Chapter Twenty-One

“Okay.” The social worker, Mr. Jordan, pulled up in front of a small tract house that had once been white. “This is it. Your aunt’s house.” He turned around in the driver’s seat until he faced Taylor and Zac. The smile that stretched across his face was too wide and too bright to be sincere.

Taylor and Zac stared back at him, neither of them flickering an eyelash. “I don’t have an aunt,” Zac said, quietly.

“You do.” Mr. Jordan nodded emphatically. “Your aunt Miranda. You two are going to live with her for a while now.”

“But we don’t want to,” Taylor told him.

“Your aunt is a nice lady. You’ll like her once you meet her,” Mr. Jordan promised.

Neither of them answered him.

Aunt Miranda seemed like a giant, but she couldn’t have been more than five foot four. She wore a bright pink dress with a wide, blowsy skirt that ended just above her knees, which were hairy. Her snow white calves were encased in tan support hose, her feet laced into brown orthopedic shoes. Her arms, which were bare, were covered in sagging, freckled skin, which jiggled entrancingly with every move she made. Aunt Miranda’s hands were scary though; small and venous, with long fake nails that looked like claws.

Her hair looked like orange steel wool, the skin of her face bright red with broken capillaries. She wore huge glasses that covered half her face, and a lot of her teeth were missing. She had jowls that sagged past her chin and a good start at a mustache and beard. Her voice was high and cackley, grating from her six-pack a day cigarette habit. Taylor gaped up at her, open mouthed.

“I fink Aunt Miranda is a boy,” Zac whispered, taking his thumb out of his mouth for a second.

“Yeah,” Taylor whispered back.

“Well, hello there!” Aunt Miranda screeched. “I’m your Aunt Miranda!” She narrowed her eyes at Mr. Jordan. “I never heard that there were two.”

“There are three,” Mr. Jordan clarified. “Isaac’s still in the hospital.”

“I get more money for three, right?” Aunt Miranda asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Jordan admitted, slowly. “There is greater compensation for each additional child.”

Aunt Miranda squinted at Zac. “This one looks younger than I bargained for. Is he house trained?”

“What’s that mean?” Zac whispered to Taylor.

“It means, do you go pee on the rug,” Taylor informed him, quietly.

“I don’t go pee on the rug!” Zac exclaimed, horrified.

“Well, that’s nice to know.” Aunt Miranda pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose in distaste. “How old is that one?”

Mr. Jordan glanced down at his clipboard. “Four,” he said.

“I’m six and three quarters,” Taylor piped. “I can watch him.”

Aunt Miranda ignored this. “No, that’s too young. I don’t want one that little.”

“It might take a while,” Mr. Jordan cautioned. “A day or two, maybe, to find him a placement.”

“You’re going to take us someplace else?” Taylor was overjoyed. “Can we go back and live with Dan and Nora?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Aunt Miranda told him. “One is all I can take, and he’s sorta cute.”

Taylor’s lower lip quivered, and he tried to stop it. “Zac’s sorta cute.”

“He’s too little,” Aunt Miranda repeated, forcefully. “And don’t talk so much.”

“Zac,” Taylor whispered, “maybe you can go back to live with Dan and Nora.”

“Maybe.” Zac hoped so. He didn’t want to stay here. “I don’t want to go without you.”

“If you really feel incapable of taking care of two kids,” Mr. Jordan said, “we can find a temporary placement for Zac.”

“Do that,” Aunt Miranda said. “You do that.”

Never before in his life had Taylor been too upset to cry. He stared out of the living room for a long time after Mr. Jordan had pulled out of the driveway, taking Zac with him. Everybody’s gone but me, Taylor thought. Ike, and Mommy and Dan and Nora, and now Zac. His stomach twisted. It was the first time in his life he’d been completely alone.

“Get yourself in here!” Aunt Miranda screeched, and it took Taylor a long time to realize she was talking to him. “Will you hurry up?”

Taylor trudged into the kitchen, his head down. The floor was covered in ugly shag carpeting of a dirty-looking gold. Judging by the multiple areas of discoloration that marred the rug and the six or seven cats that seemed to be roaming the house freely, house-training was not as much of an issue with Aunt Miranda as she had made it out to be. The kitchen, Taylor discovered, was far worse.

The stovetop was brown with solidified grease, and something orange and sticky had left a slimy trail down the front of the refrigerator. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes and even now, in broad daylight, cockroaches scurried back and forth, unencumbered. There were three more cats wandering around on the countertops, and Aunt Miranda had apparently tried to solve the house-training issue by pouring several bags of cat litter onto the cracked linoleum floor. Taylor bit his lip and was careful where he stepped.

“You are the slowest child,” Aunt Miranda chastened him. “What’s your name again?”

“Taylor,” Taylor whispered.

“Speak up, child,” Aunt Miranda took a long drag on her cigarette and rolled her eyes.

“Taylor,” Taylor said, at a normal level.

“Can’t you talk any louder than that?” Aunt Miranda screeched.

“TAYLOR!” Taylor bellowed.

“Not that loud,” Aunt Miranda adjusted her bra strap and scratched at the hair beneath her chin. “I’m not deaf.”

She slurped on the open can of beer that was sitting on the table in front of her, her fishy eyes directed on Taylor. “Now, here are the rules.”

“Rules?” Taylor liked rules. If you knew what the rules were, all you had to do was follow them. You would never get in trouble if you always followed the rules. Unless somebody changed them and didn’t tell you.

“First, don’t bother me,” Aunt Miranda said. “Don’t cry, don’t whine, and don’t tell me that you want to leave. . . I don’t want to hear it.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t make messes in my house, either.”

“I won’t,” Taylor promised.

“No drinking or smoking,” Aunt Miranda’s eyes glazed over. She seemed to forget who Taylor was for a moment. “Especially no smoking pot. And keep that floozy you call a girlfriend away from the house.”

Taylor’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t. . . I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Don’t talk back to me!” Aunt Miranda shrieked. Taylor’s lower lip quivered. Aunt Miranda leaned forward.

“And if you cry,” she threatened, “I will lock you in the basement.”

Taylor swallowed hard. “Don’t lock me in the basement,” he whispered.

“That’s where smartass little boys go,” Aunt Miranda told him. “You better watch it.”

Taylor backed out of the room slowly, his eyes locked on his aunt. The basement? It sounded scary. He didn’t think he’d like the basement.

Taylor crept into the living room and crawled behind the couch. He would take up as little room as he could in this house, and maybe aunt Miranda would forget he was there. Maybe he could leave after that, and go find Isaac and Zac. He wished they were here right now. He could survive this, if they were.

A emaciated looking cat slunk underneath the coffee table and stared up at Taylor, accusingly. It didn’t look like a nice cat, not like Gallagher, but Taylor reached out to pet it anyway, hoping it would like him. The cat shrunk away from his hand, snarling angrily, and the empty space that had been growing in the pit of Taylor’s stomach grew five times bigger in the space of a second. Taylor dug his fists into his eyes, willing himself not to cry, but he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. He buried his face in his hands and choked back his sobs, so that Aunt Miranda wouldn’t hear him. He didn’t want to stay here. This was a bad place, and he wanted to leave right now.

“I wish I had a fairy godmother,” Taylor managed to whisper through his tears, but he already knew he didn’t have one.

Chapter Twenty-Two?

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