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    Brooke
    Brooke
    Brooke
    Ebook181 pages2 hours

    Brooke

    By V.C. Andrews

    3.5/5

    ()

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    • Identity

    • Self-Discovery

    • Family

    • Adolescence

    • Family Dynamics

    • Fish Out of Water

    • Rags to Riches

    • Overbearing Parent

    • Rivalry

    • Ugly Duckling

    • Makeover Story

    • Mean Girl

    • Love Triangle

    • Forbidden Love

    • Secret Identity

    • Beauty & Appearance

    • Friendship

    • Adoption

    • Sports

    • Social Class

    About this ebook

    All she wanted was a mother's warm embrace...

    Brooke was an orphan, abandoned long ago by a mother she barely knew. And though her new family seemed to offer the promise of a new beginning, a dark voice in her heart told her that she was now more alone than ever...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPocket Books
    Release dateFeb 8, 2011
    ISBN9781451637151
    Brooke
    Author

    V.C. Andrews

    One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. Andrews has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother, as well as Beneath the Attic, Out of the Attic, and Shadows of Foxworth as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration. There are more than ninety V.C. Andrews novels, which have sold over 107 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than twenty-five foreign languages. Andrews’s life story is told in The Woman Beyond the Attic. Join the conversation about the world of V.C. Andrews at Facebook.com/OfficialVCAndrews.

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    Reviews for Brooke

    3.5/5

    76 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Her ghost writer wrote this after she passed away and you can tell a difference.
    • 4/5
      A tomboy taken in by someone who wants to turn her into a model and beauty pageant girl, the two bump heads often. It finally gets to the point where Brooke is so frustrated from the demands put on her and the fact that where she excels at is frowned on, sports, that she cuts her hair in act of rebellion. This results in her going back to a foster home.The author does a great job showing how much someone without a family wants to please them while being terrified of losing themselves at the sametime. The inner battle Brooke had was described so well, you could feel the thoughts asnif they were your own and made yyou hope Brooke wouldn't lose herself in trying to please twoi people.
    • 5/5
      This series seems to get better with each book!

    Book preview

    Brooke - V.C. Andrews

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    Prologue

    When I first set eyes on Pamela Thompson, I thought she was a movie star. I was twelve, and I had shoulder-length hair the color of wheat. Most of the time, I kept it tied with the faded pink ribbon my mother had tied around it just before she dropped me off at the children’s protection service and disappeared from my life. I wasn’t quite two years old at the time, so I can’t really remember her, but I often think of myself then as a top, spinning and spinning until I finally stopped and found myself lost in the child welfare system that had passed me from institution to institution until I wound up one morning staring wide-eyed at this tall, glamorous woman with dazzling blue eyes and hair woven out of gold.

    Her husband, Peter, tall and as distinguished as a president, stood beside her with his arms folded under his camelhair overcoat and smiled down at me. It was the middle of April, and we were in a suburban New York community, Monroe, but Peter was as tanned as someone in California or Florida. They were the most attractive couple I had ever met. Even the social worker, Mrs. Talbot, who didn’t seem to think much of anyone, looked impressed.

    What did two such glamorous-looking people want with me? I wondered.

    She has perfect posture, Peter. Look how she stands with her shoulders back, Pamela said.

    Perfect, he agreed, smiling and nodding as he gazed at me. His soft green eyes had a friendly twinkle in them. His hair was rust colored and was as shiny and healthy as his wife’s.

    Pamela squatted down beside me so her face was next to mine. Look at us side by side, Peter.

    I see it, he said, laughing. Amazing.

    We have the same shaped nose and mouth, don’t we?

    Identical, he agreed. I thought he must have poor eyesight. I didn’t look at all like her.

    What about her eyes?

    Well, he said, they’re blue, but yours are a little bit more aqua.

    That’s what it always says in my write-ups, Pamela told Mrs. Talbot. Aqua eyes. Still, she said to Peter, they’re close.

    Close, he admitted.

    She took my hand in hers and studied my fingers.

