Tricks. Part 43

Daddy came in later. Angry.

And Kyra, on semester break.

She was upset that I might have damaged her reputation. Whatever.

But it has been Mom chipping away at me, trying to convince me we can maybe-maybe-become a family again. I don't know if I want that.

First I have to make it through rehab.

It's a pricey place, with a pretty staff and lots of mindless activities. The shrinks even pretend to be nice while they're picking at my brain. I tell them just enough to make them believe they're fixing me. I'm probably unfixable. But hey, you never know.

A Poem by Ginger Cordell You Never Know When a pa.s.sing cloud might meet another, and together unleash lightning on thirsting ground.

One insignificant spark strikes bone-brittle tinder.

Buoyed by the quiet breeze, an ember smolders until evening wind blows, carries smoking wisps upon its wings into the forest, sighs into crackling summer leaves until the canopy burns.

So take note of every pa.s.sing cloud, because you never know.

Ginger

Don't Know If It's the Same

Everywhere, but Vegas has its very own teen prost.i.tution court, complete with a special judge who says he believes that underage hookers (my term, not his) are the victims of this particular crime. After watching him deal with a long lineup of young tramps (my term again), I think up to a point, he's right. Pimps and johns are most definitely the criminals here. The problem is that most of the girls in the courtroom, including Alex and me, were willing victims.

Whatever. We are d.a.m.n lucky to have a judge who cares even a little about what happens to any of us.

His choices for what to do with us are limited. Juvie. Group homes.

Treatment programs, for those who need them. Hard-core repeat offenders spend time in Caliente, a lockup in mid-nowhere, Nevada. And for the few lucky ones with families who still care and will take them, the chance to go home.

Turned out for once in my life, I was one of the few.

When I called Gram, she freaked. Good freaked, I mean. All the bad of what I've done started spewing from my mouth. She shut me up right away. We can talk about that later. Right now, tell me what I have to do to bring you home. She didn't yell. Didn't cry. Not until she told me about Iris. She's dying, Ginger. Advanced HIV.

Gram and the Kids Really need me now. Iris, too.

She's wasting away. Docs say she's got maybe a year.

I tried to get Alex to come back to Barstow with me.

She's not budging an inch from the group home her social worker a.s.signed her to. A group home for pregnant teens. She said, Me and the baby will be just fine. The program will find me a job, help me learn how to be a mom. She vows to be a better mother than her own.

I just hope she's better than mine.

I'll miss her, of course. She's been the biggest part of me for a very long time. But truth is, the biggest part of me should be me. Just have to find her.

Maybe she's even a writer.

A Poem by Cody Bennett Have to Find The courage to leap the brink, let myself fall beyond the precipice most people call life.

I've grown tired of stumbling, skinning my knees. If flight is possible without the sting of growing wings, let me fly a- way, above the madness, to a place where there is nothing to gamble but another go-round.

And, win or lose, there is a chance at something after the penultimate decision.

Because life, and maybe death, will always be a gamble after all.

Author's Note.

I am often asked how I decide to write about a certain topic. This one was inspired by a statistic I came across. Did you know that the average age of a female prost.i.tute in the United States is twelve years old? This book doesn't explore the base reason for that statistic-young children are imported into this country from places like Thailand and Africa to serve as child prost.i.tutes. Other books do address that issue, and I may too, one day. But for the purposes of this book, the statistic piqued my interest in teen prost.i.tution. Tricks looks at a handful of reasons that might drive a young adult to sell his or her body. Here, and in real life, almost always you can distill the reason to survival.

Prost.i.tution is not a glamorous profession. Even high-priced call girls often end up addicted, abused, or worse. No one deserves the kind of mistreatment often perpetrated by "johns" and pimps. Whatever the reasons for resorting to prost.i.tution, whatever has happened in someone's past, the future is theirs to shape. The first step is to find a way out.

If you or someone you know have reached that place, and are under the age of eighteen, there is help. A wonderful organization called Children of the Night will take you off the street and help you start over. All you have to do is ask. Their hotline number is 800-551-1300. But if you can't remember that, dial 911. Local law enforcement can put you in touch with them.

Also by Ellen Hopkins.

Crank.

Impulse.

Burned.

Gla.s.s.

Identical.

Margaret K. McElderry Books.