Bringing Me Back Read online

  Praise for Beth Vrabel’s A Blind Guide to Normal

  A Junior Library Guild selection.

  “Vrabel has an eye for sympathetic, offbeat characters—and a knack for feel-good resolutions.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Vrabel injects just the right goofy mix of hormones and pain into Ryder’s mounting rages, fervent emotional deflection techniques, and confusing romantic ups and downs and gives equal weight to the foibles and dramas of those around him. As any reader of middle grade fiction might expect, the title is a red herring—nobody’s normal, and everybody’s just trying their best. VERDICT A sweet, thoughtful, and funny read. Hand this to fans of Vrabel’s previous novels and those who enjoy a heartfelt tale without the typical saccharine coating.”

  —School Library Journal

  “A Blind Guide to Normal treats difficult subjects with grace and compassion, plus a delightful sense of the absurd. With his unique voice and a memorable predicament, Richie Ryder represents the underdog in us all.”

  —Melissa Hart, author of Avenging the Owl

  “Once in a great while I read a book and want to immediately email the author to thank them for writing it. A Blind Guide to Normal is one of those books. It’s filled with kindness, friendship, and hope. Lots of hope. Just beautiful.”

  —Kerry O’Malley Cerra, author of Just a Drop of Water

  Praise for Beth Vrabel’s A Blind Guide to Stinkville

  “[R]ings true…. Readers who worry about fitting in—wherever that may be—will relate to Alice’s journey toward compromise and independence.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Alice is a realistic and easy-to-relate-to character…. The author does a great job of mixing humor with more serious topics like depression, disability, and old age. Readers who enjoy realistic fiction and humor will find much to appreciate. VERDICT An engaging middle grade read.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Vrabel presents a rare glimpse of what it is like to navigate new territory while legally blind. Alice’s road isn’t always an easy one, but her journey will be inspiring to readers, especially those who have struggled with a disability.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Brimming with wit and heart, A Blind Guide to Stinkville examines the myriad ways we define difference between ourselves and others and asks us to reexamine how we see belonging.”

  —Tara Sullivan, award-winning author of Golden Boy

  Praise for Beth Vrabel’s Camp Dork

  “Vrabel has a rare talent for expressing the tenderness, frustration, awkwardness, confusion, and fun of growing up. VERDICT In Vrabel’s capable hands, the ups and downs of adolescence shine through with authenticity and humor.”

  —School Library Journal

  “With good humor, Vrabel explores the pitfalls of emerging preteenhood. This quick read nonetheless effectively delves into interpersonal pitfalls that will be familiar to most older grade schoolers, and Lucy’s developing insight may even provide a few hints for staying on the right path. Honest, funny, and entertaining.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for Beth Vrabel’s Pack of Dorks

  *“Lucy’s perfectly feisty narration, emotionally resonant situations, and the importance of the topic all elevate this effort well above the pack.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “Lucy’s growth and smart, funny observations entertain and empower in Vrabel’s debut, a story about the benefits of embracing one’s true self and treating others with respect.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Vrabel displays a canny understanding of middle-school vulnerability.”

  —Booklist

  “A fresh look at what it means to embrace what makes you and the ones you love different…. Pack of Dorks is the pack I want to join.”

  —Amanda Flower, author of Agatha Award nominee Andi Unexpected

  Also by Beth Vrabel

  Caleb and Kit

  A Blind Guide to Normal

  A Blind Guide to Stinkville

  Camp Dork

  Pack of Dorks

  Copyright © 2018 by Beth Vrabel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  First Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  www.skyponypress.com

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Vrabel, Beth, author.

  Title: Bringing me back / Beth Vrabel.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Skyhorse Publishing, [2018] | Summary: Ostracized after his mother’s drunk driving conviction and his own behavior afterwards, twelve-year-old Noah begins making a fresh start while helping save a bear.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017047553 (print) | LCCN 2017057383 (ebook) | ISBN 9781510725294 (eb) | ISBN 9781510725270 (hc: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781510725294 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Conduct of life—Fiction. | Prisoners’ families—Fiction. | Bears—Fiction. | Wildlife rescue—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.V9838 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.V9838 Bri 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017047553

  Cover design by Kate Gartner

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Jon

  I love you

  CHAPTER ONE

  November 5th

  The bear rose on her back feet, slamming down to her front paws so hard the impact echoed through the woods. Head swinging, she pawed the dirt in front of me with long, sharp claws. A fierce, rumbling growl ripped through her and over me.

  This was it.

  We were both out of time.

  About 2 months earlier: First day of seventh grade

  I sat at the crumbling wooden bleachers lining the (former) football field, waiting for the first bell to ring. Picture this: me on the bottom bleacher by myself. My (former) best friend, Landon, and his (current) best friend, Mike, aka the armpit of seventh grade, on the top row just behind me.

  They were talking about me and making sure I knew it.

