World Made of Glass


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Ami Polonsky
 Cover art copyright © 2023 by Ileana Soon.
 Cover design by Patrick Hulse. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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 First Edition: January 2023
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Polonsky, Ami, author.
 Title: World made of glass / Ami Polonsky.
 Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. | Audience: Ages 10–14. | Summary: “Iris opens her eyes to hard truths and the power of her voice when her father dies of AIDS in 1987”—Provided by publisher.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022007802 | ISBN 9780316462044 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316462259 (ebook)
 Subjects: CYAC: Fathers—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | AIDS (Disease)—Fiction | Prejudices—Fiction. | LCGFT: Fiction.
 Classification: LCC PZ7.P7687 Wo 2023 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007802
 ISBNs: 978-0-316-46204-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-46225-9 (ebook)
 E3-20221116-JV-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 Also by Ami Polonsky
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY AMI POLONSKY
 
 Threads
 Gracefully Grayson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For Daniel, Ben, and Ethan
 
 
 
 
 Chapter One
 
 
 
 
 
 Dad. Is. Dying.
 I pushed through the after-school crowd in the hallway, repeating the sentence to myself: Dad. Is. Dying. Dad. Is. Dying. With each word, I planted one of my hot-pink Converse into the center of a scuffed floor tile. No stepping on cracks. I didn’t used to be the superstitious type, but these days, new worries popped into my mind constantly. Maybe repeating the thought over and over again would help me to understand it.
 Dad. Is. Dying, and just this morning, Mom said it wouldn’t be long now.
 Dad. Is. Dying. The words pounded through my mind on loop as I passed the lunchroom and nurse’s office. Rounding the corner by the gym, I almost ran into Ms. Staffio. Startled, she hopped to the side to avoid me.
 “Iris!” she exclaimed. I was probably imagining it, but she seemed disgusted, as if nearly bumping into me could contaminate her. Then she patted her already-neat bun. “Pay attention to where you’re going, please.” She forced a smile and adjusted the teacher’s edition of our science textbook under her arm. “I was just on my way to make some photocopies, but I was hoping to see you. I wanted to ask you something.”
 I took one more step to complete my thought (Dying.) before responding. “’Kay,” I said.
 She looked at me strangely, and for a second, I thought I saw a flicker of something different in her eyes. Sympathy? But no. It couldn’t be. Nobody, not even my best friends, knew that Dad was sick.
 “You’re off to Philanthropy Club, I presume?”
 “Yeah,” I answered.
 “Wonderful. The gerbils’ cage really could use a cleaning. Will you pass that along to the group? I mean, unless you have something more philanthropic on the agenda.” I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. Everyone knew that Philanthropy Club was the after-school activity you joined if your parents insisted that you “get involved” and you had nothing better to do.
 Ms. Staffio smoothed her hair again and adjusted the already-perfect collar of her white blouse. Everything about her was so judgmental, and even though I’d gotten really good at not caring what people thought about me and my family, I wondered what was going through her mind.
 That Iris, I imagined her thinking in her snooty tone, she looks so disheveled. Someone ought to take her in for a bangs trim—her hair is dangling into her eyes. And on the topic of her eyes, why are they so droopy and bloodshot? It’s like she hasn’t slept in ages. Must be that odd family of hers. Must be because her dad is, you know… gay. In my mind, she’d whisper the last word, gay, because it was so unthinkable.
 Well, if those were Ms. Staffio’s thoughts, she would have been right about my appearance. I hadn’t been able to find my hairbrush that morning, and my bangs were hanging into my eyes because for weeks, everyone at home had been too distracted by Dad dying to take me to his barber on the corner for a bangs trim. And my eyes were bloodshot from not sleeping enough, because when your dad is sick, the nightmares claw at you until