The next book that I read is called Dirty Little
Secretsby C. J. Omololu. The book takes place somewhere in California. The
city remained unmentioned throughout the story. The main character is Lucy and
she’s 16 years old. Her mother is a nurse, but has a horrible secret that only
her immediate family knows about. Lucy’s mother is a hoarder.
Her parents are divorced and her dad lives in Michigan. As soon as Lucy’s
parents divorced, her father finds a new wife (that’s 29 years old and about
half his age) and has a child. Luckily, she isn’t completely alone. She managed
to make a best friend out of her class mate, Kaylie.
One day Lucy went to the movies with Kaylie. While they
are waiting in line to get their tickets, Lucy looks around at the crowd. She
tries to think of big secrets that the strangers are hiding. She keeps this to
herself, thinking that Kaylie would judge her for it. Gazing over the crowd,
she sees her crush, Josh. Lucy
vows from that moment, she will monitor every single word that comes out of her
mouth, just to make sure that she doesn’t say anything stupid.
To purposely distract herself, she asks Kaylie what movie she wants to
see. Josh eventually walks over to
them and says he’s going to see the “new” Will Smith movie. They ended up
watching that too.
When Lucy gets home from the movies, she immediately rushes
upstairs for two reasons. 1) She really doesn’t like her mother 2) she has
plans to go spend the night at Kaylie’s house. She just had to pack all of her
clothes. While in the middle of packing her clothes, her mother is yelling her
name. Lucy is certain that that can’t be good. All mom did was blame her about
some missing scissors. When Lucy is finally finished packing, she goes down
stairs to wait on Kaylie. While she is waiting, she sees her angry mother
sitting, still needing the scissors. Lucy finally just gives up and helps her
mom look for the cheap scissors. When Kaylie and her mother finally pull up the
driveway, they have not yet found the scissors. As Lucy walks out the door, she
finds her mother sleeping soundly. Lucy was still a little mad and slammed the
door behind her. She was unaware of what she just did.
The
climax is when Lucy gets home. When Lucy gets home, she calls her mother to say
hello. After calling her name multiple times without an answer, Lucy searches
the house for her. The last place
that she looked was her mother’s bed room. She opened the door slowly, only to
find her mother laying on the bed with a pile of magazines on her face. Lucy did
not see her mother breathing. With all the trash/filth in the house, her mom had
an extreme asthma problem. Lucy shook her mother’s leg to make sure that her
eyes weren’t fooling her. She stops everything and thinks “how could this have
happened?”Then she realizes that when she slammed the door last night, it
rattled the house making a 6 foot pile of magazines fall on her mother while she
slept. Her mother had an asthma
attack and died, buried. Lucy was about to dial 9-1-1 but, she thinks about
what’s going to happen when they come. She knows the new reporters are going to
be there. Lucy could imagine what the reporters would say…“A woman dies when is
buried in her own pile of filth”. After thinking about it for a while, Lucy
comes up with a plan. She decides to freeze the body by putting all the windows
down and putting the A.C. on (even though it’s late winter/early spring). While
the body is “frozen” she can clean up most of the
house.
Lucy starts cleaning the house almost instantly. She is
very cautious with people walking past the house. She wants to make sure that no
body finds out what’s going on. But her neighbor T.J., seems to catch her off
guard. Sense his parents are off doing something else, she invites him in. At
the time Lucy already had the kitchen clean. She says T.J. can come in as long
as he stays in the kitchen and helps to clean things up, with them both going
through stuff. T.J. finds a crate full of encyclopedias for the entire alphabet.
He asks to keep it, but Lucy says maybe later. T.J. keeps searching around the
kitchen and finds some cool books. While he is checking them out, the whole
book case tumbles on him. He ends up having a big knot on his fore-head. Lucy
takes him home and explains some of what happened. Lucy had been cleaning for
two entire days straight with her mother still dead in her bed room. She has been so focused on cleaning,
she forgot about her plans to go to a party with Josh and Kaylie. Kaylie calls
her and freaks out when Lucy says she can’t go. Eventually, once again, she
gives up and goes to the party.
A lot of interesting things happen at that party. If you would
like to find out, read it for yourself.
