Unnamed Roads

By Alissa Grosso

One unnamed girl. One cool guy. One sweepstakes-obsessed grandmother. 2400 miles.

When Petra Armstrong discovers a glaring error on her birth certificate, she decides it's time to go to Omaha, Nebraska to locate the mother she's never met, but Petra and her grandmother lack cars and the licenses needed to drive them. Enter Neil Finch, the cool guy from Petra's class who responds to her job request. This unlikely trio sets off on a whirlwind road trip adventure.

But learning the truth about her mother and her own origins, is only the beginning of Petra's problems. She's made a grand-prize-jackpot-sized mistake. Will she be able to fix things and get home in time, before history repeats itself?

Quirky characters and a heartwarming story make this contemporary YA novel from Alissa Grosso a treat to read. Travel across the country with Petra, Neil and Grandma Honey today in Unnamed Roads.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glitter Pigeon Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386963172

Alissa Grosso

A former children's librarian and newspaper editor, Alissa Grosso is the author of the young adult novels Popular and Ferocity Summer. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and currently works as a sales consultant for a book distributor. Grosso grew up in New Jersey, where she graduated from Lenape Valley Regional High School, and earned a bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers University. She now lives in the Philadelphia area.

Book preview

1

Candy Corn

Ican spot a carefully disguised write-my-term-paper plea from a mile away. The words Tutor Needed for Sophomore English on a flyer look like dollar signs to me. Nobody needs a tutor for English class. Some are even less subtle. Need help with The Grapes of Wrath. Will Pay. I mine the guidance-office job board on a regular basis. It’s a bulletin board filled with potential ways for enterprising students to make some extra money. Most of the jobs are astoundingly craptacular. Mr. Wertz, who teaches basic algebra, has been trying unsuccessfully to get some poor schmo to remodel his kitchen for the grand total of fifty dollars since at least last March. If bagging groceries is your thing, you’d be in luck since there are two different grocery stores on the board seeking entry-level workers, nights and weekends a must. I only bother with the term papers; it’s easy money. I spot one that reads, Tutor wanted. Must be familiar with aspects of the US involvement in World War I. Bingo. I pull it off the board, and shove it in my pocket .

Mike Sutter, who would easily be voted least likely to succeed if the yearbook committee had that as a category, steps out of one of the counselor’s offices and gives me an idiotic sneer as he walks past. I’ve never written a paper for Mike Sutter, but that’s only because he’s too stupid to realize he could pay someone to write the paper for him, instead of turning in a barely rewritten Wikipedia article that, if his teacher is in a generous mood, will earn him a D minus.

Nice mask, Mike tells me. It’s the day before Halloween, and half the school has decided to celebrate this fact by showing up in costume. I’m not wearing a costume. Neither, as it happens, is Mike.

Right back at you, I say.

Huh? he asks. Apparently, I was supposed to be so insulted that I would run off and cry in the girls’ room or something. Mike wasn’t prepared for this eventuality. He doesn’t know me that well. I shake my head at him and roll my eyes then head to Mrs. Banks’s office.

She looks not exactly surprised, but not exactly happy to see me. She’s not in costume, either, but she is wearing an orange sweater. It looks good on her. If I tried to wear a sweater that color, I’d look like a half-eaten Creamsicle.

Ms. Armstrong, Mrs. Banks says. Long time no see. I think it’s been a whole day since you were last here.

What, did everyone take wiseass pills this morning? I ask.

You must be rubbing off on me, she says. She turns back to her computer where apparently, she has important guidance-counselor business to transact. That, or there’s some new cute cat picture up at I Can Has Cheezburger. You know, she says without even looking away from the screen, you can’t just use guidance as an excuse for getting out of gym class.

I’m not even going to dignify that comment with a response, I say, which of course is in itself a response, but it doesn’t matter. The truth is, I do use guidance as an excuse to get out of gym class. I plop myself down in one of the ugly, uncomfortable vinyl chairs opposite her desk.

Petra, do you have a reason for being here? She finally turns away from the computer screen. I open my mouth, but before I can speak she says, And by here, I mean my office and not the surface of the earth so don’t try turning that into some deep, profound question.

Damn. The woman knows me too well.

The college application deadlines are approaching pretty fast, I say.

Yeah, but you’ve had your applications completed since last October. That’s technically incorrect. I’ve had them mostly completed since last August, but I actually had to wait until this year to fill in a few last details.

