Half Title

Dedication

For my very own crew of boisterous cousins, who prove that—when it comes to families—bigger can be better. The Gleasons have nothing on you all.

Title Page

I don’t …

I can’t …

This can’t be happening.

This has to be a horrible joke. Some sick prank.

While I have the capacity to comprehend the meaning of every word coming out of Sheriff Gleason’s mouth—I can break down what he’s saying into nouns, verbs, and adverbs—none of it makes sense. It’s as if he’s talking about somebody else. The names and locations he’s including are foreign to me. Yet I am the subject.

How can that be possible?

Numbness overtakes me as he continues to list names I’ve never heard before. Places he says I’ve been. He seems convinced he’s speaking sense, but there’s no way this is real.

I finally glance at Dad, who looks like his entire world has been shattered: his posture is crumpled, tears stream down his face, his eyes gaze blankly at the floor.

No. This is simply a nightmare.

Because if what the sheriff is saying is true, my entire life has been a lie.

Chapter One

Chapter

ONE

Describe a significant event in your life and how it has influenced you.

Seriously? I can’t believe that years of hard work, studying, and planning has come down to having to answer these kinds of questions.

Okay. I can do this. I’ve written fifteen hundred words on how prehistoric drawings influenced how we communicate today. I can certainly wrangle up something about myself to persuade a scholarship committee to give me money.

No pressure or anything.

What do they even mean by “significant”? I’m seventeen. Getting a huge pimple right before class photos is a major life event. Being called on in class when you don’t know the answer is a big deal. Let’s be real: when our small town got a second screen added to the movie theater, it was front-page news for weeks. So my idea of significant might be a tad underwhelming to anyone else.

I get they probably mean something truly momentous. That right there is the problem. I have a pretty quiet life. I do really well in school and stay out of trouble. My life is the opposite of significant. It’s … my life.

I live in the tiny town of Valley Falls, Wisconsin. Nothing here really changes, and I like that. Dad and I had lived in five different cities before we finally settled here eight years ago. It’s a great life, but that doesn’t help me answer this essay question.

Has my existence truly been unremarkable?

Seventeen years and nothing to show for it.