As I walk up the creaky stairs to the second floor of our house, it hits me that there is no way we will be able to afford the mortgage payments anymore. The first thing we are going to have to do is put this house back on the market. I don’t know where we will be able to afford to live on just my income.
I start for Nico’s room first, because he has been the more troubled of my two children, but then I hear the sobs coming from Ada’s room—that girl always takes everything so hard. And in this situation, I can’t blame her. I knock on the door, and when she doesn’t answer, I come in anyway.
Ada is lying on her bed, sobbing into her pillow, her narrow shoulders shaking violently. Actually, her whole body is shaking. I saw somebody have a seizure at the hospital last year, and this looks not entirely dissimilar to that. Ada has always been a daddy’s girl, and it’s going to destroy her world to find out what he did. Just watching her cry makes the tears I’ve been holding back spring to my eyes.
Enzo, how could you do this to us? How could you?
“Ada.” I sit on the edge of her bed and stroke her soft black hair. “Ada, honey… I told you not to come down.”
She says something into her pillow that I can’t quite make out.
“It’s okay.” I stroke her hair again. “It’s going to be okay.”
I don’t know who I am trying to convince. If I’m trying to convince her, it’s not working. And I’m not convincing myself either. I should just shut up.
Ada shifts on the bed, turning to look at me with her puffy, bloodshot eyes. “They think Dad killed Mr. Lowell.”
My instinct is to lie, but what is the point? “Yes. They do.”
Tears stream down her cheeks. “But he didn’t!”
This next part is going to be hard for her, but she’s going to hear it sooner or later. Better she hears it from me than reads it online or hears it from a friend. “Ada, honey, he confessed,” I tell her. “He admitted to them that he killed Mr. Lowell.”
“He didn’t though!” she cries. “I know he didn’t!”
I try to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs me away. “How do you know?”
“Because,” my daughter says, “I was the one who killed him.”
PART III
SIXTYADA
My name is Ada Accardi, and I am eleven years old.
I have black hair and eyes that are actually brown except some people say they look black as well. I have one brother named Nicolas, and he is nine years old. I speak two languages fluently: English and Italian. My favorite food is macaroni and cheese, especially the way my mom makes it. My favorite book is Daughters of Eve by Lois Duncan. My favorite flavor of ice cream is cookie dough.
Also, I killed my next-door neighbor, Jonathan Lowell.
One more thing:
I’m not sorry.
How to Kill Your Creepy Next-Door Neighbor—A Guide by Ada Accardi, Grade Five
Step 1: Leave Behind Your Home and Everything You Love
Tomorrow, we are moving.
Mom and Dad are really excited about this. Especially Dad. He keeps talking about how we are going to live in this great new house and we are going to love it. They act like they are doing this wonderful thing for us, except I don’t want to move. I like it in the Bronx. All my friends are here. I even like this apartment that they say is “too small.”
But when you are eleven years old, you don’t have a choice. If your mom and dad tell you that you need to move, you have to move.
Anyway, that’s why I can’t sleep.
I’ve been lying awake in bed for the last hour, staring up at the ceiling. I like my ceiling. It has a lot of cracks in the paint, but the cracks look familiar. Like, there’s this crack right in the center that looks just like a face. I named it Constance.
I’m going to miss Constance when we leave.
“Nico?” I whisper into the darkness.
One thing my parents say is bad about our home is that Nico and I have to share a room. And because he’s a boy and I’m a girl, we shouldn’t have to share. Except Dad hung a curtain in the middle of the room, so it’s fine. I don’t mind sharing with Nico. I like knowing that when I go to sleep, he is in the room with me, on the other side of the curtain.
“Yeah?” Nico whispers back.
He’s awake. Good. “I can’t sleep.”
“Me either.”
“I wish we didn’t have to move.”
Nico’s mattress makes that loud squeaking noise that it always does when he rolls over. “I know. It’s not fair.”
Somehow, it makes me feel better that Nico also doesn’t want to leave. Because Mom and Dad are so excited. You would think we were moving to Disneyland.
But it’s not as bad for him as it is for me. Nico has always made friends more easily than me. Everyone likes Nico right away. But I have had the same two best friends—Inara and Trinity—since I was in kindergarten. Also, I am only three months away from graduating from elementary school, and I am going to miss my graduation. Instead, I’m going to graduate with a bunch of kids I don’t even know.
“Maybe it will be awful,” Nico says, “and Mom and Dad will want to move back.”
“Probably not. I think this new house was really expensive.”
“Right. They said they can’t even hardly afford the garage.”
“You mean the mortgage?”
“Is that different?”
I don’t understand what a mortgage is, but I know it’s not the same as a garage. Like, I’m pretty sure. “We are stuck living in this new house until we go to college.”
He’s quiet on the other side of the curtain. “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe we’ll get to like it.”
I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine making all new friends and getting used to a big scary house.
“Nico?” I say.
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I pull the curtains open?”
