CHAPTER 1
Who you callin' ugly?" Conrad McAllister asks. His breath could melt the snow right off the roof, and I can't help pinching my nose.
"And now you sayin' I stink?"
For the record, I did not say Conrad was ugly. I said he was "plug ugly," and I whispered it to Lydia Mae.
People should not be punished for telling the truth. Mama always says, "The Lord does not bless a lie," and it is not a lie that Conrad McAllister's parents had to tie a pork chop to his neck when he was little so their dog would play with him.
"Um, Stan, that's a lie." Lydia Mae elbows me.
"Does he know we can hear him?" Conrad says to Lydia Mae.
She shrugs sheepishly.
Conrad returns his attention to me. "Well, what do you have to say for yourself? Huh?"
I think for a minute. What do I have to say for myself?
Lydia Mae straightens herself up. She's about even with my shoulder. "Anyway, Conrad, you've got the wrong person," she says bravely. "I'm the one who called you ugly."
I should not have a girl taking my licks for me. I should step in and take responsibility for my actions. I should. But I might not.
"Again," Conrad says, "we can hear you, you lily-livered milksop." He takes a step closer, his fists clenched.
"Run, Stan! Run!" Lydia Mae yells. She jumps on Conrad's back, yanking the cap over his eyes while he hops around like a dog with fleas, and I take off toward my house, the soles of my boots flip-flopping through the snow.
Mama always says I'm about as focused as a swarm of drunken bees, but during this run home, I am focused. I'm focused on staying alive as I make a list in my head of how to avoid Conrad for the rest of my life, or at least until he's finally in jail. But as soon as I slam the door of the apartment house and am safely inside, I spy it, and immediately Conrad McAllister is a distant memory.
An envelope. I've seen it before. And even though my imminent death by Conrad McAllister's ham-hock fists seems more important, he doesn't really scare me. He'll forget this little incident by the next time we meet. Also, as has been proven again and again, I can outrun him.
But the envelope seems suspicious, even for someone who doesn't have what Mama claims is an "overactive imagination," because little things have been happening since it showed up. For one, Mama seems to stare off into space a lot. Also, her fingers don't stop tapping, and I've had to make most of my own meals since she's been working more than ever, meals that have not been of the best quality due to the poor choice of food I have to work with. Leftover meat and stale bread from the general store where Mama tends the counter do not lead to much but a lot of dry salt-pork sandwiches.
So when I see that envelope on the kitchen counter, it's as hard to ignore as my empty stomach at three o'clock in the afternoon. And that reminds me . . .
It's three o'clock in the afternoon.
And I'm so hungry I could eat everything on a pig but the oink.
I stuff a hunk of bread in my mouth instead and look at the envelope more closely, now that I know it's not as innocent as it looks.
To tell God's honest truth (which, of course, is the only kind of truth I ever tell), the first time I saw the envelope, I didn't think much of it. Heck, it was just an envelope; it didn't look like it would turn my life all topsy-turvy. I picked it up, saw the sharp slit across the top and the empty space inside, and set it back on the table. Then I got on with some very important business.
Planning for my twelfth birthday.
I had a fresh catalog and a blank page in my Scrapbook. Plus some scissors I borrowed in the not-asking kind of way from my mama's bedside table.
Just to be clear, the scissors are mine. They were only briefly put somewhere else because of the time my cousin Geri cut holes in the curtains and blamed it on me. To be fair, however, those curtains were so ugly they made onions cry.
When I opened the catalog, I found a harmonica, a saddle, some firearms, and a trick bank--just the simple necessities of any self-respecting almost-twelve-year-old boy.
And I didn't think anything more about the envelope.
Not that day, anyway.
Because Mama came peering over my shoulder and asked me what I was doing, and next thing I knew, she had snuggled up to me like butter on warm toast.
I told her about the money we would save with a tricky kind of bank. It would be smart to give me one for my birthday, even though it costs a dollar twenty-five, enough money to feed us for a week.
