Knocking the Oreo plate aside, Walter slid a vanilla-icing sheet cake in front of Nola. From upstairs, the kids couldn’t read the bright green letters:
We Will Miss You!
Nola looked around, confused.
“This will be your last night with the family,” Walter told Nola matter-of-factly.
“Wh-What’s going on? Why’re you doing this?” Nola asked.
Upstairs, at the back of the pack, young Roddy was silent, tucking his gum under his tongue. He knew why they were doing this.
A year and a half ago, twins Nola and Roddy had been rescued from a brutal group home in northern Arkansas. Someone had shown Barb LaPointe a fax with their photos. She took it as a sign from Jesus, driving to meet the adorable twin three-year-olds. To her surprise, Roddy and his sister—with identical bowl haircuts so that predators wouldn’t know Nola was a girl—were three years older than the group home had disclosed, with behavioral problems omitted.
On his first night in Texas, Roddy refused to get undressed, sleeping in his clothes on the couch. He did the same on his second night, so Barb slept on the chair next to him. When Barb woke up, Roddy was at her feet, like a loving cat. Progress, she thought.
The twins had matching black eyes with flecks of gold and the same honey-colored skin. But Roddy’s disarming grin made him more charming and likable than sullen Nola. And also more dangerous.
At the end of their first week, Roddy’s foster sister Anne Marie noticed that one of her gold bangle bracelets was missing. Roddy found it in Nola’s room.
“Thank you!” Anne Marie said, pulling him so close, his cheek was pressed into her breast. “You’re the good one,” she whispered.
Over the next few weeks, a window in the house was broken. Toys began to disappear, then were found in Nola’s room, always smelling like urine. In no time, the LaPointes were worried about the safety of their own children, a worry that deepened when someone set fire to the living room carpet.
Therapists came to visit and things went back to normal. Then Nola came home with a black eye （and a ruthless hospital bill） from a ferocious boy in fifth grade, whose front teeth she’d knocked out with a steel thermos.
“Miss Nola,” Walter said in that tone no one argued with, “it’s time to go.”
“N-No,” Nola replied, tears swelling in her eyes.
Walter seized her arm.
“No! Please don’t do this!” she yelled, trying to pull out of his grip.
At the top of the stairs, the other kids curled together, watching helplessly.
“What’re they doing?” the youngest, Paulette, whispered.
“Keeping us safe,” Anne Marie replied.
Behind them, Roddy kept to the back of the pack, his head down so no one could see the joy that was spreading across his dark eyes.
Ten minutes ago, when the LaPointes said they wanted to speak to Nola alone, Roddy thought they’d found out the truth: It was him. Roddy was the one who’d broken the window and peed on the toys. Just like he was the one who stole Anne Marie’s bracelet and hid it in Nola’s room. It was even Roddy who picked the fight with Thermos Teeth, telling the ferocious fifth grader that he’d spit in the boy’s backpack. Roddy was about to get his face punched in until Nola came to his aid.
Sure, Nola was the one who set fire to the carpet—a rushed and poorly considered plan to protect the family dog, whom Roddy was chasing around with a candle—but right now, that was the least of Nola’s worries.
“Someone . . . Roddy . . . help! Roddy . . . please!” Nola begged, fighting to break her foster father’s grip.
At the top of the stairs, Roddy didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. He was just a kid. He could never have engineered, much less foreseen, all this. But to watch it play out . . . naturally, he felt bad. But if the choice was between Nola taking the fall, or Roddy confessing everything? Well, that was no choice at all.