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Watcher
by
L. A. Weatherly
For my husband
First American edition published in 2012 by Stoke Books, an imprint of Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, EH3 7LP
www.stokebooks.com
Copyright © 2007 L. A. Weatherly
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written permission of Barrington Stoke Ltd, except for inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
A catalog record for this book is available from
the US Library of Congress
Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publisher Services, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401
www.lernerbooks.com.
ISBN 978-1-78112-107-8 (Hard Cover)
ISBN 978-1-78112-106-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-78112-108-5 (eBook)
Printed in China
Contents
1
The E-mail
1
2
Waiting Game
8
3
I’m Watching You
16
4
Do You Want Something?
22
5
Reality TV
29
6
Mom’s House
36
7
Secrets
42
Chapter 1
The E-mail
Some people just have really bad luck.
Maybe they’re fat, or they’ve got acne. Maybe
they don’t have any friends. Worst of all,
there’s no one they can blame. It’s just the
way things are.
Not me. I’m fat. I don’t have any friends.
But I know exactly who to blame.
My mom.
She’d been gone for more than seven years
when I found the e-mails.
1
I was in my dad’s room, on the computer. I was trying to log on as my dad. I was bored,
and I wanted to go on the Internet. There are
only a few sites my dad lets me go onto by
myself, and they’re all really stupid.
It was easy to break into his account. His
password is Sarah. That’s my name, and it
wasn’t hard to figure that one out. But then,
instead of going onto the Internet, I looked at
his e-mails. I don’t know why. He never gets
anything interesting.
But I looked at them anyway. And I felt
sick. I just sat and stared at the computer
screen.
The last e-mail he’d sent was to Ann Young.
I started to shake. He’d sent it last night.
He’d written to my mom just last night!
But how? We didn’t know where she was.
She’d just vanished one day when I was six
years old. She’d left a note that said, “Sorry,
but I’m not cut out for this.” She took all of
her things. She didn’t even say goodbye to me.
At first my dad tried to find her. Then he gave
2
up and told me that it was just the two of us from then on.
That’s when my life started to go wrong. I
put on tons of weight. The stuck-up girls at
school all laughed at me. I hated everyone,
and they hated me. Now, seven years later, I
was still fat and I still didn’t have any friends.
And now my father was sending my mom e-
mails!
I clicked onto the e-mail. It said:
Ann,
I’m not asking you to come back and be her
mom. But can’t you just see her sometime? Or talk to her on the phone? She deserves some answers!
You’re living so close now that it seems sil y for the two of you to never meet.
I felt cold all over. Mom was living nearby?
Since when? Then I saw that she’d answered
Ted, I only told you I’m in Midland in case you
ever saw me. I don’t want to see Sarah, or talk to her. Don’t ask me again. It’s for the best.
3
For the best? My mouth dropped open, and then anger rushed through me. My mom was
living only three miles away, in the next town,
and she wouldn’t even talk to me!
“Sarah?” I heard someone shout. It was
my dad. He had just gotten home from work. I
shut down his e-mail. When he came into the
room I was playing an online game, looking
innocent.
“How was school?” he asked.
“Great,” I said. School is never great, but
it’s a lot better than it used to be. I used to
get called “blimp” and all kinds of stuff, until I
fought back a few times. Now everyone just
ignores me.
“Is everything OK?” asked Dad. He took his
jacket off. He looked tired. He’s the manager
of a big supermarket, but I don’t think he likes
it very much.
“Fine,” I told him. I didn’t look up at him.
Inside, I felt like shouting. Or crying. Or both.
My own mother didn’t want to see me.
4
A spaceship floated past on the screen, and I blasted it. It exploded into a million pieces.
********
Midland is only a few minutes away on the
bus. I went there that Saturday. It was a cold,
sunny day in October. I wore my dad’s old
coat. It’s the only coat I have that fits me, but
it makes me look like a whale. I told myself I
didn’t care. At least it was warm.
I walked slowly up and down the streets of
Midland. The houses all looked the same.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I knew
there wouldn’t be a sign that said, “Sarah
Young, your mom lives here!” But there had to
be something. Some sort of clue.
