Ellen Hopkins - Crank

Crank Ellen Hopkins DEDICATION This book is dedicated to my family, and all families whose lives have been touched by the monster. With special thanks to Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser and their wonderful SCBWI, which guided my way. * * * AUTHOR'S NOTE While this work is fiction, it is loosely based on a very true story--my daughter's. The monster did touch her life, and the lives of her family. My family. It is hard to watch someone you love fall so deeply under the spell of a substance that turns him or her into a stranger.

Someone you don't even want to know. Nothing in this story is impossible. Much of it happened to us, or to families like ours. Many of the characters are composites of real people. If they ring true, they should. The "baby" at the end of the book is now seven years old, and my husband and I have adopted him.

He is thriving now, but it took a lot of extra love. If this story speaks to you, I have accomplished what I set out to do. Crank is, indeed, a monster--one that is tough to leave behind once you invite it into your life. Think twice. Then think again. * * After, life was great. * * At least for a little while. * * At least for a little while.

Introduction So you want to know all about me. Who I am. * * What chance meeting of brush and canvas painted the face you see? What made me despise the girl in the mirror enough to transform her, turn her into a stranger, only not. * * So you want to hear the whole story. Why I swerved off the high road, hard left to nowhere, recklessly indifferent to those coughing my dust, picked up speed no limits, no top end, just a high velocity rush to madness. Alone everything changes.

Some might call it distorted reality, but it's exactly the place I need to be: * * no mom, Marie, ever more distant, in her midlife quest for fame * * no stepfather, Scott, stern and heavy-handed with unattainable expectations * * no big sister, Leigh, caught up in a tempest of uncertain sexuality * * no little brother, Jake, spoiled and shameless in his thievery of my niche. * * Alone, * * there is only the person inside. I've grown to like her better than the stuck-up husk of me. She's not quite silent, shouts obscenities just because they roll so well off the tongue * * not quite straight-A, but talented in oh-so-many enviable ways * * not quite sanitary, farts with gusto, picks her nose, spits like a guy * * not quite sane, sometimes, to tell you the truth, even I wonder about her. * * Alone, * * there is no perfect daughter, no gifted high-school junior, no Kristina Georgia Snow. * * There is only Bree.

On Bree I suppose she's always been there, vague as a soft copper pulse of moonlight through blossoming seacoast fog. * * I wonder when I first noticed her, slipping in and out of my pores, hide-and-seek spider in fieldstone, red-bellied phantom. * * I summon Bree when dreams no longer satisfy, when gentle clouds of monotony smother thunder, when Kristina cries. I remember the night I first let her go, opened the smeared glass, one thin pane, cellophane between rules and sin, freed. More on Bree Spare me those Psych '01 labels, I'm no more schizo than most. * * Bree is no imaginary playmate, no overactive pituitary, no alter ego, moving in.

Hers is the face I wear, treading the riptide, fathomless oceans where good girls drown. * * Besides, even good girls have secrets, ones even their best friends must guess. Who do they turn to on lonely moon-shadowed sidewalks? I'd love to hear them confess: Who do they become when night descends, a cool puff of smoke, and vampires come out to party? My Mom Will Tell You it started with a court-ordered visit. The judge had a God complex. I guess for once she's right. Was it just last summer? He started an avalanche.

My mom enjoys discussing her daughter's downhill slide. It swallowed her whole. I still wore pleated skirts, lipgloss. Crooked bangs defined my style. Could I have saved her? My mom often outlines her first marriage, its bitter amen. Interested? I was too young, clueless.

I hadn't seen Dad in eight years. No calls. No cards. No presents. He was a self-serving bastard. My mom, warrior goddess, threw down the gauntlet when he phoned.

He played the prodigal trump card. I begged. Pouted. Plotted. Cajoled. I was six again, adoring Daddy.

What the hell gave him that right? My mom gave a detailed run-down of his varied bad habits. Contrite was not his style. I promised. Swore. Crossed my heart. pledge verbatim. pledge verbatim.

How could she love him so much? My mom relented, kissed me good-bye, sad her perfume. Things would never be the same. I think it was the last time she kissed me. But I was on my way to Daddy. A board United 1425 The flight attendant escorted me to a seat beside a moth-munched toupee. Yellowed dentures clacked cheerfully, suggested I make myself comfy.

Three hours is a mighty long time. Three hours is a long time, astraddle a 747's wing, banshee engines screaming, earachy babies fussing, elderly seatmate complaining. Can't stand flying. Makes me nauseous. I get nauseous when vid screens play movies I've seen three times, seat belt signs deny pee breaks and first class smells like real food. Pretzels? For this ticket price? For the price, I'd expect Albert to tone down the gripe machine.

I closed my eyes, tried to shut him out, but second run movies can't equal conversation. My wife died last year. Been alone since. * * I've been alone since my mom met Scott. He sucked the nectar from her heart like a famished butterfly. No nurture, no nourishment left for Kristina.

A vacation is a poor substitute for love. T wo Hours into the Flight Albert snored, soft as a hummingbird's hover. His moody smile suggested he'd found his Genevieve, just beyond time just beyond space just beyond this continuum. * * I watched his face, gentled by dreams, until sun winks off the polished fuselage hypnotized me, not quite asleep not quite conscious not quite in this dimension. * * I coasted along a byway, memory, glimpses of truth speed bumps within childish belief, almost ultimate almost reliable almost total insanity * * Daddy waited in the dead-end circle, reaching out for me. * * Faster. Faster. Faster.

He'd waited too many years for me to come looking. Hadn't he? I needed to see needed to know needed a lot more. Hot Landing Hot runway. Hot brakes. Hot desert sand outside the window, wind-sculpted crystalline slivers, reflecting a new summer's sun. * * Good-bye, young lady.

Good-bye, Albert. * * Good-bye, toupee. Good-bye, dentures. Good-bye, in-flight glimpses of a soul, aching, and dreams, fractured, injuries only death could cure. * * Have a nice vacation. You relax. You relax.

You pretend to have fun. You share a toast with me: here's to seasonal madness, part-time relatives and substitutes for love. T he Prince of Albuquerque June is pleasant in Reno, kind of breezy and all. I boarded the plane in clingy jeans and a long-sleeved T. Black. * * I wobbled up the skywalk, balancing heavy twin carry-ons. * * I wobbled up the skywalk, balancing heavy twin carry-ons.

Fingers of sweat grabbed my hair and pressed it against my face. * * No one seemed to notice. * * I scanned the crowd at the gate. Too tall. Not tall enough. Too old.

Way too old. There, with the sable hair, much like my own. * * How was it possible? I thought he was much better looking, the impression of a seven-year-old whose daddy was the Prince of Albuquerque. * * I melted, sleet on New Mexico asphalt. M utual Assessment Daddy watched the gate, listing a bit as he hummed a bedtime tune, withdrawn from who knows which memory bank. * * He overlooked me like sky above a patch of dirt, and I realized he, too, searched for a face suspended in yesterday. * * "It's me." Violets are blu-oo-oo. * * Peculiar eyes, blue-speckled green like extravagant eggs, met my own pale aquamarine. Assessing. Assessing.