I’m worried about my essay, I say.

You have nothing to worry about. You’re an excellent writer.

I know, but—

And modest too, she mutters. Maybe wiseass behavior is a side effect of eating too much candy corn. Someone should do a study.

"It’s just that I have some concerns about the wording of the third paragraph. I feel like the word impressed is not quite right. It feels a little too general to me. I think I need something more specific."

You’re obsessing, Mrs. Banks says. Your essay is fine. You’ve got everything you need to apply for financial aid?

Like what?

I think they need a copy of your birth certificate.

I’ll have to ask my grandmother. I hope she knows where it is. What if she can’t find it?

Relax. She knows where it is, and you’ve got plenty of time.

How can you be so sure? I ask. Mostly I’m trying to kill time, but a part of me is a little concerned. What if I don’t get into college just because my grandmother misplaced my birth certificate? Mrs. Banks may not be worried, but she doesn’t know that for a whole seven months we had to use the oven to toast our bagels because my grandmother accidentally misplaced the toaster. The toaster! That’s a small appliance. What are the chances that she’s going to know exactly where some seventeen-year-old piece of paper is?

She’ll know where it is, Mrs. Banks says. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to get back to work. She grabs the pass pad from her desk drawer and starts to fill out a pass for me. I glance at the clock on the wall.

Wait! I shout. I’m pretty loud, and her office isn’t that big. She stares at me. I feel like I need to justify my too-loud shout. I wait for something brilliant to come to me. It doesn’t. So instead I tell her the truth. It’s too early. You need to wait four-and-half minutes.

"I need to? She gives me the look. Mrs. Banks has perfected the look. It involves a raised eyebrow, a stink eye, and a whole lot of attitude. This is about getting out of gym, isn’t it?"

Of course it is, I say.

I hate to tell you this, but there’s still sixteen minutes left in the period. Four-and-a-half minutes, isn’t going to help you.

No, four-and-a-half minutes is perfect. I’ve got it all timed out, with the walk back, and—

The walk back? Mrs. Banks asks. The gym’s right here; it’s only about a fifteen-second walk, and that’s with a pronounced limp.

I take the long way, I explain. If I walk down the hallway past the auditorium, then past the media center, and finally up past the cafeteria to the gym, it actually takes two-and-a-half minutes. Mrs. Banks appears to actually be mulling this over. This is why I love this woman.

That’s walking pretty slow, she says. Plus, by my count, that still leaves you with thirteen-and-a-half minutes left of class.

We’re playing kickball in gym this marking period. We’re allowed five minutes at the start of the period and five minutes at the end for changing. Then there’s the three or so minutes it takes to do the attendance and the picking of teams. Innings in kickball average four-and-a-quarter minutes. When I get back, my team will have just taken the field. Mr. Robbins isn’t going to make me go in in the middle of the inning, so I’ll wait until our next time on offense. By that point, we’ll be back at the top of the lineup. So, Howard and Kawami will get their at bats or whatever you call it in kickball, before Mr. Robbins blows his whistle and sends us to the locker rooms. I cross my arms over my chest and smile at her. I’m probably padding time just a little bit, but now with all the extra time I’ve taken to explain things, everything should work fine.

You really do have everything all figured out, don’t you? She shakes her head. She tears off the first pass from her pad, and fills out a new one.

I try to slowly walk back to the gym, but my mind wanders to the college applications. I’m applying to exactly six schools. There’s one long shot, Princeton, three competitive schools, which I have a pretty good chance of getting into, and two safety schools. Rutgers and Penn State will accept me without even blinking. Of my three competitive schools, I’m leaning toward William & Mary or possibly Amherst. I’m not sure about Cornell. Of course, a lot of stuff is dependent on scholarships and financial aid, and Grandma Honey has tracked down something like eight billion scholarships I need to apply for. I’ll have to tackle that mound after the applications are all done. I spend the walk back so lost in thought that I move at something other than a snail’s pace, which means I reach the gym door sooner than I intended. I pause outside, and can hear the telltale shuffle of feet that signifies the changing of an inning. I need to wait a few more seconds, or I’ll get stuck standing around in the outfield. I crouch down and tie an already tied shoelace. I have to tie it twice because the first one is too sloppy. Then I spend a good twenty-eight seconds wiping an invisible piece of dirt off my sneaker. I hear a ball smack into a solid surface and decide it’s safe to venture inside. I walk over and hand Mr. Robbins my pass. He looks over at the in-progress game, and tells me to wait on the bleachers until my team’s back up. Perfect. Mr. Robbins blows his whistle before my team is back on offense and then we all head for the locker rooms.

