Tell Me Why by Evangeline Hart (little readers txt) 📖

The sound of crying wakes me up. I sit up in bed, looking around groggily to try to pinpoint the source of the sound. Then, my eyes land on the open window, and I know.

                The school year started just a few weeks ago, and because the weather was still hot out, I decided to leave my window open when I went to sleep last night. Now, I’m regretting my decision because five o’clock is much too early to be woken up.

                There’s a girl my age in the house next to mine. Her name is Ali and her room is literally two feet away. If I want to, I can reach my head out my own window and stick it in hers. Not that I would ever do such a thing. I’ve never talked to her. Ever.

                Ali is . . . different. She isn’t like the other girls at school. While they wear crop tops and miniskirts, she wears plaid shirts and jeans. While they go shopping in their free time, she reads.

                So naturally, she’s the smartest student in the grade.

                But Ali’s no simple nerd. The other students don’t even consider bullying her. The last time someone tried to . . . well, let’s just say it didn’t end well for the bully. Ali can watch out for herself. She’s tough.

                Or at least, that’s what I thought. At this moment, I’m not so sure, because I have a feeling that the girl crying next door is Ali.

                Out of curiosity, I get out of bed to look out the window. I see Ali sitting on her bed, scribbling furiously in a notebook, tears streaming down her face. A few minutes later, she snaps the journal shut, wipes her face, and grabs her backpack before leaving the room. When she exits her house, she pauses to stuff the journal under her porch before walking down the street in the direction of the school.

                It’s wrong. It’s so horribly wrong what I’m about to do.

                But that doesn’t stop me.

                I slip out of my house, padding over to Ali’s house. Glancing quickly around to make sure no one’s watching, I slip my hand under the porch and grab the notebook, flipping it open to the first page as I run back to my house.

Day Zero:

                I wonder if I can have just one good day each week.

                Nah, that’s too easy. I know I can’t.

                Let’s go with ten days.

                I’m going to keep a diary—list every good thing that happens versus every bad thing. If I have a bad day, I’ll keep counting the days. If I have a good day, I’ll start over.

                Day One starts today. I’ll decide whether it’s a good one or a bad one tomorrow morning.

                If I reach Day Ten and it’s a bad one, I’ll end this once and for all.

I snap the journal shut, staring at the blank cover.

                What did I just read?

I looked for Ali yesterday in school, but I didn’t see her. Admittedly, she’s a lot smarter than me, so we don’t have any classes in common. I considered trying to talk to her during lunch, but she wasn’t in the cafeteria. Thinking back, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat lunch before. She must spend lunchtime in the library or something.

                After school, I had to go work at the local diner. After Dad left, Mom’s been working double to try to make ends meet. It’s not easy, though, since someone needs to watch over Liam.

                Liam’s my five year-old brother. He was born just a few months before Mom and Dad got divorced, so Mom had to stop working for about two years to take care of him. During that time, I decided to get a job to help out. I started working at the diner every day after school, from two to eight. After work, I had to come home and do homework. I was so tired every day that I didn’t really have time for much besides school and work.

                It’s slightly better now. Mom has a friend whom I’ve never met who’s agreed to babysit Liam while I’m at school and she’s working. We’re not too thrilled about asking Mom’s friend to look after Liam for free, but we don’t have many other choices. We’ll just have to make do for now and pay her back when we have the money.

                Anyways, I didn’t see Ali at all yesterday after I read her diary.

                I feel slightly guilty about invading her privacy, but I’m glad I did. I can’t let her kill herself. I don’t know how bad her life is, but I have to at least try to convince her that suicide isn’t the answer.

                The night before, I set my alarm clock for five in the morning, because that seems to be when Ali gets up in the mornings. When I woke up earlier, Ali was already writing in her journal. She’s still writing right now, so I’m waiting for her to finish.

                After writing and scribbling out and re-writing, Ali finally closes her notebook around five-thirty. She gets up and leaves her room with her notebook and backpack—just like yesterday. And again, she hides the notebook under her porch before heading towards school.

