Read Secrets 01 Secrets in the Attic for Free Online Page B

happens literally overnight."
I sat back. Was she right? Would it all just happen one day as she said, unexpected, sudden, like a bolt of lightning? Is that what had happened to Karen, and because it happened just out of the blue, I didn't notice? Who could she be with or care about without my knowing?
I thought back to my conversation with Alice Bucci in the boys' room when she took me in to see what had been written about Karen on the stalls. "You don't live with her," she had said. "Lots of people do lots of things secretly. Even their parents don't know."
Didn't I have to admit that I had secret thoughts I had never shared with Karen? Why couldn't the same be true for her?
"I hope Karen's mother has had a conversation like this with her," my mother said. "Has she?"
What if she hadn't? I thought. Was she in danger? Did I dare ask?
"I don't know."
"I want you to feel that you can come to me with any questions, any problems, Zipporah, anytime, okay?"
I nodded.
"Your grandmother was not as forthcoming. We never had talks like this. She was old school, embarrassed by any references to sex or her own body. How she and her generation expected us to learn everything properly is a mystery. They simply had blind faith, which we know does not work. There have already been four teenage pregnancies in our township," she said, and my eyes nearly popped.
"Four? In our school?"
"I can't tell you any more about it than that. It's privileged medical information."
"How can they keep it a secret?"
"Some women don't show until their fourth or fifth month. I didn't show with you until almost my sixth. Unless you're a bad girl, you don't have to think about it, the symptoms, I mean. There are other problems, however, like sexually transmitted diseases. I don't want to make it all sound unpleasant. It's not, but it only takes a little carelessness to make it so. Understand?"
"Yes," I said. I was still uncomfortable talking about it. I hadn't even been out on a formal date. I felt as if I were being inoculated against a disease that didn't exist.
"Don't bury your head in the sand, Zipporah," she warned. "That's the way you get into trouble."
"I'm not! I said I understand!"
"Okay, okay." She thought a moment and then leaned toward me. "There's no chance Karen's already been with a boy like that, is there, Zipporah? No chance she's done something she now regrets, is there?"
"No," I said, but not with enough confidence to satisfy myself, much less her.
"All right. If you need anything, let me know," she said. I knew she meant if Karen needed anything.
I nodded, and she smiled and rose.
"I love my sitting room," she said, looking around. "It feels cozy, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"We all need our special places," she said, running her hand over my hair. "You're going to be a pretty young woman. Don't you worry. They'll be taking numbers at the door just like at the bakery."
"Oh, Mama," I said.
She laughed and returned to the kitchen to prepare dinner. I ran upstairs to my room to think about everything she had told me. I was okay with it for myself, but she really put the worries in me when it came to Karen. I was the one who had the mother who was a nurse. I had an obligation to share my good fortune, I thought. Surely, she would appreciate it.
And it would be a good way to get her to tell me what was bothering her and what secret things had happened.
It was early enough for me to get on my bike, ride into town, see Karen, and come home before dinner. I was bursting with the need to tell her some of this, to warn her. I charged down the stairs.
"I'll be back in a while," I called out, and before my mother could object, I was out the door.
Karen and her mother had moved into Karen's stepfather's house soon after the wedding. She had told me how her stepfather's mother resented them so much she would keep herself in her own little apartment at the rear of the house and wouldn't take meals with them. She did practically nothing with them as a family.
"We