“I don’t get it,” I say nervously. “You lost me and a stranger found me and left me outside?”
Mom keeps pressing her fingers together and then waving them frantically in the air. “No, Bernie. Your dad and I were . . . jeepers, creepers, this is hard. You dad and I were getting up in years and still childless. The person who left you at our door asked us to be your parents.”
“Hold up. You are my parents. What’s going on? Is this a joke?” A few tears have started trickling down my cheek. I attack them with my fist.
Mom and Dad slowly tell me that what I’ve known to be true my entire life is a big, fat lie. They are not my biological parents! A baby arrived on their doorstep and that baby was me! They took me in and raised me as their own.
I pound a couch pillow. “Who are my parents? Are they still alive? How did I get here? Where did I come from?”
Mom pries open my fists and takes my hands in hers. “We wanted a baby more than anything, Bernie,” she explains. “I believe you were sent from heaven. The angels saw that we were lonely. They gave us you.”
I stand up. My stomach juices are boiling. “Did the angels tell you my real name?”
“No,” Mom says.
“Do I have a birth certificate?”
“Not really,” Dad says. “We know your real mother’s name: B. Rose Aurora. We gave you her name, sort of. We didn’t know what the B stood for so we named you Bernice.”
“That’s how I got stuck with Bernice Rose?”
Mom and Dad nod, like bobblehead dolls on the dashboard of a speeding car.
B. Rose Aurora. My real mother’s name. I wonder what her first name is. Chances are it’s not Bernice. I, Bernice Rose Baransky, ended up in Porchtown with a fill-in-the blank name and fill-in-the blank parents.
“Am I adopted?”
“Not really,” Dad says again.
“Stop saying not really!” I yell. “I want to know who my parents are. Am I adopted or not?”
Dad gives in. “No. We never thought we needed to adopt you. You were already ours.”
I can’t speak. I’ve always understood my parents to be a little strange, but this is ridiculous. It’s not right. It’s not even legal!
I spit out, “Why now? Why are you telling me this now?”
Dad holds up the opened envelope. A letter falls out, and he quickly scoops it up. “Someone has been asking questions about you,” he says. “It’s the same person who left you at our door.”
“Questions? What questions?” I pace around the living room like a caged animal.
“Like, are you happy with us? Like, have we told you what we’ve just told you?”
“Why would they care?” I ask. “He or she ditched me.”
“It is worrisome, sweetie,” Mom says. “And I kid you not. They can’t have you back.”
I rub my shaky thighs. I want to rub out this ridiculous news and have things return to normal.
“Wait,” I say to my parents, taking it all in. “They want me back?”
***
The Maiden’s Lost Mojo
For the last twenty-four hours, I have searched and searched for the letter. There must be more to it than what my parents are telling me. I’ve torn apart bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets. It’s not hiding in the pantry, cutting a rug in the garage, or dangling from a hook in Dad’s tackle box. It’s nowhere.
Mom and Dad have gone into reassurance overdrive, telling me I have nothing to worry about. They tell me to stop searching for the letter because it means nothing. I want to believe them. But I’d still like to read it since the person who wrote it asked about me. I want to tell that person that I, Bernice Rose Baransky, am basically happy. I like my life. And even though I’ve wished for a couple of things to change this summer, a change in parents was not one of them!
I need to get to the park. I may be a little lost as to my birthright, but I know one thing for sure. I. Am. A. Skater.
Once outside, I see it’s starting to drizzle. Rain is a skater’s worst enemy. We hate rain. It messes with our trucks, and a slick surface is a nightmare. I don’t care about any of that. I ride to the park.
As soon as I get inside the gate, Wyatt sees me. My heart thumps out of my chest and lands somewhere south of my knees.
“Yo, Bernie!” he calls, cruising over.
“You can call me Dude if you want,” I say.
Wyatt shrugs. “Ready to channel your inner terminator and hit the half?”
“I’ve got no mojo today.”
Wyatt doesn’t push, which I appreciate. I warm up on the small ramps, and watch as Wyatt ollies up and slides down ledges and ramps, rips across the volcano, attacks the hubbas, jumps the steps, and works his latest bit of awesomeness—the Smith grind. I fail on my last trick—an attempt at a tailslide and decide to practice kick flips and my 50-50 instead. Nine out of ten times my butt gets a nice introduction to the ground. Nothing is going right. I can’t even blame the rain because it stopped fifteen minutes ago and the sun is out.
Wyatt zips around the obstacles, but slows down when he comes near me. As he rides past, he tugs my hair, light as a summer breeze. It tickles. My pulse does a few ollies of its own. My knees tremble like they do on Dad’s boat when we bump around in rough water. My lips have taken a vacation.
But my mojo? My mojo is back!
“Up for a little rock and roll?” Wyatt calls.
“Sure,” I tell him.
When we’re at the top of the half-pipe, Wyatt stands behind