    You can tell a great deal about someone’s potential beauty by looking at her fingers. That’s what Miss America told me last year, and I agree. These are beautiful fingers, Peter. The knuckles don’t stick up. Brooke, you’ve been biting your nails, haven’t you? she asked me, and pursed her lips to indicate a no-no.

    I looked at Mrs. Talbot. I don’t bite my nails, I said.

    Well, whoever cuts them doesn’t do a very good job.

    She cuts her own nails, Mrs. Thompson. The girls don’t have any sort of beauty care here, Mrs. Talbot said sternly.

    Pamela smiled at her as though Mrs. Talbot didn’t know what she was talking about, and then she sprang back to her full height. We’ll take her, she declared. Won’t we, Peter?

    Absolutely, he said.

    I felt as if I had been bought. I looked at Mrs. Talbot. She wore a very disapproving frown. Someone will be out to interview you in a week or so, Mrs. Thompson, she said. If you’ll step back into my office and complete the paperwork . . .

    A week or so! Peter? she whined.

    Mrs. Talbot, Peter said, stepping up to her. May I use your telephone, please?

    She stared at him.

    I think I can cut to the chase, he said, and I know how eager you people are to find proper homes for these children. We’re on the same side, he added with a smile, and I suddenly realized that he could be very slick when he wanted to be.

    Mrs. Talbot stiffened. We’re not taking sides, Mr. Thompson. We’re merely following procedures.

    Precisely, he said. May I use your phone?

    Very well, she said. Go ahead.

    Thank you.

    Mrs. Talbot stepped back, and Peter went into her inner office.

    I’m so excited about you, Pamela told me while Peter was in the office on the phone. You take good care of your teeth, I see.

    I brush them twice a day, I said. I didn’t think I was doing anything special.

    Some people just have naturally good teeth, she told Mrs. Talbot, whose teeth were somewhat crooked and gray. I always had good teeth. Your teeth and your smile are your trademark, she recited. Don’t ever neglect them, she warned. Don’t ever neglect anything, your hair, your skin, your hands. How old do you think I am? Go on, take a guess.

    Again, I looked to Mrs. Talbot for help, but she simply looked toward the window and tapped her fingers on the table in the conference room.

    Twenty-five, I said.

    There, you see? Twenty-five. I happen to be thirty-two years old. I wouldn’t tell everyone that, of course, but I wanted to make a point.

    She looked at Mrs. Talbot.

    And what point would that be, Mrs. Thompson? Mrs. Talbot asked.

    What point? Why, simply that you don’t have to grow old before your time if you take good care of yourself. Do you sing or dance or do anything creative, Brooke? she asked me.

    No, I answered hesitantly. I wondered if I should make something up.

    She happens to be the best female athlete at the orphanage, and I dare say, she’s tops at her school, Mrs. Talbot bragged.

    Athlete? Pamela laughed. This girl is not going to be some athlete hidden on the back pages of sports magazines. She’s going to be on the cover of fashion magazines. Look at that face, those features, the perfection. If I had given birth to a daughter, Brooke, she would look exactly like you. Peter? she said when he appeared. He smiled.

    There’s someone on the phone waiting to speak with you, Mrs. Talbot, he said, and winked at Pamela.

    She put her hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer to her. Darling, Brooke, she cried, you’re coming home with us.

    When you’re brought up in an institutional world, full of bureaucracy, you can’t help but be very impressed by people who have the power to snap their fingers and get what they want. It’s exciting. It’s as if you’re suddenly whisked away on a magic carpet and the world that you thought was reserved only for the lucky chosen few will now be yours, too.

    Who would blame me for rushing into their arms?

    1

    A Whole New Ball Game

    In my most secret dreams, the sort you keep buried under your pillow and hope to find waiting in the darkness for you as soon as you close your eyes, I saw my real mother coming to the orphanage, and she was nothing like the Thompsons. I don’t mean to say that my mother wasn’t beautiful, too, wasn’t just as beautiful as Pamela, because she was. And in my dream she never looked any older than Pamela, either.