Day One:

                I’ll admit that yesterday wasn’t the worst day, but it wasn’t the best day either. Some days can be rather ambiguous, so I’m going to need to detail out everything that happened before I can decide for sure whether it was a good day or a bad day.

                Obviously, I didn’t have a great start in the morning. Dad found out I got a B on my English test. I mean, it’s not even that bad a grade, and I still have an A in the class. So why is he so upset?

                Anyways, he barged into my room around four in the morning to scream at me for being so stupid. Let me say that running on two hours of sleep is never a good thing, but it’s especially horrible when the first thing you have to deal with is an angry parent.

                I was actually lucky enough to fall asleep around two yesterday morning, but Dad just had to ruin it. He always does.

                I guess I can’t really be upset about him waking me up. He doesn’t know about my . . . situation. Mom doesn’t either. I’ve never told them about my insomnia. They wouldn’t understand.

               Back to my grades. Dad knows I’m more of a math/science person. English has never been my forte—especially analyzing stories. I’m utterly hopeless when it comes to stuff like that. So are Mom and Dad, but they’re adults and they don’t need to worry about school.

                Really, they only care because neither of them went to college. They don’t have the best jobs and they can barely pay the electrical bill, so they want to make sure I can get a scholarship to go to college and get a good job and pay them back for raising me when I’m older.

                Such great parents, right?

                At least the rest of the day was relatively peaceful. School was okay. I did get a few insults here and there (when do I not?) but it’s whatever. I’m used to them. The only problem is that, with less than two hours of sleep, I kept dozing off in class. I was lucky not to get any detentions. Luckily, I got off with warnings in all my classes. But I did have to reteach myself everything I missed while I was sleeping.

                Yeah, not fun.

                When I got home, Mom and Dad were both gone. I’m not really sure why. Dad works every day, but yesterday was Monday, and Mom only works at the store on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Other than that, she’s always at home.

                What’s even stranger is that Mom didn’t come home until around one in the morning. Dad came back at his regular time, but he also didn’t know where Mom went. He stayed up to wait for her, but at midnight, he got impatient and just went to sleep. It’s not like he was actually worried about her. He just likes to be in charge of the house and everyone in it.

                It’s weird. I could have sworn Mom was wearing heels what with the clicking noise she was making as she walked around. Mom doesn’t even own heels. She and Dad can barely afford food and electricity. How did she get heels? Were they gifts from someone? Who?

                Well, now it’s time to decide. Good day? Or bad day?

                I guess I can’t call it a good day. At best it was okay. Nothing happened that could warrant it as a good day. So I guess it was a bad day, then.

                Day One: bad day.

                Today is Day Two.

I find Ali in the library during lunch. She’s sitting at one of the back tables with books piled all around her. I think she’s doing homework. As I walk closer, I see how pale her skin is, like she’s never outside.

                “Can I sit here?” I ask once I’m next to her.

                Ali looks up, startled. Up close, I notice the dark shadows around her eyes. Her eyelids are like bruises, they’re so dark. Her cheekbones stand out starkly, not in the regal high cheekbones sort of way, but in the starved kind.

                “Um, sure,” Ali says. I’ve never really heard her speak before, despite living right next door to her. Her voice is quiet and soft, but it’s beautiful and melodic. She gathers up the textbooks into a pile so that I can set my stuff down on the table.

                I take out my homework, but I find myself staring at her instead. She’s not the type of girl that would immediately strike you as pretty. But once I study her for a while, I realize that she’s beautiful in her own way.

                There’s a light in her blue eyes that make them shine, even though I can see the sadness in their depths as well. Her lips are turned down in a small frown, but her forehead is smooth. She probably just naturally looks sad.

                It’s horrible to imagine that she’s always so sad.

                Ali looks up from her papers and blinks when she sees me staring.

                “Do you need something?” she asks.

                I shake my head, and she goes back to her work. After a few seconds, I speak up.

                “You’re Ali, right?” I ask.

                She purses her lips and nods. But she doesn’t look up from the table. I wonder if she knows that we’re neighbors.

                Probably not.

                The rest of our time in the library passes in silence.