No Fixed Address
Susin Nielsen
ALSO BY SUSIN NIELSEN
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Word Nerd
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Susin Nielsen
Cover art copyright © 2018 by Studio Muti
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Nielsen-Fernlund, Susin, author.
Title: No fixed address / Susin Nielsen.
Description: First edition. | New York : Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, [2018] | Summary: Twelve-year-old Felix’s appearance on a television game show reveals that he and his mother have been homeless for a while, but also restores some of his faith in other people.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017040581 (print) | LCCN 2017052022 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6836-2 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6834-8 (trade) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6835-5 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-6837-9 (pbk.)
Subjects: | CYAC: Homeless persons—Fiction. | Mothers and sons—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Game shows—Fiction. | Faith—Fiction. | Canada—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.N568435 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.N568435 No 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9781524768362
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Susin Nielsen
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
A Brief History of Homes
August
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Astrid’s Guidebook to Lies
September
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
October
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
November
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Acknowledgments
Resources
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
I dedicated my first novel to Eleanor Nielsen, and I dedicate this, my sixth, to her, too. Both feature single-parent moms of only children—same as me and my mom. But the similarities stop there. Mom, whether or not you consistently felt it yourself, you always made the ground feel safe beneath my feet. And still do.
(I drew this picture when I was six, and still spelled my name properly.)
November 27, 12:05 a.m.
My leg jiggled up and down. I shifted from one bum cheek to the other. My palms felt damp and my heart was pounding. “I’ve never been interrogated before.”
“You’re not being interrogated, Felix. We’re just having a chat.”
“Are you going to record it?”
“Why would I do that?”
“It’s how they do it on TV.”
“We’re not on TV.”
The cold from the metal chair seeped through my pajama bottoms. “Do cops watch cop shows?”
“Of course.”
“But isn’t that like bringing your work home with you?”
Constable Lee smiled. Her teeth were very straight. My Powers of Observation, or P.O.O., told me that she came from a middle-class family, one that could afford an orthodontist. My P.O.O. also told me she enjoyed her food: the buttons on her uniform were strained to the max. “Not really,” she answered. “It’s escapism for us, too. And we get to shout at the TV if they do something totally bogus.”
“Like what?”
“Like record this type of conversation. We only record a conversation if someone has been charged with a crime, or is a suspect in a crime.”
“Are you recording Astrid right now?”
“I can’t answer that.”
Oh boy. I hardly ever cry, but all of a sudden I thought I might burst into tears, right in front of a cop. I think she could tell, because she added, “I highly doubt it.”
I breathed in. I breathed out. I sat up straight. I tried to look calm and dignified even though I knew my blond curls were sticking out in all directions, because until everything went so terribly wrong I’d been in bed. Plus I was wearing my ancient Minions pajamas, which were juvenile and way too small. Constable Lee and her partner hadn’t given us time to change. “I’d like to call my lawyer,” I said.
“Let me guess—you got that from TV, too.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“No. But legally I’m allowed one, right?”
“Except you don’t need one. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“So I could just leave?”
“I suppose. But where would you go?”
I thought about Dylan. And Winnie. Then I remembered that I’d told them I never wanted to see them again. “When will they be done talking to Astrid?”
“Soon, I’m sure.” She stared at me, clicking her pen, open, shut, open, shut. “Mind if I ask why you don’t call her Mom?”
“She says it’s too hierarchical.” I scanned the huge room, full of desks and a handful of people, for the hundredth time. For the hundredth time, I didn’t spot Astrid.
It’ll be okay, I thought-messaged her, because she’s always telling me she’ll receive anything I send her. I don’t believe that anymore, but under the circumstances, it was worth a shot. “For the record,” I said to Constable Lee, “Astrid is a great parent.”
“Good to know.” She tapped on her keyboard. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Let’s start with your full name.”
“Felix Fredrik Knutsson.”
She typed it into her computer. “Age?”
“Thirteen. Well, almost. Twelve and three-quarters.”
“Mo
m’s full name?”
“Astrid Anna Knutsson.”
“Address?”
