochure," my mother said. She handed it to me. My younger sister, aged thirteen, burst through the door.

"Hi," she said. "I can't wait to move to California!"

Camp Pinewood Lake Retreat, the brochure read. I didn't care if it was in the mountains of sunny California, I didn't want to go. "I don't think so, Mom," I said, handing her back the brochure.

"Well, now, you haven't even looked at it," my mother complained.

I walked back to my bedroom and closed the door. How could my parents spring this on me? I was sixteen, we were moving to a new country, and now they wanted me to go to a retreat there too? I heard a knock on my door. "Who is it?" I yelled.

"Me." It was my older sister, Sabrina.

"Come in."

Sabrina, who was eighteen, was standing there with my mother. She was eating an apple. My mother was holding the brochure. "What's this?" she asked, examining the brochure after taking it from my mother. They both came into my room. "Oh, Jenni, this is perfect for you." Sabrina's voice softened. "You need this."

"Get lost!" I said, jumping onto my bed and pulling the covers over my head. Even though I was acting silly, I really respected my sister Sabrina's opinions, and I knew my mother took good care of me. I loved them both. According to the brochure, the staff at Camp Pinewood were equipped to help teens who deal with difficult emotions. I pulled the covers off and then looked at my mother and sister and let out a loud dramatic sigh. "Oh, I'll try it, then!"

"Thank you, Jenni," my mother said, coming over and hugging me.

"It looks like a gorgeous place," Sabrina said. "I'm actually jealous."

"Then feel free to take my place," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Jenni, you're my good girl," my father said, coming into my room and kissing me on the top of the head. My father. I loved my father. In fact, I idolized him. But lately, there had been an excessive amount of arguing around our household, mostly involving Tami and me. My father was actually a psychologist, and he and my mother had met back in university. (My mother was an accountant. I guess opposites attracted.) But despite his profession, he was not able to make things right in our household. He was too close to us to treat us like his patients, after all. He could not be our father and our therapist at the same time.

The arguing between my sister and me was because my younger sister bullied me. I was a sensitive loner who kept to myself and preferred quiet activities like reading, creative writing, drawing and painting, and crocheting. My sister Tami was a hyperactive social butterfly who thought I was a freak, just because I was different from her. That's what I thought. Not that I didn't react to her, or even start fights at times.

The rest of the family respected my need for space but were worried that I didn't spend much time with friends. I had friends, I just didn't spend much time with them. My other issues were that I had a temper, I was impulsive, and neurotic. This made me difficult to be around, at times. The longer I isolated myself, the worse my social skills got.

My family sat down to dinner.

"Two more sleeps and we're moving to California," Tami announced. "Bye-bye, Canada."