Unaccompanied Minor Read online

  Dear Judge Cheevers,

  I discovered the following document in my mother’s e-mail account. (I admit accessing her e-mail may be considered delinquent, but since she has been committed to a mental institution and declared unable to care for herself, I acted in her interest as her next of kin.) The document is the report submitted to you by Catherine Galleon (my supposed guardian ad litem) regarding my custody. If you recall, you ruled in favor of her recommendation and granted my stepfather full legal custody and shared physical custody. I am resubmitting her report to you with my own notes in the margins.

  Anyway, I think it’s important that you understand a few things, so I made a list (my friend Alby Madison helped me with this letter. She’s almost a lawyer). (She advised against the strong language, but we saw that differently):

  I never met or spoke to Ms. Galleon. I think this is important, considering she invented a conversation we had.

  I’m almost 15 years old, not 12. I think this is important considering Ms. Galleon is charged with minding my welfare. (Don’t you think she should know how old I am?)

  My stepfather, Ash Manning, is a lying, greedy, odious sociopath.

  I don’t play the guitar. I have never played the guitar.

  Sincerely,

  April Mae Manning

  cc: Elizabeth Coleman Manning

  —

  Enclosure:

  Guardian ad Litem Catherine Galleon

  Report on Recommendation of Custody, Manning vs. Manning

  April Mae Manning (hereafter referred to as “Child”) is a vivacious 12-year-old girl [I’m 15 almost!] who is the subject of the Fulton County custody case Manning vs. Manning. She is in the seventh grade [Eleventh grade level!!], has an extremely high IQ, and is regarded favorably by her schoolteachers. [What teachers? My high school is a computer.] Her favorite pastime is playing the guitar. [I don’t play the guitar!] I interviewed Child the morning of January 4, 2013 [I never met this crazy shebeast!], at Father’s residence and she expressed great affection for Father [He is not my father!], while appearing fearful of Mother [Not true!]. It is my recommendation as Child’s GAL that she not testify in chambers to Judge Cheevers because of her fear of Mother. [I am not afraid of my mother!]

  Elizabeth Manning (heretofore and hereafter referred to as “Mother”) is a flight attendant for World­Air. She constantly refers to Child as “my daughter,” as opposed to “our daughter,” which would be more appropriate. [Again, Ash Manning is not my father!] For example, during mediation and interviews, she often declared “I love my daughter” and “my daughter needs me,” causing me to remind her that this was about the Child, not about her. [Since when is it selfish to say you love your kid? And I do need her!]

  Mother was extremely oppositional to my preliminary recommendation put forth during mediation, which would have given Mother a generous visitation schedule of Thurs. to Sun. twice a month [Generous? Really? We see that differently!], which Mother refused to cosign despite several warnings from me that I would recommend something a lot less lenient should this go to trial.

  I found it detrimental to Child’s interests that Mother would not agree to my recommended custody schedule even though I made it clear that I felt this schedule was best for Child. [What do you know about what’s best for a kid? I bet you can’t even keep a goldfish.] Mother’s insistence for more time with Child is evidence she is putting her own needs above that of Child. Mother is self-focused in conversation, as is evidenced with the innumerable outbursts of “I love my daughter” and “my daughter needs me.”

  Mother’s employment as a flight attendant ensures she is often out of town, a situation that is less than ideal for Child. [“Mother” only worked trips outside of her custodial time.] Mother’s employment reflects numerous disciplinary incidents.

  When asked to describe Child’s hobbies and attributes, Mother named a long list, but nowhere on it was Child’s passion for playing guitar. [I don’t play the guitar!] It appeared Mother did not know Child even played the guitar. [I don’t play the guitar!!] When asked to cite names of Child’s classmates, Mother was unable to. [Maybe that’s because I have none.]

  Mother took Child to get her ears pierced, which is a major medical procedure that she failed to discuss with Father beforehand. [Seriously?] I consider this a change in circumstance, and constitutes a viable reason to reconsider custody.