As if gym class didn’t suck enough, mine contains not one, not two, but three obnoxious airheads who are, for reasons no one has been able to satisfactorily explain to me, popular. Traci Ann Winterson, current obnoxious airhead leader, with two members of her brain-dead posse, Simone 1980s hairstyle Mintz and Morgan Tillette, who looks like a model, corner poor Becky Bruno in the locker room. Becky, who is spineless, overweight, and cursed with wearing a pair of thick-and-hideous-looking eyeglasses, might as well have the words PICK ON ME tattooed on her forehead. Today, as near as I can figure from two locker rows over, Becky is being harassed for having the audacity to accidentally drop her notebook on the floor. Apparently one of the pages actually touched Traci Ann’s shoe. You would think Becky’s notebook was filled with radioactive paper. I wish Becky’s notebook was filled with radioactive paper. The bell’s going to ring soon, but it’s driving me crazy that Becky stands there and takes this abuse. Damn it.

I finish putting on my street clothes, grab my bag and walk back to see what I can do about the Great Notebook Debacle. I forgot about it being almost Halloween. Simone, as near as I can figure, is a vampire, albeit one with a side pony tail and neon-green leggings. Morgan looks even more anorexic than normal in a pale pink leotard and obscenely short tutu. In case there was any doubt that she’s a ballerina, a pair of pink satin ballet slippers are slung over her shoulder, though I do notice she has stopped short of actually wearing her perfect chestnut hair in an unflattering bun. Traci Ann’s got on a cat-ear headband with an orange-and-black-striped shirt and a tail hanging out the back of her skin-tight black jeans. Sometimes it’s almost too easy.

Hey, you pussy, I say. The trio barely glances at me. I’m talking to you, Meow Mix.

Shut up, Petri Dish, Traci Ann says. This doesn’t concern you.

Petri Dish was an unfortunate nickname that I had been labeled with at the tail end of sixth grade. The whole Petri Dish thing peaked in about February of seventh grade, and honestly, I think it’s been at least two years since I’ve heard it at all, which is just proof that Traci Ann’s brain completely stopped developing somewhere around the age of thirteen.

Becky has already picked up the fallen notebook, and now clutches it to her chest as if it’s a life preserver and she’s bobbing along in the open sea. However, Traci Ann sees no reason to let the matter drop.

I am just completely grossed out, Traci Ann says. Completely. The other two nod their idiot heads in agreement. I have no idea where that despicable thing has even been.

It’s called a notebook, I say, which you would know if you spent your time in class actually paying attention instead of texting your dickhead boyfriend and reapplying your peach-flavored lip gloss.

Traci Ann wears cherry lip gloss, Simone says with a glint of triumph in her eyes and a flick of her side pony tail.

Shut up, Simone, Traci Ann hisses. At last Traci Ann gives me her full attention. Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and I can tell she’s trying really, really hard to come up with something mean and cutting to say. Based on her previous petri-dish comment, I don’t have high hopes. What’s funny is that Traci Ann actually used to be more or less intelligent. In fourth grade she won the county spelling bee. She had to spell onomatopoeia for the win, but that was before she grew tits and came up with the brilliant strategy of talking in a ridiculous baby voice anytime she even smells a Y chromosome, a strategy which landed her that obnoxious boyfriend of hers. What’s your deal, Petra? Are you like Superman or something? Going around rescuing those less fortunate? Where’s your cape?

"And you should have a big S on the front of your shirt, Simone says. S for stupid." To Simone’s credit, her comment isn’t that much more idiotic than Traci Ann’s. It just sounds that way.

Shut up, Simone, Traci Ann says.

She’s not Superman, she’s Batman, Morgan says. Unlike her two buddies, Morgan hasn’t completely embraced her airhead identity. She’s in my honors English class. What’s interesting is that way back in first grade, Morgan and I were really good friends; best friends, in fact. Of course, that was a long time ago, another lifetime ago. She’s all cool and aloof like Batman, and she’s an orphan who was raised by an old geezer.

The simile isn’t entirely accurate, but close enough to stun me into a stupefied silence. It’s just as well that the bell rings and the three of them march out of the locker room.

