Taking Terri Mueller. Norma Fox Mazer

was lying on the floor in shorts and tee shirt with her English book propped open on her stomach. She was reading a play about Nathan Hale, but thinking about Shaundra Smith, a girl in her gym class.

      “I like Nancy,” she said.

      “She likes you.” He was wearing cutoffs, his bare hairy legs swinging over the arm of the old red couch. “Interesting, isn’t it,” he said, “how she’s alone with her son, and I’m alone with you.”

      “But she has a lot of relatives,” Terri said. Nancy had a sister in Ohio, a brother in New Orleans, parents in Florida, and as she said, “countless relatives everywhere else in the world.” Another difference was that while Terri’s mother had died in a car crash, Leif’s father had walked out on him even before he was bom.

      “Do you like Nancy enough to, ah, for her to—” Her father, with an odd little smile on his face, cleared his throat, and Terri realized what he was going to say.

      “You want to marry Nancy?” she blurted. They had always teased and joked about the ladies who liked him, and would this one or that one make her a good step-mother.

      He looked relieved. “You really get down to the nitty gritty, daughter. The answer to your question is, Maybe. And if so, not right this instant.”

      “But you’re thinking about it?”

      “Let’s just say I’m checking in with you on the idea. Nothing definite, nothing but an idea . . .”

      “Okay, swell.” She felt a rush of emotion and bewilderment. Daddy and her living with other people? She’d have to get used to that. They wouldn’t just go moving around, would they, if he got married? Where would they live? Would she have to call Nancy “Mother”?

      “Hey—” Her father nudged her leg with his bare foot. “I’m not doing anything in a rush. And I’m not doing anything you’re not going to agree to. Nothing is changing today, or tomorrow, or for a long time.”

      “Okay,” she said. She picked up her English book again, but she wasn’t concentrating. “It would be nice to have a real family,” she said after a while.

      He was sipping a cold beer. “Oh, we’re not real?”

      “No, I mean—you know. Parents. Two. Like other people.”

      He held the beer can to his cheek. “Give me a break, honey. Must be plenty of other kids have only one parent.”

      “Yes, but—” She shook her head, felt suddenly tight, and wanted to end the conversation. He was right—there were always kids around who were living with just one parent, and sometimes a kid whose mother or father had died. But all the same, it was never the same. Terri didn’t know why, only that in some mysterious way she wasn’t like other kids.

      At the door Barkley moaned his take-me-out sound. Her father got the leash. Terri sat up. “Daddy? I’ve been thinking about my mother, and—Daddy, I don’t know anything about her.” He snapped the clip on the leash. “I think you should tell me some things.”

      “Terri, that’s the past.” He straightened up, held Barkley on a short leash. “You’re growing up, almost a young lady . . . and you’re beautiful. You’ve got everything ahead of you. Why be morbid?”

      “I want . . . I just want . . .” Her voice fell away. She felt confused, then resentful. Why was it so bad to want to know about her mother?

      “Bringing up things like this will only make us both unhappy.”

      She persisted. “My mother’s name was Kathryn. That’s all I know about her. And that she was killed in a car crash when I was four years old.”

      He didn’t answer. They looked at each other over Barkley. His silence meant, I don’t want to talk about this. She felt an answering stubbornness rising in her. He left with the dog, and she went to the window, looked down at the street, and watched the two of them walking toward the corner. She put her head out the opened window, feeling the impulse to yell, “You better tell me!” But that was childish. She wasn’t a child anymore. She had questions, wanted to know things about her life. She needed answers. She wanted answers. She felt something strong in herself and said out loud, “I want answers.”

       THREE

      “Shaundra, hi, Shaundra,” Terri said, trying to sound casual. She looked up from tying her sneaker, which she had been tying for at least five minutes, as she waited on the corner near school for Shaundra Smith to pass. The old shoelace trick. If she and Shaundra got to be friends, maybe she’d tell her.

      “Hi, Terri,” Shaundra said, and she stopped. Great!

      Terri picked up her books. Then, across the street she saw George Torrance, and for a moment she couldn’t say anything. Was it a good luck sign, seeing George the first time she got to talk to Shaundra outside school?

      “Where’re you going?” Shaundra said.

      “No place special. Home, I guess.” Had George seen her? A few days before, she had noticed him playing the oboe in band during an assembly. A skinny boy with glasses, but something about playing the oboe transformed him. She’d been sitting in the front row and couldn’t get her eyes off him. Since then, everywhere she turned, she saw him.

      “What’d you think of assembly?” Shaundra asked. For a moment Terri thought the other girl had read her mind. Then she realized Shaundra meant today’s assembly. “Wasn’t it gross?”

      A man from the DA’s office had talked to them on juveniles and the law in Michigan. Forty-five minutes of legal language.

      “He was the most boring person I ever heard,” Shaundra went on. She was a chubby girl with masses of dark, coarse hair hanging down like curtains around her face. She had a round face and round, dark eyes.” I think Mr. Hemphill was snoring,” she said. “I know I was totally vegged out.”

      “He was boring, but I felt sorry for him,” Terri said. The two girls walked along together.

      “I didn’t. He should have arrested himself for disturbing the peace!”

      “I guess I just, in general, feel sorry for people like that. I mean, I wonder if they know they’re boring everyone.” Shaundra pushed her hair off her face. “Even if they knew they wouldn’t care. That’s what makes them so boring.”

      “Want to go have a soda?” Terri said.

      “Not a Coke. They rot your insides.”

      “I know, and they have a lot of caffeine, too. Only, did you ever have one with ice cream, milk, and vanilla flavoring?”

      Gross.

      “No, it’s good. My father and I make it sometimes.” “Popcorn is what I love. Popcorn and garlic.”

      “Garlic?”

      “I know, isn’t that disgusting? What’d you do this weekend?”

      “Well, yesterday Nancy and Leif came over for breakfast. My father made blueberry pancakes. And on Saturday, I went shopping and bought this.” She touched the short, plum-colored jacket she was wearing.

      “How neat! Do you get a clothing allowance, or am I being too nosy?”

      “My father gives me money for clothes and I buy what I want.”

      “Just like that?” Shaundra snapped her fingers. “Do you get a regular allowance?”

      “Yes.”

      “Can you do anything you want with it?” Terri nodded. “Do you pay for your own movies and records and things like that?”

      “Sometimes, and sometimes my father pays.”

      “You’re lucky. My mother makes me pay for everything. Even if I want some little makeup