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    Skylark
    Skylark
    Skylark
    Ebook78 pages47 minutes

    Skylark

    By Sara Cassidy

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Angie lives in an old car with her brother and mother. Homeless after their father left to find work, the family struggles to stay together and live as normally as possible. It is difficult though. Between avoiding the police and finding new places to park each night, it is a constant struggle. When Angie discovers slam poetry, she finds a new way to express herself and find meaning and comfort in a confusing world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781459805934
    Skylark
    Author

    Sara Cassidy

    Sara Cassidy is a writer and editor. Her 17 children’s books have been shortlisted for many awards, including the Governor General's Literary Award (Nevers), the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize (Nevers, Genius Jolene), the Bolen Books Children's Book Prize (Skylark, Nevers), the Silver Birch Express Award (A Boy Named Queen, Genius Jolene), the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award, the Rocky Mountain Book Award and five titles for the Chocolate Lily Award. Sara also writes nonfiction and poetry for adults and works in communications for the BC Ministry of Health. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

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      Book preview

      Skylark - Sara Cassidy

      Skylark

      Sara Cassidy

      ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

      Copyright © 2014 Sara Cassidy

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Cassidy, Sara, author

      Skylark / Sara Cassidy.

      (Orca soundings)

      Issued in print and electronic formats.

      ISBN 978-1-4598-0591-0 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0590-3 (pbk.).--

      ISBN 978-1-4598-0592-7 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0593-4 (epub)

      I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings

      PS8555.A7812S49 2014              jC813’.54              C2013-906742-6

      C2013-906743-4

      First published in the United States, 2014

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954150

      Summary: After Angie’s father leaves town to find work, her family ends up evicted and living in their car. Struggling with the realities of homelessness, Angie discovers slam poetry and her own voice.

      Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through

      the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

      Cover image by Dreamstime

      In Canada:

      Orca Book Publishers

      PO Box 5626, Station B

      Victoria, BC Canada

      V8R 6S4

      In the United States:

      Orca Book Publishers

      PO Box 468

      Custer, WA USA

      98240-0468

      www.orcabook.com

      17 16 15 14 • 4 3 2 1

      For those who

      are between homes.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Backseat Dreams

      Through-Line

      Electrified

      Landlord

      Gloves

      Dad

      Pity

      Home

      Getting Clean

      Skylark

      Payday

      Scars

      Semifinals

      Composing on the Fly

      Acknowledgments

      Prologue

      The Spiral Café was a place of movement and color and noise and silence. The windows would be fogged from our breathing and from the evening’s rain, which migrated from the damp sweaters slung on the backs of our chairs. We spoke intently there. We listened intently. The air was spiked with words.

      Spiral was the right name for that café those nights we took our stand at the front of the crowd, adjusted the microphone to the right height—mouth height—and let loose. The words would loop and twirl through the damp air, funnel and spiral into waiting ears, banging against eardrums and fueling brains.

      All of us would be running on the same fuel, the same drug. Mom says a good story or poem is the only drug. We’d laugh when the story called for it, cry sometimes, hoot and holler yeah! We would jump to our feet and cheer when it was done if it had been a good thing, a good trip. If it hadn’t been, if it had just been so much talk, if the words hadn’t been the right ones to tell the story, we’d clap politely and wait, hopeful for the next performance.

      I had my favorite performers. When the MC called their names, I’d settle back into my chair—or I’d lean forward. Ready for something new, something not normal, something that would carry me, nudge me a little to the left or to the right, push me forward or pull me back.

      But every time the MC approached the microphone, my heart would drop, too, because one of those times she would call my name, and then it would be up to me to make the words spin and whirl, to give everyone a fine ride, one that would stay with them into the night.

      Every Tuesday evening, I would walk through the door of the Spiral Café into that moist, noisy air to find my feet and my voice and let my words tumble out, just the way I’d crafted them, into something whole and sure and living—into something like a home.

      Backseat Dreams

      That was when we were living in the Buick Skylark, and Mom still managed to look like a million bucks every day. I’d get to school early, sneak through a side door, hustle into a bathroom and wash my hair in freezing water, neck bent hard so I could fit my head under the short tap. I’d have a headache afterward, the water was so cold.

      Mom slept across the front seats—every night she laid a small cutting board and a folded towel over the plastic console. Clem and I stretched out in the back, side by side, trading off who would cling to the edge of the seat and who would spend the night squashed against the rough upholstery.

      Mom was always neat. She kept her clothes in a small suitcase tucked into the footwell of the front passenger seat. The glove compartment was for toiletries and important documents. My closet was a backpack behind the driver’s seat, Clem’s a sports bag behind the front passenger’s. In the outside pockets of our packs we each kept a toothbrush, library card and current two books.

      The library was our savior. The librarians never asked questions and answered every one of ours. We’d spend long evenings in the library, moving between the city’s seven branches so no one would suspect. Not that there was anything to suspect, Mom would remind us

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