Apple In the Middle

YA fiction 

     "I've always felt like I'm living and bouncing between two worlds: the white and the Native American, with nowhere to comfortably land.  Being different, I ricochet back and forth everywhere else too, from family life, friendships, school, and my appearance."

     Apple, protagonist of Dawn Quigley's Apple In the Middle, doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere.  Her father sends her to a public school rather than the prep school kids in her gated community go to.  So neither group includes her in their activities.  Despite her best efforts not to tan and her father being caucasian, she's too dark to fit in the white world but unable to fit in with Latinx.  As for her indigenous side, she's never gotten to know it.  Her mother died in childbirth.

     But things are about to change.  

     The last day of school Apple's father makes an announcement.  He and her stepmother, Judy, will be away for the summer.  Stepbrother Baer will be with Judy's missionary parents.  She'll be with her indigenous relatives in the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Indian Reservation.  So she's going to spend time with total strangers who might either resent her for her mother's early death or actually look like her.

     At first Apple is way out of her comfort zone culture wise.  She ruins a $300 pair of shoes on a berry picking expedition.  She'd thought they'd be going to a store.  But all her relatives go out of their way to make her feel at home...

     ...except for a frightening man named Karl who asserts that her mother still owes him something.  Since she can't pay him back, Apple will have to.

     Has Apple found a place she can actually belong?  There's a delightful way to find out.

On a purrrsonal note, I had general anaesthesia for my surgery.  Only I didn't just go under and feel like I woke up the next moment.  It was like someone was clicking through TV channels.  I was lying on a bed breathing funky smelling gas through a mask.  Click.  I was in the commuter lounge working out event details with Ben.  Click.  I was on the bed in another room where a nurse offered me ginger ale.  It felt like I'd been dreaming.  But was that even possible?  This afternoon, two days later, I googled my question and learned that sometimes people dream under general anaesthesia.  And I was dreaming about my internship.  So even when I was being operated on I had my head in the game!  How cool is that?  (Jules)

Do cats dream under anaesthesia?  I'll let some other felines find out.  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to the anaestheologist who must have given me some good stuff.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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