Ordinary Boy by Stacey Longo

1.

We live in Osprey Falls, Maine, which Mom says is the most pretentious name for a town this side of the Connecticut River. Our mustard-colored duplex is in the part of town called The Meadows, which is where all the poor people live. Nana lives in the other half of our duplex.

The Meadows is as close to the edge of town as you can get. Mom says when the local Democrats finally won their bid to put up lowincome housing so the less privileged could enjoy the fineries of Osprey Falls, too, the doctors and lawyers who made up the town decided the development would be built as far from their colonials and pristine white capes as possible. We’re on the border of Osprey Falls and East Bailey, which everyone knows is a hole. It’s definitely better to be from Osprey Falls than East Bailey, even if we’re just spitting distance from the town line.

The first thing you see when you turn in to The Meadows entrance is the Quick-E-Mart on the corner. That’s where Nana works. They sell everything from milk to Odor Eaters. They also sell Twinkies for 27 cents a pack. This drives Bobby Foley crazy, because he only gets 25 cents a week allowance from his father. He’s always walking with his eyes glued to the ground, looking for stray pennies so he doesn’t have to wait an extra week to buy his Twinkies.

We don’t get an allowance, because Mom says we should do our chores just because we’re good people and not for money. It’s not that big of a deal, though, because Nana saves all the Twinkies that are out of date and brings them home for us, so we don’t need to pay for them.

Once in a while, she’ll get a fruit pie or a Ring Ding, too, but never Snoballs. Those always sell out before they get a chance to expire, which figures, since they’re my favorite.

My parents, Stephen and Stephanie Barracato, divorced four years ago when I was four and Sally was six. I never thought it was fair that