    The mother in my dreams really had my color hair and my eyes. She was, I suppose, what I thought I would look like when I grew up. She was beautiful inside and out and was especially good at making people smile. The moment sad people saw her, they forgot their unhappiness. With my mother beside me, I, too, would forget what it was like to be unhappy.

    In my dream, she always picked me out from the other orphans immediately, and when I looked at her standing there in the doorway, I knew instantly who she was. She held her arms open, and I ran to them. She covered my face with kisses and mumbled a string of apologies. I didn’t care about apologies. I was too happy.

    I’ll just be a few minutes, she would tell me and go into the administrative offices to sign all the papers. Before I knew it, I would be walking out of the orphanage, holding her hand, getting into her car, and driving off with her to start my new life. We would have so much to say, so many things to catch up on, that both of us would babble incessantly right up to the moment she put me to bed with a kiss and a promise to be there for me always.

    Of course, it was just a dream, and she never came. I never talked about her, nor did I ever ask anyone at the orphanage any questions about her. All I knew was she had left me because she was too young to take care of me, but in the deepest places in my heart, I couldn’t help but harbor the hope that she had always planned to come back for me when she was old enough to take care of me. Surely, she woke many nights as I did and lay there wondering about me, wondering what I looked like, if I was lonely or afraid.

    We orphans didn’t go to very many places other than to school, but once in a while there was a school field trip to New York City to go to a museum, an exhibition, or a show. Whenever we entered the city, I pressed my face to the bus window and studied the people who hurried up and down the sidewalks, hoping to catch sight of a young woman who could be my mother. I knew I had as much chance of doing that as I had of winning the lottery, but it was a secret wish, and after all, wishes and dreams were really what nourished us orphans the most. Without them, we would truly be the lost and forgotten.

    I can’t say I ever even imagined a couple like Pamela and Peter Thompson would want to become my foster parents and then adopt me and make me part of their family forever. People as rich and as important as they were had other ways to get children than coming to an ordinary orphanage like this. Surely, they didn’t go searching themselves. They had someone to do that sort of thing for them.

    So I did feel as if I had won the lottery that day, the day I left the orphanage with them. I was wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a New York Yankees T-shirt. I had traded a Party of Five poster for it. Pamela saw what the rest of my wardrobe was like and told Peter, Just leave it. Leave everything from her past behind, Peter.

    I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have many important possessions. In fact, the only one that was important to me was a faded pink ribbon that I was supposedly wearing the day my mother left me. I managed to shove it into the pocket of my jeans.

    Our first stop, Pamela told me, is going to be Bloomingdale’s.

    Peter brought his Rolls-Royce up to the front of the orphanage, and though I had heard of them, I had never actually seen one of them before. It looked gold-plated. I was too awestruck to ask if it was real gold. The interior smelled brand-new, and the leather felt so soft, I couldn’t imagine what it must have cost. Some of the other kids were gazing out the windows, their faces pressed to the glass. They looked as if they were trapped in a fishbowl. I waved and then got in. When we drove away, it did feel as if I was being swept away on a magic carpet.

    I didn’t think Pamela literally meant we’d be going straight to Bloomingdale’s, but that is exactly where Peter drove us. Everyone knew Pamela at the department store. As soon as we stepped onto the juniors floor, the salesgirls came rushing toward us like sharks. Pamela rattled off requests with a wave of her hand and paraded down the aisles pointing at this and that. We were there trying on clothes for hours.

    As I tried on different outfits, blouses, skirts, jackets, even hats, Pamela and Peter sat like members of an audience at a fashion show. I had never tried on so many different articles of clothing, much less seen them. Pamela was just as concerned about how I wore the clothes as she was about how they fit. Soon I did feel as if I were modeling.

    Slowly, Brooke, walk slowly. Keep your head high and your shoulders back. Don’t forget your good posture now, now that you’re wearing clothes that can enhance your appearance. When you turn, just pause for a moment. That’s it. You’re wearing that skirt too high in the waist. She laughed. You act like you hardly ever wear a skirt.

    I hardly do, I said. I’m more comfortable in jeans.

    "Jeans. That’s ridiculous. There are no feminine lines

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