This is heartbreaking. But it's damn good reading. You really capture the innocence and vulnerability of youth, but also it's wily resourcefulness. Did you read Harriet the Spy when you were a kid? This reminds me a bit of that.
My heart was pounding with you in that closet. That feeling of... any embarrassing thing we stupidly did, at the moment of reveal. And you just know that this event'll be written on your consciousness for ever.
I'm sorry about what you had to go through with your mother. No one should have to experience that so young.
Harriet the Spy the movie came out a few years after this and I remember relating to her and liking the movie. Never read the books though, I was reading a bit of Nancy Drew when I was young.
Huh. Didn't know there was a movie.
I remember loving the book in fourth grade, even if the other kids said, "Don't you know that book is for girls?"