Read Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen for Free Online

I’d use to wrap leftover fish for the garbage.
    And yet, here it is before me, August days and pinpoints on the globe somehow connecting the dreams of an ancient woman (yes, admit it in the dead of night) and the terrible yearning of a skittish, wild colt of a girl. Life whirls and the planets spin and possibility lies in wait for lines that will connect the dots, the way Wagner himself must have connected the dots of music notes from his pen to the trails of staves across a manuscript page.
    â€œWhy not?” I hadn’t meant to utter the question aloud. But Latoya’s out of earshot.
    Why not?
    Maybe Skinnybones will get to take her modeling course. Maybe Jean Barclay will get to see one more Ring Cycle.

7
    The old dragon. Guarding her money. What would make her part with any of it? Maybe I could be her personal shopper, do her hair and make-up every week. Play Rummy? Read aloud to her?
    Twenty-five hundred dollars. It’d take a lifetime to work it off. Of course, there can’t be too much of the Wrinkle Queen’s lifetime left.
    When we get back to Stanley Merkin, we still have a period before dismissal. Once or twice a month on a Friday, Miss Whipple lets us have the period for what she calls USSR. Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading. Must have been something she started doing long before the real USSR fell off the map. When she announces we’ll have USSR today, the class cheers.
    â€œRemember, sustained and silent,” she says and makes a point of getting out her own free reading book.
    I’ve no sooner got
Great Expectations
open and I’m reading about one of Pip’s visits to play with Estella when there’s a call on the intercom for me to come down to the office. Everyone in class puts their sustained silent reading on hold to watch me for the few seconds it takes to get out of my desk, across the room and into the hallway. Someone hisses loudly, “Admit to nothing!” as I close the door.
    A secretary tells me to go into the counselor’s office. Mr. Gossling. I saw him when I first came to Stanley Merkin. A one-man welcoming committee for foster kids. Bald head and a goatee and a bolo tie. It’s hard to forget those skinny braids slipping through a brass cow’s head.
    Today he’s not looking so welcoming. And he’s wearing a real tie with a western sunset on it, a pinkish-orange sun sinking behind a cactus plant.
    There are other people at the conference table. Mr. Mussbacher. I give him my Mona Lisa smile. And Shirl. Good heavens, what’s she doing here? She’s a little redder around the eyes than usual. And puffier.
    â€œSit down, Tamara,” Mr. Gossling says. “I think you must know why we’re here...er...having a meeting today.”
    Huh? All I know is when you get a group like this together, it’s probably time to play the foster-homegame. Spin the wheel. Which family’s up next? Or maybe it’ll be a group home this time.
    Mr. Gossling opens a folder. It’s my personal file with a neat line drawn through the name Schlotter on the tab and replaced with Tierney — the last name of my second foster family. It’s the only thing I took with me when I left them two years ago. I can see that, along with other stuff — grade records and official forms — there’s all the absence notes I’ve been writing since I came to Stanley Merkin.
    I decide to look down at my hands. One of my projects over the past few months, since coming to stay with Shirl and Herb, has been to get my nails into shape. That can be hard work for someone who’s been a nail-biter all her life. It’s taken a ton of polish. And wearing band-aids on the tips of my fingers every night for about ten weeks. Of course, Shirl kept accusing Lizzie and Lyle of taking them.
    â€œI’m not surprised you’re ashamed, Tamara,” Mr. Mussbacher sighs. “I thought you’d given up all that