  Ash Manning (heretofore and hereafter referred to as “Father”) [He is not my father.] is a pilot for World­Air. He loves his daughter very much [I am not his daughter.], and constantly says so. [But when “Mother” says it she’s “self-focused”?]

  Father married Mother in 2004, soon after her first husband died in the World­Air plane crash in the Florida Everglades, and subsequently legally adopted Child. I think it was immensely generous of him to marry a widow with a dependent child. [Did I blink and wake up in a book by Charles Dickens?] He is extremely loving and gentle when it comes to Child. [He makes me sleep on the floor in the laundry room!] Father’s employment as a pilot often requires him to leave town, but he devotes much attention to assuring Child is accommodated during these absences. [I could be getting dismembered by Satanists for all he cares!]

  Father has taken Child to a plastic surgeon to estimate correction of a large, disfiguring scar on Child’s right arm. I find that very loving and considerate of him. [That scar is his fault, he was just trying to cover it up so it wouldn’t match the police report! And by the way, ear piercing is a “major medical procedure,” but plastic surgery (!!) is not??]

  Father has interfered with Mother’s employment in the past, most notably by, on a few occasions [It was every day for a month.], physically restraining her from leaving the house [She missed work—the reason for the “numerous disciplinary incidents.”]. But he has apologized for that [Really? To whom? Not to me or Mom!] and promises never to do it again. [Like crap!] In any case, Father assured me his actions were instigated by his concern for Mother [Like crap!], who was exhibiting signs of mental instability. [Like crap!] Afterward, Mother filed charges against Father and had the court issue a temporary restraining order against him, causing him to be evicted from the family residence. I found Mother’s actions to be harsh and overreactive. [Is she headless?]

  When asked to name Child’s likes and hobbies, Father extolled Child’s love of playing the guitar he bought her [What guitar? I don’t play the guitar!!!], and how teaching her melodies on it comprises important father-daughter bonding time. [Ash Manning has taught me NOTHING! Except maybe distrust.] I find this very touching. [Seriously, is this GAL headless?]

  Based on my research, I recommend FATHER retain full legal and physical custody of CHILD, and MOTHER’s time be limited to four hours supervised visitation every other Thursday from 4–8 P.M.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Catherine Galleon, Esq.

  [Judge Cheevers, here is a list of reasons why this recommendation should be thrown out and your decision reversed immediately:

  Like I said, Ash Manning is a lying, greedy, odious sociopath.

  Catherine Galleon is an ignorant succubus.

  My mom may not be perfect, but she cares about me and I am at least RELATED to her.

  If you don’t fix this soon I will bomb a plane. I am not kidding. I never threatened to bomb anything when my mother had full custody, did I? This is a new development in my behavior! This constitutes a CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCE!]

  PART IV

  THE STATEMENT

  World­Air Aircraft Accident Report

  Lockheed L-1011, flight 1021, ATL–LAX, April 1, 2013

  Passenger Summary

  Name: April Mae Manning

  Birthdate: 4/1/1998

  Status: Unaccompanied Minor, Nonrevenue

  Seat number: 42B, Mid Left Jumpseat, Lower Galley Jumpseat, Cockpit

  Statement:

  One of my most prized possessions is an official World­Air flight attendant manual, even though I can’t really co
nsider it my possession since I stole it from my mother. But even she can’t officially consider it her possession, since it’s government issue and, because it contains high-level in-flight security information, she is expected to return it when she quits or retires (or gets fired, but Flo said that’s not going to happen). Anyway, I cherish this manual because I come from a long pedigreed airline lineage from both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family. (And I mean my real father, not Ash Manning, who is not my real father no matter what he tells you.)

  My grandfather Roy on my father’s side had been a World­Air employee so long that he and the CEO of the company—the same Mr. Alan Bertram outside the door right now hollering about what a big disaster this all is—he and my granddaddy Roy go way back, literally to day one. They had both been hired as engineers on the same date, and remained close friends up until the day my grandfather died. But where Mr. Bertram was a corporate type, my grandfather was a laborer. He loved to work with his hands. Friendships are thick, though, and Mr. Bertram himself attended my granddaddy’s funeral and stood in the receiving line like everyone else. He gave my mother his card, telling her to call him if she needed anything.