After a while I felt out of breath. I’m not
used to walking so much. The tops of my legs
rubbed together through my jeans, and I felt
like giving up.
Then I saw it. I stopped walking, and just
stared.
There was a little house on the corner of a
street. The front yard was messy and
5
overgrown. And there was an old red sports car parked in front of it.
My hands felt cold. I remembered that car,
I was sure I did! I remembered sitting in the
back seat and feeling scared because Mom was
driving so fast. I remembered throwing up all
over the seats once. I thought Mom’d be mad
at me, but she was really nice. She wiped off
my face with a cool cloth and gave me a kiss.
I went over and peered in the back window.
I could tell it was the same car. The back seats
were all cracked, and there was gray masking
tape all over the cracks. I remembered the
pattern. I
used to think it was like a spider
web.
I looked at the house. There were curtains
on the front windows. It was the middle of the
day but the curtains were shut. Maybe the
person inside the house didn’t want to see the
sunlight.
Or maybe they didn’t want anyone to see
them.
I touched the car. The doors were locked.
I looked back at the house again, and I felt
6
sick. My mom was in there. I just knew it.
Part of me wanted to go and bang on her door
and make her talk to me.
But then I thought of her e-mail.
I remembered what she’d written to Dad. She
didn’t want anything to do with me.
I felt like I was going to explode. I had to
do something! I put my hands into my coat
pockets and felt my keys. I took them out. Did
I dare?
I dragged the key across the door of my
mom’s car. It made a long scratch in the red
paint. I made another scratch, and then
another.
When I was finished, I turned around and
went home. My heart was pounding hard. I’d
never done anything like that in my life. But
she deserved it.
7
Chapter 2
Waiting Game
something to happen. I thought my mother’d
call my dad and tell him what I’d done. I was
sure she’d know it was me. But nothing
happened.
I was in a worse mood than normal when I
got to school on Monday. I kept remembering
things that I thought I’d forgotten. Like, when I
was five I lost a doll that Mom gave me. It had
been her doll when she was little. I was scared
sick of telling her it was gone. I never knew
when she might get mad about something. I
8
mean, really mad – throwing things and screaming.
But when I told her, she just laughed and
bought me a new doll. It had curly dark hair
and a frilly dress.
“There,” she said. “That’s a million times
better than the old one, isn’t it?” So it turned
out to be OK. But I felt sick and nervous, too.
It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I
remember that I had that feeling a lot when
Mom was around. I never knew what to
expect.
I had all those memories to think about, so
I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. But Beth
Sands came up to me when I was standing in
line for lunch.
“Hi, Sarah,” she said.
Beth is tiny. She’s hardly even five feet
tall. She has a thin, white face and limp
blonde hair. She doesn’t have any friends
either. But that didn’t mean I wanted to talk
to her.
I ignored her, but she acted like she didn’t
notice. She stood next to me in line like we
9
were best friends. “I was thinking about our English project,” she said.
“What about it?” I snapped. I held my plate
out, and the lunch lady scooped some chicken
nuggets and fries onto it. The chicken nuggets
were pale and soggy. The food’s gross at our
school.
“Well …” Beth looked down at her feet and
then up at me again. “We’re supposed to write
a story with someone, and I thought maybe
you’d be my partner. It’d be really cool. You
could come over to my house to talk about
ideas.”
I stared at her. Was she crazy? I carried
my tray over to an empty table. Beth followed
me.
“Well? What do you think?” She smiled,
and I felt a burst of anger.
“No way,” I said. “What would I want to be
your partner for?”
Beth looked as if I’d slapped her. “I just
thought …”
10
“Leave me alone!” I shoved my face right up to hers. “I mean it,” I said in a low voice.
“Or you’ll be sorry.”
Beth walked away quickly, looking as if she
was going to cry. I ate lunch by myself.
I don’t care if I’ve hurt her feelings, I told
myself. She’s a total loser. What would I want
to be friends with her for?
Dad wasn’t there when I got home that
afternoon. He works shifts, and a lot of times
he’s not home until late. Sometimes the house
feels too silent, and then I have to switch on all
the lights and turn the TV up loud.
