Falling Out

By Gail O. Dellslee

Fifteen-year-old Kori is an outcast in both her family and her school. Her only friends are her pets—birds, cats, a dog, and a horse.  After her parents and brother tragically die, she and her younger sister Sera are sent from their rural home to live in the suburbs with their aunt and uncle who they have never met before.   Kori hopes to start a new life—to be loved by friends, a cute boy named Robin, and a new family.  However, her sister takes all that she wants.  Because Kori stands up for her cousin against their racist peers, she again becomes an outcast. Then one day, Sera and Robin have a falling out, which gives Kori the opportunity to take back all that is rightfully hers.  Can she do it?  Or will she be held back by the popular girls and the voices in her head that want to destroy her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: GAIL O. DELLSLEE
• Release date: Nov 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9798201139490

Gail O. Dellslee

Gail O. Dellslee is a multi-racial author who grew up on the west coast of the United States. She started writing novels when she was 10 years old. Gail gets her inspiration from her cats and life experiences, and she enjoys incorporating real situations and people into her fiction.

Book preview

Chapter #1:  That Cursed Day

Iwoke to the sweet smell of maple syrup and the unsettling sound of silence.  My family better not have eaten without me again.  Growls echoed in my stomach as I got out of my bottom bunk.  None of my three sisters were in the bedroom.  I hurriedly changed from my pajamas into Coco's hand-me-down tank top and shorts.  They hung loosely on my scrawny body. 

On the way to the kitchen, I peeked into Tommy's bedroom.  He wasn't there either.  Tommy was the only one of my siblings who I actually liked.  It was just my luck that the person I felt closest to was farthest away from me.  Tommy got his own bedroom because he was a boy, but I had to share my room with my sisters since our little country house only had three bedrooms.  Getting to share a bedroom with Tommy was another one of the many reasons that I wished I was a boy.

The kitchen was just as deserted as my bedroom.  Six dirty plates were stacked by the sink.  They may have forgotten to wake me, but they sure didn't forget whose day it was.  Saturday was my day to do the dishes.  But it wasn't just any Saturday.  It was September 23rd, the last Saturday of summer vacation and the first day of fall. 

Goal! Sera squealed, her cheerful voice somewhat faint and distant.

I stepped into the backyard, not bothering to get my shoes from the bedroom.  Sera and Nancy were playing soccer by themselves in the clover-infested lawn that was long overdue for mowing.  Mama was sitting in the only chair out there, watching them play while she finished hand-sewing a satin border around Sera's old holey blanket.  The blanket was to be for her new baby who was due any day now.  The fabric matched Mama's skirt; everything she sewed was calico.  Benji, our Brittany Spaniel dog, was lying on the grass on the sunny side of Mama's chair, a faded green tennis ball next to his paws.  I walked over and sat on the lawn on the other side, where the shadow cast by Mama and the chair shaded a patch of grass that was darker green than the rest.

You guys ate without me again, I said to Mama.

Mama smiled and waved to Sera, who was jumping up and down victoriously.

Mama? I asked.  Did you hear me?

She glanced at me, and then looked back to the soccer game.  That's what you get for sleeping so late.

Recently, Sera had started snoring while she slept.  The noise kept me from falling asleep for at least an hour every night.  I just couldn't get used to it.  But once I fell asleep, I was hard to wake up.  It wasn't my fault I wasn't a light sleeper like the rest of the family.  Did my sisters even try to wake me?  Probably not.

Oh well, I thought with a sigh, glancing up at the bright afternoon sun.  Dinner will be in a few hours anyway.

I'll get you this time! Nancy said to Sera, kicking the grass-stained ball away from her.

They looked like they were having so much fun, getting along just as if they were fully related.  I was only fully related to my brother Tommy, and half-related to my sisters.  It was easy to tell who was fully related to whom in this family, because the color of our hair matched our fathers' hair color.

Nancy and Coco were eighteen year old fraternal twins whose father was a dark haired man named Timothy.  He had been Mama's high school boyfriend who dumped her after he found out he had gotten her pregnant.  A blonde man named Tom fathered Tommy and me.  Tommy was sixteen now, and I would be turning fifteen next month. When I was still an infant, Mama cheated on Tom with a ginger haired man named Frederick Harris, who got her pregnant with another baby, Sera.  Tom left Mama after that, and Frederick has stayed with our family ever since. 

Even after all these years though, Mama still didn't bother marrying Frederick, just like she didn't marry any of her other boyfriends.  Frederick was also the father of the baby Mama was carrying inside her now—as far as I knew, anyway.  Mama obviously had a history of sleeping around a lot, but I doubted that the new baby had a different father; Mama was getting on in age and had a few gray hairs and wrinkles to show for it.

Where are the others? I asked Mama.

Frederick took Tommy out on the road to practice for his driver's license, Mama replied, focusing her brown eyes on sewing the calico blanket.  And Coco's following them in her motor scooter.

Coco had been the one to tell me the truth about who was fully related to whom.  When I was little and used to call Frederick Daddy, Coco always reminded me that he wasn't my real father. 

Don't expect him to hang around, 'cause he won't, Coco had told me.  "You think he loves you?  He only loves Mama and his real daughter.  You could die today, and he wouldn't bat an eye."

I hadn't believed her at first, but Mama confirmed it, no trace of shame anywhere on her face.  Mama always told the truth when asked, even when I asked her if Coco was telling the truth about Santa Claus being fake.  I knew it gave Coco pleasure to learn she was right about everything, so I tried to act like it didn't bother me.  Frederick and Santa were only good for bringing in money or gifts, and what they brought was never enough.