  My grandfather on my mother’s side, Maxwell Davenport, was a baggage handler for Spartan Airlines back before it merged with World­Air, and he met my Grammy Mae (see? M-a-e) right on the tarmac of the Monroe County Airport as she was greeting passengers about to climb the jet steps to a flight to Atlanta. My grandmother is sixty-two now and still a flight attendant for ExpressAir, a regional affiliate for World­Air, a factor that is due to no small feat. Grammy Mae had been canned back in the seventies for having the audacity to get knocked up with my mother’s older brother, so she sued the airline for discrimination and won a precedent-setting case that enabled the mandatory rehiring of all stewardesses previously fired for being pregnant, or over the age of thirty or—I swear this is true—getting married. Any one of those three factors used to be a perfectly acceptable terminable offense until Grammy Mae and a collective of other strong-minded and unfairly fired stewardesses descended on the Supreme Court and set it right.

  Today Grammy Mae still flies domestic routes and stays busy. Her favorite trip is the thirty-four-hour Las Vegas layover on the 757, because the crew is put up at the Silver Spur Hotel and Casino where they get a coupon book that includes two free welcome cocktails and half off at the Rootin’ Tootin’ breakfast buffet.

  “It’s like a mini vacation,” she tells me. “I can’t believe I get paid.”

  She welcomes the breaks, because she told me when she’s not working, my Papa Maxwell expects her to be a farmer’s wife. He retired early from his baggage-handling job and now runs a vegetable stand along Riverside Road, south of the Atlanta airport. Maybe you have heard of his stand; it’s called Papa Maxwell’s Fresh Fruit & Produce. He’s kind of famous for his homemade ginger ale, brewed using the ginger root he grows in his garden. He keeps bottles of it on ice right by the cash register, and people come from miles around to buy it.

  I used to like to sit under pomegranate trees in Papa Maxwell’s backyard and feast on the fruit, with the ruby-colored juice running down my arms and dripping off my elbows. This is where they found me, by the way, on that Easter Sunday when it was time to tell me what had happened to my real father. I was under the pomegranate trees, gathering the fallen fruit into my lap.

  My mother had been a flight attendant since two years before I was born, then flew with me in her belly until she was so pregnant it was against policy for her to continue. But being in the air was the only thing that made the morning sickness go away, she said.

  “I don’t know what it was, but once the plane took off all of a sudden I could feel you quiet down in there,” she would tell me. “It was like reverse gravity or something. Suddenly I felt light as a feather, like the weight of the world was lifted. I loved flying when I was knocked up.” Then she would kiss me goodnight.

  She called them “sky stories,” and she told me one every night before bed, even after she married Ash, who thought she was ruining me with this ritual for some reason. “She needs to toughen up!” he’d shout at her, often while standing over us as she held me in bed. “You’re ruining her!”

  They always fought, until he figured out how to shut her down. He liked to throw open the door to my bedroom, grab me out of bed, and shake me at her. “Let’s play shaken baby syndrome!” he’d shout. I wasn’t exactly a baby, but I’d be wailing like one, and she would instantly back down and beg him to hand me to her. But he wouldn’t. He would just shove me at her, and then yank me away. “Shaken baby syndrome!” he’d laugh. He was such a bastard.

  Inspector DeAngelo:

  Don’t cuss.

  April Manning:

  “Bastard” is technically not profanity. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard-ass bastard! She tried to lock my bedroom door to keep him away from us, but he kicked the door down. That explains the scar on my arm. The door hit me, threw me against a bookshelf, and broke my commemorative Wonder Woman plate. I woke up in the hospital with a concussion and six stitches in my arm.

  Inspector DeAngelo:

  Didn’t your mom call the police and have him arrested?

  April Manning:

  That’s a good one. The police were called, yes. I recently read the report, which was attached to the recommendation on custody. My mother made the mistake of telling Ash to call 911 while she tended to my injuries. Ash called, all right, but he told them my mother was the one who hurt me. When the police came, it was her word against his. I was unconscious from getting bashed in the head by a door, which made it pretty hard to put in my two cents. The officer took their statements in the emergency room while I was getting stitched up, and since both were claiming abuse against the other, the officer had them both hauled off to jail.