  And I knew exactly what they were talking about: the thing at the pharmacy over the summer. I still can’t explain why I did it. I don’t even like candy bars—they make my teeth hurt and my stomach burn. But I stole them.

  My heart thumped in my ears, and it was like I was back there, shoving handfuls of candy bars into my pockets, watching my hands like they belonged to a different body, barely hearing the sound of the crinkling wrappers. I grabbed more and more, cramming them into the big pocket of my hoodie once my pants pockets were stuffed. I felt them break and bend as I cleaned out one box on the shelf and reached for a second.

  It had been like I was in a trance, until the pharmacist noticed me and started yelling. I couldn’t leave in time, and I couldn’t explain.

  The old man ended up not pressing charges, but of course the whole town found out. Like I said, it had been more
than a month ago. But this was the first day of school, and everything seemed new all over again, including my almost-arrest. “Total loser,” I heard Mike whisper-shout, “just like his mom.” Landon didn’t laugh, but he didn’t stop Mike, either.

  Whatever. I closed my eyes, pushing the heels of my hands into them, remembering how last fall, the night before the championship game, Mike jumped on a table and cheered when Mom and I got to Coach’s party. Now Mom’s in jail and Ashtown Middle School, a run-down, forgotten school in a run-down, forgotten West Virginia town, doesn’t have a football team. And Mike, Landon, and the rest of the school won’t ever let me forget that I’m the one to blame.

  I don’t know what made me look up, but when I did, I spotted her. A bear, hovering on the edge of the field.

  Most people in Ashtown played it cool when they spot a bear—they weren’t all that uncommon, especially around the edges of woods. But I couldn’t pull it off. The part of me that wanted to yell Check it out! A bear! was at war with the part of me practicing being invisible. So I just watched her, pressing my mouth shut.

  She stood her ground on the edge of the field, about fifty yards away. Once in a while, she looked over at me and the other kids hanging around the bleachers, but seemed to be doing her best to ignore us. She was small, but seemed fierce. We locked eyes for a second. You don’t have anything I want anyway. Stay put, she seemed to be saying. I started to smile, but then Mike hopped off the bleachers, kicking up a cloud of dust. He picked up a rock and threw it at her. She backed up a step or two but didn’t leave.

  “What’s your deal?” I snapped, fighting to stay seated. Mike outweighed me by at least ten pounds. Plus, he’s squeaky-clean to teacher eyes. If things turned sideways, I’d be the one in the principal’s office. “She’s not bothering you.”

  Mike huffed out of his nose and slowly reached down for another rock, this one roughly the size of a brick. “Got a problem, Sneaks?” he snarled. Like always, Mike cracked up as he said his stupid nickname for me, flashing super straight white teeth. He smirked as I pulled my feet back under the bleacher seat, hoping the dirt would finally cloud my vibrant red sneakers.

  I glanced at Landon, but he just looked away, the side of his mouth pulling back. Maybe it was a smile, maybe a grimace.

  “Don’t worry,” Mike singsonged. “I won’t hurt the little teddy bear. Yet.” He cupped the hand not holding the rock around his mouth and yelled across the field, “A month ’til bow season!”

  The bear tilted her face toward him. Slowly, she took a small step forward. I had thought she was glossy black, but the sunlight revealed a grayish tint. A blue bear, I think they’re called.

  I recognized the heavy sigh behind us without needing to turn. Rina can expel her own hot air louder than anyone else in our class. More frequently, too. She spends summers in New York City with her father. She used to manage to drop that fact into every conversation, but for the past couple years, she didn’t have to. You knew she was thinking about it with every sigh and eye roll, and every day that she put on nothing but black, like she was in mourning. “That bear’s practically a cub. You can’t hunt a bear until it’s at least seventy-five pounds. She’s maybe sixty, tops.”

  Mike shrugged. “We’ll see. Mistakes happen all the time.”

  “Do it and you lose your hunting license.” Rina crossed her arms and glared at him. Her poofy brown hair swirled around her head in the breeze. It wasn’t even September but it was starting feel like fall. “I’ll turn you in.”

  “Tell on me and you’ll lose more than that.”

  “What does that even mean?” Rina sighed again.

  Mike twitched his shoulders and half-turned back to me. “Rina, is there jail time for killing the wrong bear?” He kept his eyes locked on mine.

  “Of course not.”

  “Too bad. Noah’s mommy and I could’ve been roomies.”

  I concentrated on breathing in and out of my nose so I wouldn’t rush forward to punch him in his stupid all-American boy face, messing up his spiky blond hair and flattening his freckled nose.

  Rina sighed again. “That doesn’t make any sense, either. You’d go to a totally different jail than Noah’s mom. Seriously, Mike. Maybe pick up a book once in a while? The black squiggles come together to form words, which form sentences, which form coherent thoughts. You could use a few of those.” Rina stomped away from us.

  Mike smirked. “Come on, Landon,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Landon stared right at me.

