Normal Kids
Normal Kids
I step in. Then I wish I hadn’t. My mom is lying on the bed. Her too-skinny legs are sticking out from a ratty old blanket. And a big man I’ve never seen before is butt naked beside her.
“Jesus.” I cover my eyes and raise my voice, “Mom!”
The man groans, and I silently beg him not to wake up. The boyfriends Mom picks when she’s on a bender are always awful. Low-life scumbags.
“Mom?” I say. “Please wake up.”
After a long second she finally speaks. “Hannah? S’that you?”
Her words are slurred. I can tell she’s still wasted. I want to get out of the room. Fast. But I need to pay the rent.
“Gary needs the money, Mom,” I say. “Did you forget?”
She pauses so long that I think she’s passed out again. But right when I’m about to yell her name, she answers me.
“Didn’t forget,” she says. “Gave the money to Seth.”
“Seth?” I repeat.
She laughs like I’ve said something funny. “Your brother, silly.”
I press my teeth together. “Yeah. Thanks. I got that.”
I spin on my heel. She says something else as I leave, but I ignore her. I hurry to the room I share with Seth.
“Hey,” I say toward the curtain that divides the space down the middle. “Did you give the money to Gary? It’s the third month we’ve been late.”
There’s no answer. A common theme in my house, I guess.
“Hey!” I’m annoyed now. “Seth.”
When he still doesn’t answer, I grab the curtain and pull it back. My brother’s area is empty. Or at least empty of him. It’s full of other stuff, though. It reminds me of Mom’s room, which is depressing.
For a second I just stare at it. Like I can’t help myself.
We have a rule that we don’t go into each other’s space. Of course, Seth has to walk through my side to get to his. But I can’t remember the last time I looked on the other side of the curtain. His area is full. Really, really full.
A desk I’ve never seen before is squished between the bed and the wall. A stack of old CDs sits on the top of it. So does a disc player that was my mom’s back in the day. Random bits of paper are everywhere. A pile of porn mags is right in the middle of the tiny bit of floor. I glare at those for a second, grossed out but unable to look away at the same time.
“Really?” I say to my missing brother. “You couldn’t even hide them somewhere?”
Then I look around a bit more. Seth has about ten weird-looking plants on a shelf. Beside those are too many collective action figures to count.
I make a face and turn to the bed. That’s where Seth usually hangs out. Attached to his headphones and listening to hip-hop. Probably stoned about 80 percent of the time. Today the sheets are bunched up, and a bong rests on the pillow.
“Really?” I say again.
I roll my eyes, and I step past the curtain. My plan is to move the drug stuff out of sight. But when I get closer to the bed, I see something that makes my blood run cold and fast at the same time.
Under the bong is a torn envelope. The word RENT is written across the top. And the envelope is empty. Which is bad. But what’s worse is that Seth’s cell phone is lying beside it. My brother would never leave his phone behind on purpose. Not in a million years.
Hannah Dresher is a senior in high school, but her life is complicated by more than just trying to be a teenager. As her mother struggles with her own life, Hannah and her younger brother, Seth, are trying to make their way despite the fact that their lives are not normal. Hannah works hard at school and has aspirations to make something of herself. Seth, on the other hand, is struggling and making poor life choices that involve hanging out with the wrong crowd and doing drugs.
Because Hannah doesn’t want to move again, she makes sure to check that her mom paid the landlord. Her mom tells her that she gave the money to Seth and asked him to give it to the landlord. Hannah already knows that this is a bad idea and hurries into their shared room to confront Seth. He’s not there, and the only thing she sees is his broken cellphone, something he would never leave home without. Hannah goes looking for her brother, and it is during this search that she discovers that Seth is in deeper trouble than she could have ever thought.
Hannah walks around town, going to the places she might find some information about the whereabouts of her brother. She meets a boy named Eli who goes to school with her, but she doesn’t remember seeing him in her class. Eli says he might know where Seth is and offers to go with Hannah to find him. Reluctantly, Hannah agrees to the escort partially because she’s a bit scared and partially because she feels an attraction to Eli. As they move around town, Hannah and Eli start to tell each other about their lives. It’s surprising to Hannah that, even though her stories would seem dark and scare most people away, Eli just listens and takes everything in stride. As their journey continues, they finally figure out what’s happened to Seth and that it’s going to cost money to get him out of the mess he’s in.
Hannah receives a phone call and Seth says, “Hello,” just before another voice comes on the line, one telling Hannah where to find her brother and telling her to bring $1000.00. Hannah knows where to go, but she has to borrow money from Eli for the exchange. They race to get Seth and find him beaten and tied to a chair. With a camera watching, they gather Seth up, leave the money on a chair, and head home. Seth admits to borrowing some money from some guys and being unable to pay it back by the deadline. Hannah thought he used the rent money, but he didn’t - he paid the rent. Through their conversation, they both realize that they care about each other and their family, even if they’re not normal kids.
Normal Kids does a solid job of keeping the reader interested, both in the evolving feelings that Hannah has for Eli and the darker story of having to make tough choices in navigating life. Hannah’s character is a breath of fresh air as it does not follow the typical romance progression of teenage infatuation. Instead, she questions her own thinking, is skeptical and independent, but is still willing to allow herself to build trust in Eli.
Di Lorenzo successfully presents an unfortunate, but realistic, view into what life can be like for some teens. The storylines are believable and enhance the reader’s overall understanding of the issues presented in this text, including addiction, poverty, forming relationships, family matters, and making choices. Overall, I believe Normal Kids would be a great read for a high school student who is looking for a book that is not necessarily complicated but tells a great story.
Penta Ledger is a teacher-librarian at Gravenhurst High School in Gravenhurst, Ontario.