BooksBarbecue
Back The Lost Language
Chapters (213)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Things I’ve Lost: A Partial List
  4. Two Girls Named Elizabeth
  5. What My Mom Thinks of the Name Bumble
  6. Movers and Shakers
  7. Like This One Time
  8. Lizard Can Stand Up to Anybody
  9. Things I’m Afraid Of
  10. Things Lizard Is Afraid Of
  11. Lizard (and Me) at School
  12. The Next Year
  13. P.S. About Fourth Grade
  14. The Year after That
  15. Sixth Grade
  16. Other Friends
  17. My Mother
  18. What Other People’s Parents Do
  19. How My Father Met My Mother
  20. Givers and Takers
  21. I’m Going to Say a Terrible Thing
  22. But I Still Love When My Mom Comes Home Again
  23. Lizard’s Superpower
  24. The One Time I Know Something First
  25. Why I Love Lizard Anyway
  26. Lizard’s Hobby Is Saving Things
  27. Lizard’s Plan
  28. My Doubts
  29. The Biggest Problem of All
  30. What I Don’t Tell Lizard
  31. Lizard Clearly Isn’t Going to Let This Drop
  32. Maybe Lizard Does Know the Part I Didn’t Say about How My Mother Feels about Her
  33. I’m Still Not Convinced
  34. My Brilliant Idea
  35. What I Admit to Myself (but Not to Lizard)
  36. The World Is Very Big
  37. Have I Mentioned I Hate Picking Things?
  38. How Do We Pick?
  39. Lizard Picks for Us (of Course)
  40. A Dot on a Dot
  41. Two Hundred Plus Two
  42. How to Say Hello on Our Dot
  43. Lizard’s Mother
  44. Lizard’s Father
  45. Our Clubhouse
  46. What Lizard and I Figure Out
  47. We Become the First Students in the History of Southern Peaks Middle School to Speak Guernésiais in the Cafeteria at Lunchtime
  48. Two Hundred Plus Five
  49. Two Strange Things
  50. Beef Bourguignon for Two
  51. Afterward
  52. Guernésiais versus Spanish
  53. Alice in Lunch Table Land
  54. But Sometimes I’m Not
  55. What I Start Wondering Now
  56. Amazing
  57. Signing Up
  58. How to Make My Mother Very, Very Happy
  59. But the Smile Doesn’t Last
  60. Auditioning for a Play Is Much Scarier Than Shots, Dogs That Bite, or Worms on a Rainy Day
  61. What If?
  62. Imaginary Grandparents
  63. Audition Results
  64. Extra Flowers
  65. Telling My Mother
  66. Telling My Father
  67. My First Fight with Lizard
  68. The Alice Flowers
  69. More about Mean Flowers
  70. The Language of Flowers
  71. Nothing to Worry About
  72. I Turn Out to Be a Genius
  73. What It Takes to Make a Club
  74. Guess Who Walks into Lizard’s Living Room?
  75. The Most Stuck-Up Flower of All
  76. At Our Second Rehearsal
  77. Things I’m Noticing Now about Zoey
  78. A Club Is Born
  79. Posters!
  80. Saving the Surprise
  81. Saturday Night Bombshell
  82. Dad’s Trip
  83. But
  84. Questions
  85. “Now, James”
  86. So I Tell Him
  87. On the Way to the Airport on Sunday Morning
  88. The First Night without Dad
  89. Snacks for the Club
  90. More Things I Learn about Zoey
  91. The Queen of Hearts
  92. Morning Announcements
  93. What We Have at the First Meeting of the Save Guernésiais Club
  94. What Ms. Fletcher Says
  95. Taking Down Fifty Posters
  96. The Queen of Pies
  97. Reasons Why I Now Wish I Hadn’t Said I’d Bake a Pie with Zoey
  98. Sharing the News with My Mother
  99. How to Break the News to Lizard
  100. Baking a Pie with Zoey
  101. After We Eat Super-Duper, Mega-Delicious Slices of Apple Pie Warm from the Oven
  102. When I Get Home
  103. When My Dad Calls That Night
  104. Saturday Morning
  105. While We Practice Our Guernésiais
  106. When I Get Home
  107. In the Kitchen
  108. But Then That Evening
  109. One Huge Thing My Mother and Lizard Have in Common
  110. The Biggest Cryer in Our Family
  111. Unlike My Dad
  112. Sunday Morning without My Dad Is Awful, Too
  113. Then I Surprise Myself
  114. Chocolate Cream Pie This Time
  115. More about the Chocolate Cream Pie
  116. As Soon as Lunch Is Over
  117. My Mom and Her Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
  118. Just Then
  119. When Lizard Comes In
  120. Instead of Apologizing to Me
  121. Lizard’s Words Come Pouring Out
  122. As Lizard Is Talking
  123. “Is this some kind of joke?”
  124. “Are you two kidding me?”
  125. “A language is a living, breathing thing!”
  126. The Whole Time My Mom Is Talking
  127. Between Choking Sobs
  128. I Can Tell My Mother Feels Terrible Now
  129. But Everything She Is Saying Is Just Making It Even Worse
  130. Lizard Storms Out the Door
  131. What I Can’t Help Believing
  132. When I Catch Up with Lizard
  133. Needless to Say
  134. When I Wake Up the Next Day
  135. The Best Surprise Ever
  136. My Dad Can Fix Anything
  137. Everything Is So Wonderful Now
  138. At My Locker the Next Morning
  139. The Other Way I Know That All the Bad Stuff Really Did Happen
  140. A Perfect Evening
  141. At the Lunch Table on Thursday
  142. Now It’s Zoey’s Turn to Avoid My Eyes
  143. I Stare at Zoey
  144. What Zoey Says
  145. Mr. Delgado Claps His Hands
  146. Instead of Going Up on Stage
  147. We Are Sitting on the Couch in the Family Room
  148. Here’s What I Find Out
  149. The Person My Dad Didn’t Tell
  150. The First Three People I Hate Right Now
  151. The Person I Hate Most of All
  152. What I Want to Ask My Dad
  153. But I Have to Ask Him Anyway
  154. Then I Have to Ask My Dad, Even Though I’m Afraid to Hear the Answer
  155. What Dad Tells Me
  156. The Worst Part
  157. My Biggest Question
  158. I’m Still Stunned
  159. Before I Go to Bed That Night
  160. The Person Who Is Always the First One Who Knows Everything
  161. What I Can See When I Close My Eyes
  162. Things That Don’t Surprise Me
  163. What Does Surprise Me
  164. For Some Reason I Have to Ask the Next Question
  165. Then I See Her
  166. Mom’s Coming Home on Monday
  167. No Welcome Signs This Time
  168. Confession
  169. The One Thing That All of Me Knows
  170. Two More Reasons Why I Wouldn’t Be Better Off without My Mom
  171. Since Zoey Told Me That Terrible Thing
  172. Flowers and Pie Instead
  173. I Text Zoey to Ask Her
  174. What Color Roses?
  175. The Scariest Thing You’ll Ever Have to Do
  176. I Make Myself Open the Door
  177. Now All the Words I’ve Been Keeping Inside Come Rushing Out
  178. No More Barricade
  179. We Talk, and Talk, and Talk
  180. My Voice Comes Out Very Small When I Ask This
  181. “No!”
  182. There Is Something Else I Need to Know
  183. This Time My Voice Starts Out Small, but Then It Gets Bigger
  184. What I Don’t Go On to Say
  185. My Mother and Lizard
  186. I’m Done Talking for Now
  187. My Father’s Turn to Talk
  188. This Is Why I Love My Father More Than Anything
  189. My Mother Takes My Other Hand
  190. Now We Are Really Done Talking for Today
  191. I Stay Home from School on Tuesday
  192. There Is a New Topic of Conversation at the Lunch Table on Wednesday
  193. Veronica Talks about Trevor for Ten Whole Minutes
  194. What Veronica Says Next
  195. I Steal a Glance at Lizard across the Room
  196. What If I Marched Up to Lizard at Her Locker after School Today?
  197. But I Don’t March Up to Lizard at Her Locker
  198. Instead
  199. Things I Gather Up When I Get There
  200. Lizard Is the One Who Should Be a Spy, Not Her Dad
  201. Sometimes
  202. But Sometimes
  203. When We Finally Pull Apart
  204. I Take a Deep Breath
  205. Crying
  206. The Next Day at Lunch
  207. A Month Later
  208. Veronica’s Big Moment
  209. My Big Moment
  210. At the End of Our Song
  211. In the Lobby Afterward
  212. Author’s Note
  213. Acknowledgments