I looked down at my feet. I wore my rubber boots, no socks; there hadn’t been time to search for a pair.
Constable Lee leaned toward me. Her shoulders were rounded. She did not have good posture. “When we answered your call tonight, Felix, it did appear as if you were both living there.”
Oh, how I longed for my mom. She would have a plausible-sounding explanation. But I’m not like her. I’m not a natural-born stretcher of the truth.
So I continued to stare at the floor.
Constable Lee started typing, even though I hadn’t said a word.
“Felix,” she said gently, “you can talk to me….”
“I’m hungry.”
“Of course. I should have asked.” She pushed herself up from her desk and hitched her pants up around her belly. “We’re talking vending machine snacks. Hope that’s okay. Any allergies? Any preferences?”
“No allergies. No preferences. Although I am partial to anything cheese-flavored.”
Constable Lee walked across the big room. I glanced around. A couple of cops were at their desks. One was reading Popular Mechanics and another was dozing.
I swiveled Constable Lee’s computer screen toward me.
It was an official-looking report.
Name: Felix Fredrik Knutsson
Age: 12
Parent/Guardian: Astrid Anna Knutsson
Address: NFA
I’m pretty good at figuring out acronyms, and this one, given the context, came to me almost right away.
No fixed address.
I felt a ripple of dread. Astrid had warned me over and over: “No one can find out where we live.” Until tonight, I’d broken the rule only once.
Our cover was blown. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t my fault. I’d had no choice; I had to call the cops. If I hadn’t, who knows what would have happened?
Still. The bad guys got away. And who was at the police station? The innocent victims. Us.
Two bags of Cheezies landed on the desk in front of me, along with a can of Coke. “Aren’t we a nosy parker,” Constable Lee said as she swiveled the computer screen back.
“No one can agree on the origin of that expression,” I said. “Some people think it came from an archbishop in the fifteen hundreds named Parker, who asked too many questions. Other people think that’s hooey, since the phrase didn’t appear till the end of the nineteenth century.” I knew I was rambling, but I couldn’t help it.
“You are a font of knowledge.”
“My mom says I store facts like a squirrel stores nuts.”
Constable Lee tore open a bag of chips and popped one into her mouth. “Now. You have to believe me when I say I’m here to help.”
I wanted to believe her. But I kept thinking of my mom, who snorted like a pig whenever a police car drove past. Who liked to say “Never trust the Man.”
“Which man?” I’d asked when I was younger.
“The Man. It’s an expression. It means any man or woman who’s in a position of authority.”
So all I said to Constable Lee was “Thanks. But we don’t need any help.”
“Really?”
“Really. We’ll be moving very soon.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m coming into some money. The only question is how much.”
“An inheritance?”
“No.”
“Selling some valuables?”
“No.”
“Robbing a bank?”
“Very funny. No.”
“So where’s this money coming from?”
“A game show.”
“Well, now I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
“About the show?”
Constable Lee put her feet up on her desk. “About everything.”
I studied her face. My P.O.O. told me she was a decent person. Maybe if she knew the truth, she would see that we’d done nothing wrong.
So I poured a bunch of Cheezies down my throat.
Then I told Constable Lee the whole truth and nothing but.
A Brief History of Homes
We haven’t always lived in a van.
That only started four months ago. BV—Before Van—we lived in a four-hundred-square-foot basement. Before that, we lived in a six-hundred-square-foot apartment. Before that, we actually owned an eight-hundred-square-foot condo.
And before any of that, we lived with Mormor.
Mormor’s House
Mormor means “mother’s mother” in Swedish. She was my grandma. Astrid and I lived with her in her bungalow in New Westminster, just outside Vancouver, until I was seven. Her house was crammed full of knickknacks from Sweden; she must have had fifty red and blue wooden Dalarna horses. She also had a large tomte collection.
Tomtar, plural for tomte, are mischievous gnomelike creatures in Swedish folklore. They watch over you and protect your family. But if you don’t treat them with respect, they can also be cruel. They might play a trick on you, or steal your things, or even kill your farm animals.
