Amber J. Keyser - Pointe, Claw

Text copyright 2017 by Amber J. Keyser

Carolrhoda Lab is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

Carolrhoda Lab

An imprint of Carolrhoda Books

A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

241 First Avenue North

Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

Quote on cover from The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck.

Cover image: Eugene Mynzul/Alamy.

Interior images: autsawin uttisin/Shutterstock.com (claw mark); RubberBall/Alamy (dancer); Joe McDonald/Steve Bloom Images/Alamy (bear).

Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10.5/15.

Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Keyser, Amber, author.

Title: Pointe, claw / by Amber J. Keyser.

Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, 2016. | Summary: After eight years of separation childhood best friends are reunited. One is studying to be a professional ballerina, the other has a rare disease that is rapidly taking its toll Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016006114 (print) | LCCN 2016031843 (ebook) | ISBN 9781467775915 (th : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512408959 (eb pdf)

Subjects: | CYAC: Best friendsFiction. | FriendshipFiction. | Ballet dancingFiction. | DiseasesFiction. | ZoonosesFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K513 Be 2016 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.K513 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016006114

Manufactured in the United States of America

1-37452-18599-9/19/2016

9781512434316 ePub

9781512434323 ePub

9781512434330 mobi

For my parents, who raised me fierce

Dawn

I punch a hole in the wall of my room. Through the drywall. White flakes speckle dark blue paint. I tear down posters of women soccer players and Denali National Park and a pod of whales in the gray waters of the Arctic. Everything feels out of reach. The house grates against my flesh. If I dont get out of here I will...

What?

Die? Explode? Disintegrate?

My knuckles are white-dusted. My tongue darts through parted lips. My senses absorb everything. The knife-sharp scent of broken capillaries. The plasticine flavor of water-based paint. The dirt-dry parch of chalk dust from the cracked drywall. The way the light changes. Or rather, the way my perception of the light changesthe blues and greens brighten, the reds and oranges fade, my vision takes a backseat to smell. I hear more.

This is how it always begins.

I slide the window up as far as it will go and hoist one leg over the sill, reaching with my toes to find the slatted wooden patio covering that shades the lawn furniture below. The edge of the window bites into my crotch. The rough wooden boards scrape the bottom of my foot. I barely register the sliver of wood entering my heel. Im almost gone when theres a knock on my bedroom door.

My mother.

Are you all right? I heard a crash.

I look at my right fist, a few drops of blood seeping through the drywall dust. I want to lap them up.

Dawn? she says.

And I remember my name.

If I dont answer my mother, she will come through the door. She will clutch my arm, drag me back into the house. But I need to go, so I climb back through the window and try to find a voice.

Nothing wrong with me. The words are more croak than language.

Are you sure youre okay? she asks, and I know she is pressed against the locked door, straining to discern how I have disappointed her this time. I try to ignore the scents that pummel meher perfume, the fertilizer the neighbor spread on his lawn, the dog two doors down who is marking a tree, and most of all, the fecund musk that has called me to wander. I push it all down so that I can answer as she expects.

Its fine, I say. Clock fell on the floor when I snoozed it. Im going to sleep a bit more.

I feel her hesitation, and Im not sure how much longer I can keep it together.

Finally, she says, Im going to the gym to work out. Back in a few hours, okay?

Sure thing, I say.

She waits a moment longer in the hall, and then I hear her take the stairs two at a time, eager to get away from me.

As soon as the garage door rumbles, I pick my way across the patio covering, climb to the top of the six-foot-tall, good-neighbor fence, and jump down into the soft dirt below. The subdivision where my mother and her husband, David, live is right on the edge of the urban growth boundary. Behind the always green, always clipped lawn, on the opposite side of the fence, is a wheat field.

This is where I crouch, on the edge of a sea of new shoots.

The sky is a slab of gray. No rain. Not yet. But these clouds are nimbostratus and that means rain is coming. Besides, its March, in Oregon. Rain.

Months from now, in August, when the wheat is tall and golden, the farmer will harvest and great clouds of dirt and wheat dust will coat the windows. My stepfather will complain about having to hire the window washers. Hell say he didnt pay top dollar for golf course living to have to smell diesel and be on the wrong end of a wheat stalk.

What he really means is that it galls him to live this close to poor people.

On the far side of the field is a three-mile-wide swath of forest. Its dark in there, even during the day, and redolent of night rot and fungus. Tucked among the Douglas fir and western red cedar are trailers and falling-down houses. Blue tarps cover leaking roofs. Theres a guy with old dishwashers in the ragged patch that passes for his front yard. A woman does manicures out of her house. During the school year, kids straggle out of the woods and board the bus with torn coats and last years backpacks.

The kids from my street call them dirt munchers.

But thats where Im goinginto the forest. Because I have to know what is making that smell. The tang of it overwhelms my other senses, drawing me forward. My vision dims. I slide back into my limbs, run across the field. My bare feet sink in the rain-softened soil. I smell the wheat roots writhing through it, a wet odor that entwines with the oily, rank scent I am following.

On the far side of the field, I cross the road. The gravel nicks my soles.

I lose the scent and pause, trying to find it.

There it is againbiting, calling, leading me into the forest. I give in and follow the smell. I cut behind half-fallen-down houses and an RV on blocks. It is critical that I notice landmarks. Chicken coop. Rusted lawn mower. A backyard garden.

I am going to go dark.

This is how it happens.

My senses change. My muscles burn. My joints seize up.

Each time, I wake, not from sleep but from something else, in a place I dont remember going. Twice in the last week. Five times in the last thirty days. Nineteen times in the last twelve months. Landmarks are required.

I keep running through the trees until I get to the edge of someones property. Its fencedchain link. My fingers clench the wires so hard that both hands hurt, not just the one that punched the wall. Im barely holding on to consciousness.