Run Girl Run

By Robbie Haden

Unhappy at home, teen Haley-Jo Bodine decides the time has come to hit the road for California, leaving Texas behind. She fully expects to find a way to make it big in Hollywood. Her dream is to begin with modeling and then work her way into acting. Soon enough, painful reality sets in.

Haley-Jos runaway life takes her into the world of drugs, drinking, sexual abuse, cutting, suicide, rape, and prostitution. These difficult subjects are treated with the sensitivity necessary to remain appropriate for a teen audience.

Even in its worst moments, Haley-Jos story remains hopeful as she encounters a series of people who come into her life when she needs them most to help her find her way out of deep trouble. Pauletta, the owner of a pet sanctuary, takes Haley-Jo under her wing as though she were a foundling pup. Spencer is not a boyfriend but is a true friend who is a boy. Ray is the first person to offer her the Pacific Ocean and a temporary place to crash. Above all it is Tom who, aided by his dog Sally, is her gentle savior in the end.

This is a cautionary tale for kids at risk. For the adults who love them, it is an enlightening glimpse into how some teens think. Beyond all that, it is just a good story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452567785

Robbie Haden

ROBBIE HADEN is the parent of four and the grandparent of eight. Her work life included significant time spent as an elementary teacher, a foster parent of drug-exposed infants, and a social worker for state child-protection services in Texas. Currently she finds her joy as a channeled psychic reader and healer.

Book preview

PART I

NOTES FROM A FREAK LIKE ME

My name is Haley Bodine. No, it’s actually Haley-Jo Bodine. In the normal world (anywhere that’s not Texas) people get a first name and a middle name. In Texas you are likely to get two names stapled into one by that hyphenator thing. Jeez, did my mother hate me from the get-go?

I’ve been writing about my stupid life since I could hold a pencil. I write my stories in little discount-store notebooks. These aren’t like diaries or journals since they don’t pay much attention to dates, or record things every day. They’re just bits of my life that I write down. Sometimes I have to write them the instant something happens, and sometimes I wait and think and remember for a long time before I write them. They are just me, thinking on paper.

MY CAT IS DEAD

My cat is dead. My cat is DEAD. My cat IS dead.

Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t have to think much about dead, you know. His name was Wiffy, short for Willful, which he was, and on some days he felt like my only friend. Pure white, pinkish nose, pinkish eyes, and a devilly sense of humor. In our house, he was the only living thing that ever totally got me, and I could tell him everything. He actually laughed at my jokes, inside. Only I could hear him.

Wiffy died on my first day at my new middle school, or maybe the night before. I’ll never really know the truth for sure because I only have the story that my mother chose to tell me. She said that she found Wiffy dead on our back patio after I left for school that morning, just lying stiffly dead, no signs of a struggle. She said she called a city services number and a man in a uniform came and scooped Wiffy up with a shovel and put him in his city truck. He said my cat would be disposed of. Is that the true story? I don’t know. What is true is that Wiffy is gone forever, and I must not feel sad. My mother told me that she hoped I would be mature about it, and no hysterics please, these things happen. Then she served me the nutritious after-school snack she feels every good mother should provide for her child. I couldn’t eat the granola bar or drink the milk, but I faked it. Later, in my room, I pricked neat little circles on the inside of my wrist with a straight pin until I didn’t feel so much like screaming anymore.

SOMETIMES MY MOTHER CAN’T STAND ME

Elaine Bodine is a pretty woman who might be happier if we lived in the 1950s. She’s just a little too formal for the current times, like she’s a housewife but she wears skirts and dresses and high heels when other mothers are wearing jeans and sneakers. I don’t care enough anymore to be embarrassed by her, but I know that I embarrass her regularly just by looking the way I look. She wishes she had birthed a preppie girl, and what she figures she got is a non-compliant wild red-haired girl who thinks style rules and dress codes are stupid . Well, they are.

Elaine (I call her by her first name when I really want to bug her) has her blonde hair done up in a French twist by professionals on a weekly basis, and thinks that my current age (about to jump into the teens) is the perfect time to begin my beauty salon education. Like that will ever happen! All I wish is that she didn’t act like she had a stick up her butt all the time. (That’s something I heard somewhere and it tickles me to say it about my mother. It’s just SO true!). After twelve years of trying to please the woman, I’m giving it up. Haley-Jo Bodine declares her independence!

Umm, that all sounds pretty mean, I guess. I think there was a time, when I was very small, when she thought I was an okay human being, and she loved me. Maybe I just grew more and more unlovable, I don’t know. I’m not the first and only child. I have a brother, Brett, who is ten years older than I am. She’s never had any trouble loving him.

GOLDEN-BOY BRETT

In Texas, to be the first-born son is to be the Golden Boy, for sure, and Brett is all that. He’s out of the house now, all grown up, done with his undergrad years at UT. (Hook-em Horns!! Like who cares?) He’s a handsome blonde hunk, athletic and smart and a smooth talker, expected to go far in this world.

When I was a little kid, until I was six or so, I thought Brett was the eighth wonder of the world. He was my best grown-up, all blue eyes and smiles, jokes and giggles, gentleness and games. Sometimes he took me to his places to hang out with his friends, it was special, and he took good care of me. He made me feel like a real person. But I guess after you’re six, you can’t be just a real-person little girl anymore.

The teasing games turned into something else, the tickles weren’t funny, they hurt. Brett would catch me from behind and put his hands over my non-existent boobs and squeeze hard, then put a hand to my crotch to poke and squeeze. Stop, Brett, stop! He’d laugh and let me go, and call me a damn baby. We were never allowed to use bad language in our house, but he called me a damn baby. I was always on my guard, knowing he’d catch me again, and he always did. I knew that a big brother shouldn’t do that to a little sister, although no one told me so.

I wish I had known how to stop it, because it got worse. Brett became my nighttime nightmare, coming late at night into my girly pink bedroom. Not every night, but sometimes, and the not knowing when tortured me. I pretended to be asleep when he lifted my Barbie pajama top to brush his hand across my chest to make my little nipples peak, to be asleep when his fingers found and stroked the place down there I barely knew. I hated how I felt, and I hated the man-boy I had loved. I did not believe I had the right to tell on him. Brett was super-loved by our parents, and if I told, I knew their disappointment would somehow fall on me, not him. I never told anyone. He stopped it after I was about eight, so I guess everything’s okay.

DADDY’S A DRUNK

I wrote those words at the top of this notebook page and stared at them for a long time. I used to try so hard not to know that something’s wrong with Daddy.

Light comes into our house when Daddy’s home. He doesn’t have to do anything special except be there. He’s a big guy, loud and lots of fun, the darkest one of all of us—skin, hair, laughing eyes. It’s a mystery how I turned up with the red curls. Maybe I’d have done better in my family if I just looked more like any one of them. I’m pretty sure Daddy loves me. He says it, and I can see it in his eyes when they crinkle and smile. He works hard for his family, crunching big numbers for a big corporation. He wants us to have a good life. We’ve moved around a lot, which means too many new schools, but it is always to a better neighborhood, a bigger house, snobbier neighbors. This time we’ve moved up to having a backyard pool. That pleases my mother, since she thinks having things is important. I really can’t tell how Daddy feels about it.

Sometimes I wonder if my parents are in love. I used to think if you were married to somebody, you were in love with them, but now I’m not so sure. There doesn’t seem to be the mushy stuff going on with them. They do have two kids, so there must have been something— well, SEX— but now there’s not any kissing or touching that I know