It was also true that Frederick paid more attention to Sera.  She was the spoiled baby of the family, it seemed, even though she was only one year younger than me.  Nancy and Coco had played with Sera like a doll; Nancy dressed her up, and Coco dared her to play pranks.  No one head played with me except Tommy.  Even Mama paid more attention to Sera.

Ha! Nancy shouted, kicking the soccer ball high into the air.

Sera screamed and shielded her head with her hands to protect herself from the ball.  It landed in the three foot pool next to them.  The pool was the above-ground kind; nothing fancy.

I'll get it! Nancy said.

She climbed the creaky wooden deck and dragged the ball out of the pool with the moldy colored bug net, which was still filled with dead bees that were never shaken out.

Benji trotted over to me, holding the tennis ball in his mouth.  I smiled and petted his head.  I pried the ball from his slobbery jaws and threw it just as Nancy tossed the soccer ball down to the same area of the grass.  Benji ran after the ball, but then stopped, as if a little unsure of which ball to retrieve.

Kori! Nancy yelled.  What are you doing?  Don't throw that ball in the middle of our game!

Sera turned and stared at me, as if seeing me for the first time.  My smile disappeared.  I stood silently and opened the wooden gate to follow the gravel path farther into the backyard.  I wanted to get away from Nancy and Sera's obnoxious shouting over that stupid game.  They hadn't even asked me if I'd like to join in.  Not that I wanted to play anyway.  I wasn't into sports like the rest of the family was.  Besides all of Mama's fatherless children, our family seemed pretty normal otherwise, compared to the other families depicted in television, at least.  I felt like I was the only one who didn't fit in.  Watching Sera playing soccer with Nancy was just a reminder that I would never have that type of close relationship with my sisters. 

Tommy and I used to be close when we were in elementary school.  But once he became a middle schooler, he stopped playing with me.  So I had no choice but to take up solitary activities like lifting his weights, watching TV, playing with the animals, studying, or reading library books.  I spent most of my free time doing the latter two. 

I didn't really like studying for its own sake, but I wanted to get good grades to get into college.  That way, I could actually get a decent job and make something of my life.  My family members were apparently content living in poverty, but not me.  True, Nancy and Coco were going to college soon, but just a community college, which you don't need good grades to get into and which doesn't even give you a bachelor's degree in the end.  What good is an AA degree?  I wanted to get into a college that mattered.  I wanted to get a degree that mattered.  I wanted to live a life that mattered.

Now reading library books was something I did enjoy, because I got to choose the books that interested me.  No one else in my family was into reading.  They seemed to think that I was trying to act smart so I could look down on them, so they looked down on me.  That was the only reason I could think of for why Mama and the twins resented me so much.  I never did anything unkind to them or anyone else, despite my bitter fantasies.

They were probably glad that I slept through breakfast almost every morning.  Money was tight, and food went first come, first serve.  All our money depended on Frederick's gas station job, since Mama never worked.  She never completed high school, since she got pregnant with Nancy and Coco in the middle of it.  Most jobs required a high school diploma; the ones that didn't, Mama refused to take, because she said that they were demeaning.

I stopped at the bird cage and looked in.  Dozens of finches were in the cage, which was taller than I was.  They chirped and flew around with so much energy.

Mama couldn't live without her animals.  That's why she chose to keep living in the country.  As the oldest child of two, she inherited the house from her parents when they died shortly before I was born.  Besides Benji and the birds, Mama also owned six cats and a horse.  We used to have a few goats too, but we slaughtered those for food last year.  Sometimes I wondered if Mama liked the animals better than her kids; more money went to feeding them than to feeding us. 

The birds were my least favorite of all our pets, but still I felt sorry for them being trapped in a cage for all eternity.  On the other hand, at least they were plump and well fed, unlike me.  Which was better?  Starving but free, or fed but not free?

I pondered this question as I continued walking on the gravel path.  I plucked a couple of peaches from one of the many trees, and headed toward the barn.

Tonka! I called.

The brown horse looked up from eating hay from the trough.  Tommy was the one who named him—after the brand of his favorite toy dump truck when he was little. 

I held up a peach.  Tonka trotted over to me and nuzzled my arm.  I laughed and let him take one peach from my hand while I bit into the other peach.

Mm, juicy, I said as I felt the sticky liquid trickle down my arm.

Tonka moved his head up and down, as if nodding in agreement.  He had already finished his fruit, and he spat the seed on the ground.  I was just about to take a second bite into my peach when I felt something slimy moving on my hand.  I looked down.  A worm was crawling out of the peach!  I dropped it on the ground and shook the worm off my hand.

Gross! I exclaimed, grimacing.

The worm crawled toward the dark corner of the barn where the wooden cart was sitting.  Thick spider webs had collected on it for what must have been nearly ten years.  Tonka bent his head down and ate the peach with one bite and spat out the seed.  I stroked the white blaze on his head.

Lucky, I said.  "You got two peaches."

Tonka nuzzled my neck.  I smiled and patted his.

Suddenly, Sera screamed.  Her annoying voice could still be heard.  My smile vanished again.  I turned on the battery powered radio sitting on one of the stacks of hay in the barn, cranking up the volume as loud as it would go.  The song playing was some rap song by some rapper.  The radio never said what the songs were called or who the singers were. 

My brother used to blast that radio in his bedroom, but Mama kept telling him to turn that nigger music off, so he listened to it in the barn instead.  I tried to tell Tommy that Tonka didn't like that music, but in truth it was I who didn't like it. 

Tommy never used to like rap before he started going to middle school;