  And I stared right back. Neither of us blinked. Finally, the crunch of breaking twigs made us both glance toward the bear. A larger black shadow loomed in the woods just behind it—the mother bear, I guessed. “Stupid bears,” Landon muttered as they disappeared into the woods. Like Mike, he mimed shooting his crossbow where the bear had been. He pulled on his backpack—the same battered one he’d had for the past few years—and walked off.

  I tried to be invisible as time ran out and I had to enter the school. Crowds of kids belched out of arriving buses. For a second, I pictured Coach’s whiteboard as he plotted out plays. I was the giant x sticking to the perimeter of the schoolyard, ready to flush into the end zone (my locker) at the last minute.

  Even sixth graders whispered in scrawny huddles and glared my way.

  My fists clenched, and for a second I thought about being like Mike, who lunged toward the newbies to make them feel as stupid as I felt. But the second I felt my nails dig into my palms, that echo of Micah Hardell’s fall flooded my ears. Without wanting to, I scanned the crowds for the mass of space usually taken up by him, even though I had heard he switched schools.

  Of course he wasn’t there, big grin as he sputtered in his slow-moving way about whatever had him jazzed that week—space exploration, Star Trek reruns, superhero comics. Of course I didn’t see him. But I did see Rina, her eyes narrowed into slits as she stared back at me, like she could read my mind, maybe even feel the guilt oozing out of me. I remembered that she and Micah are cousins.

  So I shouldered her glare, knowing I deserved it as I hid among the puny sixth graders, waiting to get into the school. But then, for some reason, she wasn’t glaring. She smiled, like she would to a friend.

  Finally the bell rang. I rushed along with the crowd through the open doors. My head down and shoulders curled in, I stepped it up as we passed the Office. “Mr. Brickle!” The throngs of kids separated around Miss Dickson, the plump, gray-haired witch of a secretary, as she bellowed my name.

  I almost made it past her, too. But she has eyes like an eagle. “Noah Brickle!” she snapped. “Get over here! We listen when Miss Dickson calls us!”

  I clenched my teeth and trudged toward her. Miss Dickson has this annoying habit of saying “we” instead of “you.” Like we’re all on the same side or something, even though she clearly hated anyone under forty. She glared at me with beady eyes under clumpy eyelashes.

  “Mr. Anderson wants to see you.” Miss Dickson licked her bubblegum-colored lips and tried to put her claw on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. Her nails dug into my skin for just a second. “Now, now, Mr. Brickle. We want to start of the year right, don’t we?” She pointed to the chair outside the principal’s office, and I slumped into it. Miss Dickson clearly got a kick out of kids being sent in to see Mr. Anderson. She’s old school, thinking that going to his office meant, I don’t know, a paddling or something. But really, Mr. Anderson is about as scary as Mike is smart.

  The door was cracked, and I heard Rina’s familiar heavy sigh trickle through. How did she get in there already?

  “But this is the second year I’ve asked and the second year you’ve said you’d budget for a school newspaper next year. I only have one more year here!”

  I coughed to cover a laugh a half second later when she snapped, “What do you mean good?”

  “Rina, we have a strong English department already—”

  Rina sighed. “Oh, really?” I heard her slam something onto Mr. Ander
son’s desk. “Each term begins with personal narratives. Every stinking year. Since fourth grade, I’ve turned in the same personal narrative about my ninth birthday. Every year. Look!” Rustling of papers. “It’s the same essay. The same A. In two weeks, I’ll turn in the same essay for the fourth time.”

  “Rina, you should be applying yourself more,” Mr. Anderson half-yelled, half-groaned.

  “You should be expecting more! I spent two weeks this summer at a journalism camp in the city.” She said “the city” like New York was only one in the world. “I know what people my age are capable of doing, and we’re not even close here.”

  Mr. Anderson’s hand curled around the door as he pulled it open wider and stepped out. His voice dipped into his I-want-to-be-your-friend tone. “Listen, Rina, I appreciate your enthusiasm.” For a second, his eyes drifted to mine. “I wish more of our students were as dedicated to making a positive difference. But unless you can drum up another student or two willing to spend their own time on the newspaper and a teacher open to overseeing the team, a student newspaper isn’t in the works for Ashtown. We don’t have the budget.”

  Rina stood in place. After a long pause, she crossed her arms. “So all I need is another writer and a teacher and I can do the newspaper?”

  “That’s not what—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Anderson! I appreciate your support.” Rina pushed pass me, leaving Mr. Anderson open mouthed.

  I stood. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  Mr. Anderson stayed in the doorway and looked at me. “Come in, Mr. Brickle.” He stepped aside, closing the door once I sat in front of his desk.

  He sat behind the desk and stared at me with his hands folded under his chin. The bell rang.

  “I’m late for homeroom,” I said as my second glaring match of the day stretched another minute.

  Mr. Anderson’s lips totally disappeared as he pressed them tighter together. “How are you, Noah?”

  I shrugged.

  More staring. More silence.