"It doesn't cost anything to look and very little to wish," Mama said as she snipped the picture from the Montgomery Ward catalog. "Also, we have lots of time for hoping--your birthday is almost a whole year away."
"Practically around the corner," I replied, and Mama smiled.
I remember like it was yesterday, because ever since that envelope arrived, Mama's smile has been as scarce as peaches in January, and her eyebrows have been knitted together so often the crease in between looks carved in stone.
A week later, I found the envelope crumpled on the table, which wouldn't seem suspicious in anyone else's house, I'm sure. But in our house, nothing is crumpled. Mama either irons it, throws it away, or sends it to its room to put on some less wrinkly pants. She attacks messes like her very soul depends on it. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, Mama could be God's Siamese twin.

"We don't have much," she says, "but we take care of what we have."
Mama has the horrible habit of picking up perfectly fine paper and calling it garbage, a habit that's only gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. If she picks up something once, it's a warning, and twice it's in the trash, which is why my very important discoveries are immediately pasted in my Scrapbook. And why I'm sometimes found rescuing things from the garbage. And also why the crumpled-up envelope was so strange just sitting there on the kitchen table.
I'm not the type of fellow who jumps to conclusions, so although the situation seemed as strange as a dog wearing glasses, I most definitely did not overreact when I spied it for the second time.
I am not known to overreact. Also, I'm pretty sure no one even heard me scream.
The third time I saw it, however, was cause for genuine panic. It was eight days ago, and the envelope was firmly clenched in the claws of a scary old woman.

CHAPTER 2
The old woman grabbed the envelope off the counter, marched into Mama's room, and slammed the door behind her. Which was rude, if you ask me, but if you ask the old lady, who insists I call her Granny, she would say it's none of my business. In fact, that's exactly what she said when I asked her. "Stanley Arthur Slater, that is none of your business."
To which I replied, "Hogwash!" A saying, you will be surprised to find out, that has nothing to do with washing a hog, but rather means "You don't know what you're talking about, woman!"
I overheard a little of the conversation with Mama because Granny talks very loudly and maybe also because my ear was pressed so hard against the door it felt like I had a keyhole in my left cheek. I had tried looking through the keyhole, but all I could see was Granny's backside, so you can understand why that angle didn't work.
The problem was I couldn't hear much except "fresh start" and "money" and "camp" and "worthless Arthur Slater" and something about a pickle, but don't quote me on that.
Hearing the words "Arthur Slater" made me feel as confused as a moth in a room full of candles, because it just so happens that's two-thirds of my name right there. It also just so happens to be the name of my dearly departed father, and most bewildering of all: Worthless?
Now the envelope lies abandoned on the kitchen counter, apparently dropped or forgotten. It's addressed to Mama, and the words "Colorado, Texas" curl around the stamp like a dog chasing its tail. The date, DEC 14, 1894, tattoos half of Mr. George Washington's face. Personally, I think it is nothing short of disrespectful to tattoo Mr. Honest George, our forefather who chopped down his very own log cabin and was the first to sign the Declaration of Dependence.
I am a whiz at history, I don't mind saying.
I nab the envelope, not like I'm stealing it, more as if I am saving it. It seems like it has some connection to my father, and I don't have anything that's connected to my father except for my handsome looks and a slightly lazy eye; Granny says anything that lazy had to have come from my dad. Plus, that envelope has been hanging around so long now I feel like it's a family member, the kind of family member who brings bad news and spits out worse breath. The kind of family member who comes and never leaves.
"Who never leaves?" Granny barks as she grumps into the room. I stuff the envelope in my pocket and do my best impression of someone innocent.
I am a whiz at looking innocent, I don't mind saying.
Unfortunately, I'm not a whiz at keeping thoughts tucked firmly between my ears. Sometimes those thoughts come straight out my mouth. Fortunately, I have become something of an expert at covering up this slight flaw in my character.