Wow, Petra, you’re such a badass, Becky says. She’s still standing there clutching her notebook. I notice she doesn’t even have her shoes on yet. She’s standing there in a pair of socks covered with bright orange jack-o-lanterns.

I’m not a badass, I tell her, just a wiseass. Hurry up and put on your shoes, Becky. You’re going to be late for class. I watch her struggle with her boots. She’s got a pair of those dorky things that all the cool girls were wearing last year. Thankfully, that’s a fashion craze that’s passed us by, but unfortunately, Becky didn’t get the memo. Becky, you can’t let them push you around. You’ve got to tap into your inner wiseass.

Oh, I’m not like that, Becky says. I wouldn’t know what to say.

Eat some candy corn, I say.

What?

Never mind.

Becky still only has one of the stupid boots on, but she stops what she’s doing, and gives me this look like she’s about ready to cry or burst into song or something.

What are you doing? I ask. We’re going to be late for class.

It’s just even though Morgan is a bitch and all, she’s also sort of right. I mean, you are like Batman because you’re cool, and you help people and I just think you’re a really awesome person.

Oh for God’s sake, Becky, put your boots on. I feel like I’m in some awful movie and orchestra music is going to start playing and we’re going to have a big, sloppy make-out session, and that’ll just make Stelton jealous.

In sociology, Stelton said that fifty years from now we’re going to look back at monogamy as a failed social experiment. Yup, sounds like Stelton.

Becky finally gets both her boots on and we get about two feet down the hallway before the late bell rings.

---

Stelton Grammercy looks a bit like a seventeen-year-old version of Severus Snape as portrayed by Alan Rickman, only he isn’t for a second Alan Rickman, so like a more angular, more beak-nosed, greasier-haired Severus Snape. Also, he has some acne. Obviously, I’m not with him because of his looks, except I sort of am. See, the thing is, I don’t have to worry with Stelton. I can be myself. It’s not so much that his lack of conventional good looks makes me less nervous than I would feel around another guy. It’s that there’s a rule about Armstrong women and handsome guys. Basically, we should avoid them at all costs .

Oh, by the way, I’m Batman, I tell Stelton as we eat lunch in our cozy little corner of the cafeteria. He’s eating an egg salad sandwich that smells like a giant fart. I’ve got a good old-fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a snack-size bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers. There are about 415 more bags of Goldfish where this one came from so I figure I’m about set until my sophomore year of college.

What, like your costume? he asks. He pulls the collar of his jacket up, and makes believe he has an egg salad–encrusted overbite. Check it out. I’m a vampire. He looks about 150 times more like a vampire than Simone.

I rescue the innocent. Also as Morgan helpfully pointed out, I’m an orphan who was raised by an old geezer.

You’re not an orphan. But haven’t I been saying all along that I’m just like Peter Parker?

You have, and yet, I have yet to see you scale any walls.

All this talk of superheroes makes me think of Becky and what she said that Stelton had said in sociology class. I hesitate to bring it up, because sometimes strange things upset Stelton. But then I decide that if I don’t bring it up, he might ask just what sort of innocent people I was rescuing with my super powers, and I don’t really feel like getting into that.

I hear you think monogamy is a passing fad, I say. He snorts a little as he’s drinking his water.

Oh, you mean what I said in sociology. That was just to try and get an argument going. That class makes watching paint dry look exciting.

So, like worshipping the devil, I say.

Precisely, he says.

Sophomore year, Stelton kind of helped get a rumor started that he worshipped the devil. The rumor had its roots in self-preservation. Going through high school as a spindly tall guy with a hook nose, greasy hair, and acne is about the same as being a dumpy girl with too-thick glasses. Let’s just say prior to the Satanist rumor, Mike Sutter ranked bullying Stelton as one of his favorite pastimes. But a guy that may or may not worship the devil in his spare time is not someone you want to mess with. Anyway, it hasn’t exactly made Stelton untouchable, but it’s certainly diminished the amount of crap he receives. Maybe if Becky Bruno can’t tap into her inner wiseass she should go around decorating her notebooks with pentagrams and the numbers 666.

Speaking of the Antichrist, Stelton says, "Grace and Melvin are planning on spending tomorrow at some special church vigil. I’m to stay home with all the lights turned off. Wanna come over? I’ve got my Dark Shadows Collector’s Edition DVD and a half gallon of pumpkin ice cream to