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Chapter Fifteen: The Other Mother
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42 Chapter Fifteen The Other Mother “Hey, Mrs. Burlingame!” I shout while waving at her kitchen window. Standing on top of the monkey bars, I stretch across the school boundary fence toward her house, waving frantically, but she doesn’t seem to notice. But her husband does. He closes the kitchen curtains. Mrs. Burlingame is my third grade teacher, though sometimes I accidentally call her “Mom.” I know she isn’t my mother, but I can’t stop hoping that she will adopt me if my mother dies. Mrs. Burlingame knows nothing of this hope. As I hang off the monkey bars, I can’t understand why Mr. Burlingame has closed the kitchen curtains. Maybe he didn’t see me hanging off the bars, waving five feet from their window. Through their living room curtains , I can see Mrs. Burlingame sitting on her couch reading the paper. I start waving and shouting “hello” again. Mr. Burlingame walks over and closes these drapes. Now I know he finds me a nuisance. With all their drapes tightly closed, I remain on the monkey bars in the empty playground, dreading going home, wishing Mr. Burlingame didn’t find me a pest. If he wasn’t there, I’m sure Mrs. Burlingame would invite me over. Just because school is over for the day, she can’t suddenly find me a pest. They need to know about my big plans since they take place in their large home. All of their children are grown and moved out, leaving an empty room in their peaceful house for me. On the first day of school, Mrs. Burlingame had asked me, “Aren’t you the girl that used to have that pretty long hair?” I didn’t know her yet and was worried about why she had noticed me. I figured my other teachers had already warned her about my D’s in Citizenship, my father in jail, my poor penmanship, my mother with cancer, and my speech problem. But before school started, I had cut my hair off to make sure one more year wouldn’t be spent with a cruel teacher yanking it every time I did something wrong. Now all my hair rests in a paper bag in Mom’s dresser drawer, safe from cruel teachers. Standing on the monkey bars and shorthaired , I imagine what it would be like to have Mrs. Burlingame brush Diane Payne 43 my long hair while sitting next to her on the couch. But there is no more hair and the drapes are pulled. As the sky darkens, Mrs. Burlingame walks into her yard and offers me a few peanut butter cookies and a glass of milk. Instead of walking around the playground, I climb the fence, hoping to impress her with my strength, but she looks worried as I rip my shirt coming down on her side of the fence. “Don’t you have to go home after school?” she asks. “Of course, but not right away.” We sit on lawn chairs eating our cookies. Now that I’m finally in her yard, I don’t know what to say. “Did you just make these cookies?” “After school.” “They’re the best I ever had,” I say, certain she made them especially for me. When the cookies are finished, I know it’s time to walk back home down the half-mile hill. I thank Mrs. Burlingame for the cookies, leaving her quiet home behind, slowly cutting through the alleys and looking over fences at dogs, wondering if my dad will be home for dinner or at a bar drinking. I feel guilty for having not gone home right away to make dinner , making Mom have to cook, knowing she’s not feeling well. I wonder what Mrs. Burlingame is having for dinner and figure it won’t be frozen fish sticks and a box of macaroni and cheese. That’s what we’ll be having. That night I write a story about my dog Pepper. Mrs. Burlingame wants the class to write stories about people who are important to us, but it seems like all my important humans would make a sad story. Pepper’s different. He’s stuck at home, not dying or drinking, just waiting for someone to play with him. A few days after I hand my story in, Mrs. Burlingame asks if she can talk with me after school. I agree and then spend the entire day worrying about what I did...