that whatever he says in reply

won’t just be another lie?

But I Have to Ask Him Anyway

He says:

“I just couldn’t bear

for you to know.

All I’ve ever wanted

is for you to be safe and happy.

And I read that kids—

even kids your age—

sometimes…harm themselves…

because they know someone else

who did it…

or tried to do it…

like someone else at school…

or a friend…

or most of all…

a parent.

And if anything ever happened to you,

Betsy, honey, if anything ever happened to you…

I couldn’t go on living myself

if anything ever happened to you.”

Then I Have to Ask My Dad, Even Though I’m Afraid to Hear the Answer

“Why did Mom do it?”

What Dad Tells Me

“Your mother has been struggling

with depression and anxiety

for a long time, honey.

And this week, with me away,

it just became more

than she could handle.

When people are in that dark place,

they can’t think clearly.

She said she thought

we’d be better off without her.

She said she ruins everything

when she’s around.

She said the two of us are happier

when she’s away on a trip.

She said she thought it would be

a good thing if this time

she went away

and didn’t come back.”

The Worst Part

The thing I feel most terrible about?

I have thought those exact same things.

My mom ruined our project to save

our endangered language.

My mom made my best friend cry.

My mom made Lizard feel

like she’s the wrong friend for me.

Sometimes my mom makes me feel

like I’m the wrong daughter for her.

Everything is more fun

when my mom’s away on a trip.

Just yesterday

I was thinking how perfect it was

to have her gone,

so that it was just my dad and me.

I feel sick inside right now

that I actually did spend the whole evening,

just yesterday,

thinking these things,

while she was in the hospital

because she tried to kill herself,

because

she thought

I thought

I’d be better off

without her.

My Biggest Question

“So what happens now?”

I ask my dad.

“She’ll stay at the hospital for a while.

I don’t know how long.

Of course, she’s begging them

to let her come home now

so she won’t have to miss

any more classes at the university.

But her doctor told her,

‘If you were badly injured in a car accident,

you wouldn’t be at the university

teaching your classes right now,

and this is as every bit as serious as that.’

The doctor will help her

find the right medication

to manage her dark moods,

and a therapist to talk to

about what happened

and how to make sure

it won’t happen again.

I hope that

what happens now

is that things