  Wanna know what happens to an unaccompanied minor when she’s released from a hospital emergency room while her mother and stepfather are in prison and all her grandparents are on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic? She gets thrown into the Fulton County Children’s Shelter, which is just a euphemism for juvenile jail, because that’s where they also throw the runaways, junior druggies, muggers, thieves, and any other criminal under the age of eighteen, male and female. It took three days for things to get sorted enough so that I could go home, and I had to spend most of that time barricaded in a utility closet to keep from getting assaulted by a two-hundred-pound seventeen-year-old thug who had decided I was his “bee-otch.”

  After that, Ash called 911 on my mother all the time. It was his favorite thing to do. The police would be at our door in minutes, Ash would make up some complaint and demand they write a report. When my bedroom door was replaced, he put the lock on the outside of the door. That’s how he started locking us up. I used to have to climb out the window and onto the porch roof to get out of the house. Then I couldn’t get back inside, so suddenly I was a runaway and it was all my mom’s fault, according to that crazy bitch the guardian ad litem.

  Investigator DeAngelo:

  Cussing.

  April Manning:

  “Bitch” is not profanity. They say it on television all the time. Even daytime TV.

  Anyway, Ash thought it would do me good to let me lie alone, crying in the dark. Also, it wasn’t until she married him that we began celebrating Easter Sundays again. Until then we ignored Easter. The purpose was to try to keep me from remembering things. It was a diversionary tactic employed by my mother. Ash thought it was ridiculous and was certain it wouldn’t work. He was half right; it didn’t work. I still remembered that my real father died on Easter. But I didn’t think it was ridiculous. Like I said, diversionary tactics have their purpose.

  Speaking of diversionary tactics, I really think they should include ways to recognize the difference between smoke bombs and actual bombs in the “Explosive Device Recognition” guide in the World­Air flight attendant manual, which is like my bible. But like with the real Bible, I still have
my criticisms of it. I will probably expound on those later, but for now, according to the “Explosive Device Recognition” section, the list of things to look for in a suspicious device is:

  Power source

  Initiator

  Explosive (of course)

  Sensor

  It’s in the security section of the handbook, which is written out all in lists. I am very big on lists. And by the way, I was told to be as specific as possible in this account, which explains the rambling details. So I am simply complying with orders.

  See? I am cooperating.

  Which is saying something, because I have major trust issues, except for with people like my friend Flo, who is my ex aunt-in-law. I still don’t know exactly how we are related—it’s like twice removed by marriage and then even further removed by divorce—but the fact is that Flo has been around my mother and me for all our lives. She called both of us “Kid,” probably because she had no kids of her own, so she treated my mother and me like we were her facsimiles thereof. Still, the only reason I trusted her is because she figured out what I was up to two weeks ago and didn’t tell anyone. She said she’d never seen anything like it in all her years of flying, which, of course, got her to reminiscing.

  “Those were the days to fly, kid,” she’d say. “You could smoke and drink Bloody Marys in the galley all day and never have to worry about being Breathalyzed at the end of your shift.”

  Flo still smokes and drinks Bloody Marys in the galley all day, so I don’t know why she was nostalgic about that particular thing. It was the reason she always bid to fly the old Lockheed 1011s, because the galley is located under the cabin in a whole separate area where passengers are not even allowed. She could spend the whole flight down there doing anything she wanted, and she didn’t have to answer to anyone—not the passengers, pilots, or even other flight attendants. All she had to do was prepare the carts and send them up in the tiny little elevators, and I usually did that for her. It was part of our deal. That and I was supposed to provide her clean urine samples in case she ever got popped to report for a drug test. So I tried to book myself on as many flights with Flo as I could, because she knew my mother and she knew my situation. Like I said, it did not take her long before she figured out what I was up to after she discovered me in the lost-and-found room of the Detroit employee lounge.