Shooting Stars 03 Rose by V. C. Andrews Page B

once we were happy about the house we had rented and the furnishing we were able to manage. Now, that was all to be discarded like so many of our recent memories. I knew if Mommy could, she would wipe her mind clear like some magic slate. She would be like Daddy was and think. Forget the past.
Conrentrate only on the here and now. How sad it was that we had very little to cling to, to bring with us.
    Even our photo albums, full of pictures from so many different places, so many homes, looked more like a travelogue than a family history.
    "I'm happy about that," Charlotte told Mammy and then looked at me as well to add, "You're both starting a new life. Rose. Let everything be fresh. We're going to take you shopping for new clothes, too, and new shoes to match. Don't even bring an old toothbrush. I have new ones in your bathroom cabinets."
    Mommy laughed and the two of them walked out arm in arm as if they were already old, dear friends.
    "I'll say good-bye to Evan," I shouted after them.
"Oh, yes, do that, and be sure to tell him you'll be back tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, but that's so quick, Mommy. I have school and I have. . ."
"Charlotte has arranged it all. Rose. You're enrolled in the school here already, remember? The administration is getting your transcripts in the morning."
"How did..." I didn't finish the question. Mammy had already turned away. I finished it in my thoughts, however. How did she know we would accept and come here for sure?
It put a cold but electric feeling through my veins and made my heart thump for a few moments. Were we so desperate and forlorn that anyone could come along and hold our destinies in the wind like kites and watch us be blown from one place to another? I could feel it. Whatever little control we had of ourselves was drifting away.
Daddy had done a great deal more than he had ever dreamed when he had his love affair with Angelica and a child with her, I thought.
Evan's door was open this time, but he was back where I had found him previously, at his computer.
"Hi," I said. He wasn't wearing earphones. "I guess it's happening. We're actually moving in tomorrow," I said. He kept working as if he hadn't heard me. "Did you hear what I said, Evan?"
"Yes, but I knew that was going to happen," he replied, still working the keyboard and looking at the monitor.
"How did..."
"Wait. There," he said and turned. I heard the printer going. "It' s coming out." He nodded at the printer, which was on the table to his right. I walked in and waited by it, watching as the picture began emerging. I felt the heat building in my neck and face as it was forming. Finally, it was done, and I picked it up.
It was a picture of Daddy, me, Evan. Mommy, and his mother Angelica, all together.
"How did you do this?"
"It's not hard," he said. "I had pictures of everyone and scanned them in together to make that. There it is, the big happy family."
It gave me the chills.
"Where did you get this picture of Daddy?"
"Aunt Charlotte found it in my mother's things. I got your picture and your mother's from the file Aunt Charlotte's detective made.
"I was going to put Aunt Charlotte in there, too, sort of in the background like some puppeteer or something. What do you think? Should I?"
I stared at him. He smiled.
"Come here, watch this," he said, and began working again. He brought up a picture of Charlotte, cut off her head and pasted on the body of a small gorilla. I laughed and then he put her head on the body of a naked, buxom woman.
"Evan!"
"It's magic. I can turn anyone into anything. Look what I did for you," he said and clicked something that was already completed.
It came up on the screen. He had taken the photo of Sheila Stone from the newspaper story of the Miss Lewisville Foundry Beauty Contest and substituted me with the crown on my head.
"See how easy it is to right the wrongs?"
I laughed, and he clicked again and brought up a picture of himself riding a horse, and then one with him running in an Olympic race.
"I