Mormor gave me my own tomte on my fifth birthday, one she’d made herself out of felt. He was four inches tall with a long white beard, a red cone-shaped hat and a red jacket. “Your own protector,” she said. I named him Mel.
Mormor looked after me when Astrid was at work. My mom had two jobs back then: she taught an evening painting class in Vancouver at Emily Carr University, and she answered phones in an insurance office. “Once I’ve saved enough,” she’d say to me, “we’ll get our own place.” She didn’t like living with Mormor.
But I did. Mormor took me to the park in the mornings, and in the afternoons I played imaginary games like Pirate Ship and Fort and Outer Space while she watched her shows. Drew, Maury, Ellen, Phil, Judge Judy, the women on The View—they felt like friends. And I have Mormor to thank for introducing me to Who, What, Where, When with Horatio Blass. It was her favorite show, and it became mine, too.
Mormor was what’s called a Lutheran, and she read me Bible stories (but it had to be our little secret because Astrid said organized religion was the cause of all the world’s woes and she’d broken up with the church a long time ago). We made pepparkakor, which is Swedish for “gingerbread,” and Mormor let me eat balls of dough. At naptime she let me curl up on her cushiony lap and doze while she watched TV.
When I had just turned six, I woke up from one of those naps to find that Mormor was sleeping, too. This was not unusual; she often took a midafternoon snooze. So I got up and played quietly on the floor with my Brio train set, which had belonged to my mom and her brother when they were little. After an hour or so, when Mormor still hadn’t woken up, I gave her a tiny poke. Her head slumped farther down onto her chest. Her skin was gray and cool to the touch. I noticed a dark stain underneath her. It was wet.
I started to giggle, delighted. “Mormor, you peed your pants!” Up to that moment I’d been the only one in our household to pee their pants.
She didn’t answer.
“Mormor?” I knew something wasn’t right. But I was little. I had not yet fully developed my P.O.O.
I called my mom. She called 911 and came straight home. But there was nothing anyone could do.
I missed Mormor a lot, and I know my mom did, too. For months afterward I slept in Astrid’s room, and I brought Mel in every night so he could watch over us while we slept. I wasn’t taking any chances.
Our Brief Brush with Homeownership
Mormor left everything to my mom. It wasn’t as much as Astrid had hoped it would be, because Mormor had wired some of her savings to a Nigerian prince. But when Astrid sold the house a year after Mormor’s death, we had enough to put a down payment on a brand-new condominium
in Kitsilano, on the west side of Vancouver.
Even though I missed Mormor, I loved our new place. It was small, but it was ours. The chemical aroma of fresh carpet was still in the air. Everything sparkled with newness. Astrid hung her bold canvases everywhere. We ate my favorite foods for supper, like grilled cheese with pickles and fish sticks with peas.
I started third grade at Waterloo Public School, and soon I had not just a friend, but a best friend. Dylan Brinkerhoff and I hung out all the time, playing with Lego and reading books like Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and Grossology. We even made a magazine called Stories from Ur Anus! and wrote articles about UFO sightings and poltergeists. Astrid got another job, answering phones at a TV production company. And Emily Carr, where she still taught two nights a week, was just a short bus ride away.
But a year and a half after we moved in, two things happened.
Number one: Astrid lost both her jobs. It wasn’t anything she’d done, not this time. Her evening class didn’t get enough enrollment for another semester, so it was canceled. And the production company went bankrupt.
Number two: Our building started to sink.
Yes. Sink.
It had been built on top of what used to be a riverbed. The condo owners were on the hook for the repairs, which were going to cost forty thousand dollars. Each.
We didn’t have forty thousand dollars. We clung to the place for another year. But finally Astrid had to sell it, at a loss.
The Two-Bedroom Rental
Really it was a one-bedroom plus den. We could hear our neighbors fighting and the carpet smelled funky, but overall it wasn’t too bad. It was on the east side, near Commercial Drive, which meant I had to switch schools in the middle of the year. I didn’t make any close friends, but on the plus side, I didn’t make any enemies, either.