Secretsby C. J. Omololu. The book takes place somewhere in California. The
city remained unmentioned throughout the story. The main character is Lucy and
she’s 16 years old. Her mother is a nurse, but has a horrible secret that only
her immediate family knows about. Lucy’s mother is a hoarder.
Her parents are divorced and her dad lives in Michigan. As soon as Lucy’s
parents divorced, her father finds a new wife (that’s 29 years old and about
half his age) and has a child. Luckily, she isn’t completely alone. She managed
to make a best friend out of her class mate, Kaylie.
One day Lucy went to the movies with Kaylie. While they
are waiting in line to get their tickets, Lucy looks around at the crowd. She
tries to think of big secrets that the strangers are hiding. She keeps this to
herself, thinking that Kaylie would judge her for it. Gazing over the crowd,
she sees her crush, Josh. Lucy
vows from that moment, she will monitor every single word that comes out of her
mouth, just to make sure that she doesn’t say anything stupid.
To purposely distract herself, she asks Kaylie what movie she wants to
see. Josh eventually walks over to
them and says he’s going to see the “new” Will Smith movie. They ended up
watching that too.
When Lucy gets home from the movies, she immediately rushes
upstairs for two reasons. 1) She really doesn’t like her mother 2) she has
plans to go spend the night at Kaylie’s house. She just had to pack all of her
clothes. While in the middle of packing her clothes, her mother is yelling her
name. Lucy is certain that that can’t be good. All mom did was blame her about
some missing scissors. When Lucy is finally finished packing, she goes down
stairs to wait on Kaylie. While she is waiting, she sees her angry mother
sitting, still needing the scissors. Lucy finally just gives up and helps her
mom look for the cheap scissors. When Kaylie and her mother finally pull up the
driveway, they have not yet found the scissors. As Lucy walks out the door, she
finds her mother sleeping soundly. Lucy was still a little mad and slammed the
door behind her. She was unaware of what she just did.
The
climax is when Lucy gets home. When Lucy gets home, she calls her mother to say
hello. After calling her name multiple times without an answer, Lucy searches
the house for her. The last place
that she looked was her mother’s bed room. She opened the door slowly, only to
find her mother laying on the bed with a pile of magazines on her face. Lucy did
not see her mother breathing. With all the trash/filth in the house, her mom had
an extreme asthma problem. Lucy shook her mother’s leg to make sure that her
eyes weren’t fooling her. She stops everything and thinks “how could this have
happened?”Then she realizes that when she slammed the door last night, it
rattled the house making a 6 foot pile of magazines fall on her mother while she
slept. Her mother had an asthma
attack and died, buried. Lucy was about to dial 9-1-1 but, she thinks about
what’s going to happen when they come. She knows the new reporters are going to
be there. Lucy could imagine what the reporters would say…“A woman dies when is
buried in her own pile of filth”. After thinking about it for a while, Lucy
comes up with a plan. She decides to freeze the body by putting all the windows
down and putting the A.C. on (even though it’s late winter/early spring). While
the body is “frozen” she can clean up most of the
house.
Lucy starts cleaning the house almost instantly. She is
very cautious with people walking past the house. She wants to make sure that no
body finds out what’s going on. But her neighbor T.J., seems to catch her off
guard. Sense his parents are off doing something else, she invites him in. At
the time Lucy already had the kitchen clean. She says T.J. can come in as long
as he stays in the kitchen and helps to clean things up, with them both going
through stuff. T.J. finds a crate full of encyclopedias for the entire alphabet.
He asks to keep it, but Lucy says maybe later. T.J. keeps searching around the
kitchen and finds some cool books. While he is checking them out, the whole
book case tumbles on him. He ends up having a big knot on his fore-head. Lucy
takes him home and explains some of what happened. Lucy had been cleaning for
two entire days straight with her mother still dead in her bed room. She has been so focused on cleaning,
she forgot about her plans to go to a party with Josh and Kaylie. Kaylie calls
her and freaks out when Lucy says she can’t go. Eventually, once again, she
gives up and goes to the party.
A lot of interesting things happen at that party. If you would
like to find out, read it for yourself.