Read Online The Forgotten Fairytales by Angela Parkhurst - Free Book Online Page B

were limited.
    And what do you know? Despite my silent suffering I still got screwed, and here I was, at possibility B. At least he hadn’t found some floozy to marry.
    “Today’s the big day, right?” he asked.
    I scooped my books from the floor and nodded. “Yes, it is.”
    Overhead the bell rang and I bounced on the tips of my toes, said good-bye and darted out the door. I had one mission now. The phone. I stepped into the hall and Danielle bombarded me, questioning why I sat alone in lunch instead of with her. As if the reasoning wasn’t because of what happened last Wednesday with the quill and how freaky the situation was.
    Finn was the only person who didn’t pry about what happened with the quill or comment on my lack of classification. Why hadn’t he? He should have been as curious as the rest of the student body, yet he never asked. My pace slowed as Pearl greeted him by throwing her long pale arms around his neck. Her firecracker red hair was fishtailed to the side. I pushed him out of my head and hurried to the office. If I didn’t make it on time, I wouldn’t get to call. And it would be a dark day in hell that I missed talking to my dad.
    Today was the day I waited all week for. The day I would tell him to come get me.
    The office was crowded and musty, students sat along the walls waiting to be called in, while I wrote my name on the clipboard and entered a different room. Cubbies lined the wall, a corded phone sat in each one beside a clock.
    The desk rattled when I dropped my bag and sat down. I took several soothing breaths before picking up the phone and dialing the same number I’d memorized when I was three. Remember your story Norah. April is unhappy. They separated us. It’s not working here.
    After three rings he answered, “Professor Hart speaking.”
    “Dad!” Tears swelled in my eyes.
    “Ah, my baby.” I could almost hear him smiling through the phone. “I wondered when I’d hear from you.”
    “I would’ve called sooner. You have no idea how hard it is to get my hands on a phone,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder.
    “How do you like it there?” he asked. “Headmistress Madrina said you’re having some trouble.”
    “You spoke with her?”
    He chuckled. “I have to keep tabs on you. Especially after the camp incident.”
    One year, he sent me to sleep away camp and I called him like five times a day begging to be picked up. I sent threatening letters, too. The camp told him I was fine. But I wasn’t. The counselors didn’t know some stupid girls poured honey on me while I slept and soaked my training bra in toilet water and put red ants in my bed. I itched thinking about it.
    “Gosh, you’d love Moscow, kiddo,” he said. “The culture is so rich and vibrant. The food, well, you’d hate it. You’re always so picky, but I love it.”
    “I bet I would. Speaking of which—”
    “Oh, I ate the craziest thing yesterday.” He interrupted what would have been the greatest speech in the history of speeches to get out of something. Instead he talked about how happy he was, how much he loved his job and the people he worked with. The more he did, the weaker I became. He was living his dream, after years of caring for me. He was so young when he had me and raised me all alone, no support and no money. Just me, him, and the occasional baby sitter. And then, in Holland, he met Alana, April’s mom.
    I dreaded to call my dad a player, but he was, and having babies made him a chick magnet. I don’t know how he got his PhD and raised two kids and managed a hefty social life. He had to be super dad or something. Even so, wherever he was, we were. He called me his Porta-Baby when I was younger, bringing me everywhere and anywhere.
    And for as long as I could remember that’s how I was, always by his side wherever he went, ready for the next adventure. Some people, like his parents, criticized his parental skills, saying he deprived me of a normal life, of friends, and the