I went right into Dad’s room and checked
his e-mail again. There wasn’t anything there.
Mom still hadn’t written to him about the
scratches on her car.
Good. I stood up and turned off the
computer. I’d gotten away with it, and now I
could just forget about her. So what if she
didn’t want to be a part of my life? I didn’t
want her to be, either!
But as I did my homework I kept
remembering more and more things. Like the
11
way Mom used to hug me before I went to bed at night, and the perfume she always wore. I
couldn’t see my homework sheet very well any
more. I wasn’t crying. I just had something in
my eye.
At last I went into the kitchen and grabbed
a big bag of chips. I ripped open the bag and
shoved the chips into my mouth in big, salty
handfuls. I felt myself relax as I gulped them
down. I know that’s why I’m fat. It’s because I
eat so much. I can’t help it. It makes me feel
better.
When I’d finished the chips, my stomach
felt like it was going to burst. But I’d thought
of a plan. I threw the bag in the trash and
went and turned on Dad’s computer again.
I logged onto Hotmail and opened a new
e-mail account. I called it IM.WATCHING.U.
Then I got my mom’s e-mail address and I
wrote her this:
YOU’RE NOT AS SMART AS YOU THINK YOU
ARE. WE’RE WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE.
YOU’RE GOING TO BE PUNISHED FOR WHAT
YOU DID, AND IT’S GOING TO HURT! BE VERY,
VERY AFRAID.
12
SIGNED,
AN ENEMY
The rest of that week I hurried home from
school to check my e-mail. Sometimes I even
checked it at lunch, from the computers in the
library. My Hotmail mailbox was always
empty. So after a few days I sent her another
e-mail, even worse than the first one. Then
another one after that.
I knew I could get into terrible trouble. I
think there’s even a law that says you
shouldn’t send threatening e-mails. The police
could have arrested me if they found out what
I was doing. But I couldn’t seem to stop.
It didn’t matter anyway. She never wrote
back to me.
That Saturday, Dad had the day off for a
change. He smiled at me as we ate breakfast.
“Do you feel like going someplace, Sarah? We
could take a drive up to Traverse City and
make a day of it.”
Normally I’d have been thrilled if Dad said
he’d like to do something with me. Most of the
time, on his days off, he’s too tired, and just
13
wants to watch TV. Most of the time he takes his days off when I’m at school. But going to
Traverse City today was the last thing I
wanted to do.
“Thanks anyway.” I kept my head down as
I ate so he couldn’t see my face. “But I’ve
already got plans.”
“Really?” He looked surprised. “What are
you going to do?”
I shrugged. “I’m meeting a friend of mine
at the mall. Beth.”
He was so glad to hear that I finally had a
friend. He asked me a million questions about
her. I told him all I knew, and made up the
stuff I didn’t. Beth and me, friends – ha, that
was hilarious!
“Well, have fun,” said Dad as I left the
house later.
“I will,” I said. I tried to sound cheerful.
Once I got outside, I hurried to the bus stop.
The bus was already standing there, and I had
to run. The doors closed just before I got to
them. I banged on them with my hand.
14
“Please!” I shouted.
The doors opened again. “Well, come on,
hon, hurry up,” said the driver. He looked
grumpy.
I climbed up the stairs, breathing hard.
The money clinked as I dropped the coins into
the slot. “Midland, please.”
15
Chapter 3
I’m Watching You
Mom’s old red sports car was gone.
I stood in the road, looking at the place in
the street where it had been. Had she even
noticed the scratches? I pulled my coat around
myself. The sun was out but even so, I was
cold.
I hadn’t had a plan. I just knew I needed to
see my mom. I don’t mean I wanted to talk to
her. But I wanted to see her face again,
because it had gone fuzzy in my mind. And I
wanted her to see me, too. I wanted her to
16
look out her window and know who I was. She had to stop ignoring me.
My hands turned into fists as I stared at
her house. The weeds looked even worse this
time. Her front yard was like a jungle.
Without thinking, I started to walk towards the
door.
“Are you looking for someone?” shouted a
voice. I spun around. An old woman was
standing in a doorway across the street. She