Catfishing on CatNet Naomi Kritzer (reading strategies book txt) 📖

with safety scissors, and I got really mad and threw the scissors, and they hit another kid in the face and made him cry. I tried to tell everyone that I wasn’t throwing them at that kid, I was just mad at the scissors, and no one listened.

“They sent me off to some room for kids who were in big trouble. I waited for hours, and when my mother picked me up, she’d already packed the van. We must have already been doing the constant moves because I knew what that meant. I remember this because I was so angry that time. Angry at everyone for not listening to me when I said it was an accident. Angry at my mother for thinking I was in so much trouble we had to leave. I don’t know why she thought we had to leave. I mean, I was a kindergartener who got sent to the principal’s office; the police weren’t involved or anything.”

“Do you remember where this was?”

“It was hot. The air was sticky. We drove for a whole day to get to our next place, and I think it was a state with a two-word name, like North Dakota or South Dakota.”

I tell Rachel about getting into trouble over and over until I learned to just shut down instead of getting angry. I tell her about the girl in first grade who got in my face and said, “I heard you live in the upstairs of the Laundromat.” Her name was Angie, and her hair was parted perfectly in the middle and done in thick shining braids without a hair out of place. I tell her about deciding that time that it would be worth moving again, and ripping out a big piece of Angie’s hair and still having it in my hand when I got in my mother’s van to go to the next town.

When we get to Julie again, I remember we lived in that house during the summer and that Mom specifically said she wanted to move before fall came. We moved in just after school got out; we moved out just before school started. Julie had told me that we’d have Mrs. Seegmiller, who she said was really mean, but it wouldn’t be so bad with me in the class with her, and I wonder now if that’s part of why Mom moved before the year started. I probably would not have gotten along very well with a teacher already well-established as mean.

“Utah,” I say suddenly. “Julie lived in Utah.” And then I remember my eighth birthday: I’d begged, as a birthday present, to go back and visit Julie, and Mom had refused and instead she’d taken me to an amusement park. I can’t remember the name of the amusement park, but I remember it had a giant swing ride that went over water and a roller coaster that looked like it went straight up and straight down.

“Okay, let’s look at pictures,” Rachel says, and so I sit up and we search the internet for amusement parks with roller coasters that go straight up and straight down. None of them look remotely like what I’m picturing, and none of them have giant swings that go out over the water, and the more I think about it, the less certain I am that either of these is right.

“It’s an amusement park, though,” Rachel says. “Maybe if we keep trying, you’ll remember what state you were in at the time? It wouldn’t be hard to narrow it down…”

“I want to look up some of the other stuff I found,” I say.

Xochitl Mariana is a computer programmer who works in Boston. She has her picture on her résumé and looks about Mom’s age, probably. I close the window.

“Holy shit, check this out,” Rachel says, and she spins her computer so I can see it. She’s searched on Stephania Quinnpacket and pulled up the first hit.

It’s a very simple page titled Searching for Stephania Quinnpacket, and there’s a picture of a chubby-cheeked infant with dark hair and a suspicious expression who I guess could be me.

Stephania Quinnpacket is my 16-year-old daughter whose mother took her and vanished when she was three years old. My ex-wife is vindictive and may have told her lies about me and about our life together. I wish to re-establish contact with Stephania. $1000 reward for information.

Rachel stares at the screen. “Do you think this is true?”

I shake my head, running through what I know about my father: the arson, the stalking, the prison sentence. “He went to jail.”

“Are you sure? Maybe your mom just told you that.”

Am I sure? My mother showed me a newspaper clipping, but those can be faked. Rachel is reading off a page about parental kidnapping with a description that sounds like my life:

Frequent moves, false IDs, trouble getting even basic health care …

And suddenly I remember that the newspaper clipping my mother showed me claimed my father’s last name was Taylor, like ours.

But his name is Quinn. The article is a fake.

15

Clowder

LittleBrownBat: So apparently my name isn’t really my name.

{Georgia is here}

Georgia: Steph am I doing this right

LittleBrownBat: You’re supposed to call me LBB in the chat room, Georgia.

Georgia: oh right sorry

LBB are you going to tell them about the website

LittleBrownBat: I need to explain the birth certificate first.

I found a birth certificate with my first name, more or less, but a different last name. Stephania Quinnpacket. And Georgia found this website—

{active link to offsite—click to activate}

Which says I was KIDNAPPED.

Firestar: WHOA.

Hermione: Is that actually a picture of you?

Georgia: Pretty sure it’s her. Same chin.

Firestar: omg I just realized that Georgia knows what you actually look like because you didn’t have to take a selfie, she’s just looking at your FACE.

What does she look like Georgia? You have to describe her!

Georgia: I know you’ll be shocked to hear this but LittleBrownBat is not in fact an actual bat.

Firestar: I KNEW IT

Or at least I always suspected

But is LBB cute?

Georgia: Oh yeah