"I repeat, 'Who never leaves?' " Granny scowls.
"Um, what's that, Granny? What I said was, 'Mark Twain is rumored to have fleas.' "
"What on earth can you mean?" Granny huffs as if I'm taking the very name of the Lord in vain. "Mr. Mark Twain most certainly does not have fleas!"
Granny loves Mark Twain. She talked to him once in a train station in Chicago and swears she inspired him to write Huck Finn. More likely, she trapped him in a corner of the men's room, talked his ear off, and inspired the character of Miss Watson, the miserable woman who owns Jim as a slave.
"Mr. Twain and I had a bond," she says dreamily. I'm 103.4 percent certain the only bond Granny has is with a loup-garou, otherwise known as a French werewolf. And a French werewolf is the worst kind of all, not just because of its strange accent. I'd know because my friend Lydia Mae loves to tell me stories about them when there's a full moon. Plus, I have a picture of one on page 12 of my Scrapbook.
"Are you listening, young man?" Granny swings her head around like she's looking for something. "Have you seen an envelope lying anywhere?"
"Uh, no," I reply like it's the dumbest question I've heard this week. It's actually not. Tuesday at school, Conrad McAllister asked our teacher, Mrs. Huggins, why feet smell and noses run. That is the dumbest question I've heard this week and completely deserving of the dunce cap Mrs. Huggins placed firmly on Conrad's head.
Granny has a puzzled look on her face, so I take this opportunity to ask the question that has been dogging me forever. Or at least since 11:35. "Why were you talking about my dearly departed father, Granny? And why is he worthless?"
Now, Granny looks at me like marbles are settling in her brain. "What are you talking about? What 'dearly departed father'?"
Where has this woman been? "The dearly departed father who is never around because he's dead," I explain, a tiny bit of exasperation edging into my voice. "You don't remember him? You knew him better than I ever did!"
"Stan, what makes you think your father has, um, how can I say this delicately? Hmmm. Bought the farm?"
"I don't think he bought a farm, Granny," I explain patiently. "We are not a family of farmers."
Granny pats her hair distractedly, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and then smoothing her apron. She takes a deep breath. "No, Stan. What I mean is, why are you under the impression your father has died?"
"Um, well, because every time in my whole life I've ever brought up the subject of my father, you say he's dead to you. At Thanksgiving I overheard you tell Uncle Carl that Arthur dug himself a grave and was a deadbeat. And every time I've asked Mama to tell me about my father, she just says to pray for his soul. So obviously he's no longer with us. In the living sense, I mean."
Granny looks down at me like I'm slightly blurry and gives her head a brief shake. "It is true your father is no longer with us," she says, staring me right in the peepers. "But it's not because he's dead."
Suddenly my stomach feels just like the time Conrad McAllister slugged me in the gut when I told him he'd never be the man his mother is.
In my defense, his mother has a mustache.
All the air rushes from me, and my head feels too big for my hat. What did Granny just say? He's not dead? Wait a minute! How can this be? How could my father be alive but never try to get ahold of Mama or me? "He's alive?" I ask Granny, my voice as pitchy as a clarinet in the Independence Day parade.
Granny looks past me and slowly answers, "Yes, that's what is often meant by 'not dead.' Your long-lost father is definitely alive."
"He's lost?" I ask. This would explain why he has never been around. My entire life my father has been a hazy dream, appearing like a shadow in the night when I'm alone in my room. Or he's been the cowlick on top of my head, the stubborn hair Mama always tries so hard to smooth down, the hair Mama says I got from my father--the father I thought was too dearly departed to teach me to toss a baseball on summer Sunday afternoons. The very same father I needed to show me how to put a worm on a hook and tell me not to stand up in a boat.
And of all the luck, just as I hear my father is alive, lo and behold, he's lost.

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Excerpted from My near-Death Adventures (99% True!) by Alison DeCamp
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.