Excerpt from A List of Cages by Robin Roe, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But of course the man across the street isn't actually my father. It's just some trick of the sunlight filtering through the branches on a jogger who stopped to catch his breath.

I stand here, heavy now.

So heavy that the tall steps become a mountain to climb down.

So heavy that it takes a while to summon the energy to start the long walk home.

Ten blocks from school, I start to shiver. Autumn is here, but it seems too soon. Almost like I skipped over the last three months because there are certain things that are supposed to happen every summer.

I'm supposed to go to the beach with my parents. We're supposed to see fireworks and buy sparklers and find seashells. I'm supposed to stay up late and sit on the front porch eating popsicles while my mother plays the guitar and my father draws. Then as he's tucking me into bed, he's supposed to ask, How many stars?

On a great day I'm supposed to say nine or ten. But if it was amazing, the best day I ever had, I'm supposed to cheat and say something like ten thousand stars.

But we didn't get to see fireworks or eat popsicles or do any summer things, and I have this ache inside, like how you might feel if you slept through Christmas.


The same heaviness I felt after school reappears the minute I walk inside the empty house. Every inch of it is dark, glossy, and neat. Every piece of furniture is strategic. Every color is coordinated by someone trained to do it. It's exactly the sort of house I thought I wanted . . . until I got it.

I enter my room with its polished wood floors, desert-brown walls, and heavy furniture. My eyes are pulled to the only thing out of place—the big steel trunk at the foot of the bed. My parents got it for me to take to camp the summer I turned nine. They told me I was brave to go off on my own, but I got so homesick I couldn't even make it through the first night.

I drop my backpack to the floor and lift the trunk's heavy lid. My heart squeezes as I look down at all the things I love: photo albums and Elian Mariner books and my mother's green spiral notebook. I leave that untouched for today and fish around for my own notebook. I flip a few pages, then pick up where I left off.

It's hours later when I drop my pen at the sound of a car pulling into the garage. It's after eight o'clock, but sometimes my uncle gets home even later. And sometimes, if he has to go meet with clients in other cities, he doesn't come home at all.

I watch my bedroom door, the way the light from the hall shines around the perimeter like an entryway to another dimension. I listen for the sound of him climbing the stairs to his office, because even when he's home, he's usually working.

Instead, I see a shadow fall beneath my door.

I close my eyes, but I can't teleport, and I can't disappear.


My uncle Russell once told me he used to be so tall and willowy that when his high school theater put on A Christmas Carol, he was asked to play the grim reaper. I've tried to picture it, but it's hard to imagine he was ever frail.

Russell doesn't speak, just lifts the conch that sits on top of my dresser and turns it slowly in his hands. His fingers are long and thin like stretched putty.

"Getting homework done?" he finally asks.

"Yes," I answer, and immediately feel guilty. It's late and he's just getting home from work, still neatly dressed with a tie around his neck, while I haven't even opened my backpack yet.

He returns the conch to its place, then takes the notebook from my hands. He squints at it, turning it upside down, then sideways, then right side up again. He does this sometimes, a sort of joke about my terrible handwriting.

"What is this?" he asks.

"A book report."

He gives me a sharp look, and I'm afraid he can tell I'm lying. I peek up at the deep fault lines in his forehead and under his eyes, trying to read him. Some nights when he comes home, usually after he's been gone for a few days, he can seem drowsy, relaxed, almost like he just finished a big meal.

Excerpted from A List of Cages by Robin Roe. Copyright © 2017 by Robin Roe. Excerpted by permission of Disney-Hyperion. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.