Addie Sinclair
Addie Sinclair has spent all her life living on Tamarack Loop, the cul de sac where she and her parents call home. She turns 16 in the novel Rumour du Jour. Prior to this novel her 16th birthday was going to mean freedom: the freedom to drive around Silverwoods and go to Junior’s Drive-In Burger Bar with her current best friend Sigge. However, getting her license and driving a car has become the last thing on Addie’s mind.
An only child, Addie is quite dramatic and rather abrupt when she tells stories or speaks. Her closest confidante is the streetlamp she can see out of her bedroom window that she pretends is the moon. She tells her “moon” almost everything, and when no one else does, it offers Addie advice. Her parents are stuck in the 1970s with their taste in clothes and home decoration: this may be 2013 but you would never know it when entering the Sinclair home. Addie can see that her family is different and it pains her.
An Actress in the Making
Addie attends Silverwoods High and is in 10th Grade at the start of Rumour Du Jour. She has been an excellent student until recently. As a result of her mom’s shenanigans this school term has already been a difficult one for attendance and success.
In Vortex of Doom, Addie wins the role of Lucy in Dracula and then gives it up to Lola, her competition. Sigge’s brother, Bernerd, is the lead in the play. He is an excellent actor and rather eccentric. At first annoying to Addie, Bernerd then proves himself to be a solid and dependable person that she can rely upon. Relinquishing the role of Lola breaks Addie’s heart but she cannot take the part. Being Lucy to Bernerd’s Dracula would be too painful.
A Sometimes Best Friend
Sigge is a relatively new friend to Addie. She and her family have only lived in the loop since Vortex of Doom, but in that short time the two girls have grown close. Addie used to have a best friend named Lindsay Dixon, her next-door neighbour for as long as Addie can remember. Addie thinks she knocked on Lindsay’s door when they were both three and became fast friends. However, the friendship took a turn in the second book, when Lindsay’s parents did not approve of the Sinclairs’ extra-curricular activities.
A Teenager in the Middle of Problems
Addie’s parents were also friends with the Dixons but things changed for them as well. Addie’s father, Cliff, is a clothing buyer for the menswear section in Grimson’s department store. Addie’s mom, Dee (short for Delores), was a merchandiser for Grimson’s: she created the window displays for the company. When Addie was in Grade 8 Dee was working on a display where she had to hang a chandelier. She fell, the chandelier landed on top of her, and she sustained a painful back injury. She has not been able to work since then.
She was initially prescribed pain medication for her discomfort but she found that it stopped working after a while. To help ease her pain Dee began to enhance the effect of the painkillers with alcohol. It took months before Addie finally realized just how much of an alcohol and prescription pill problem her mom has and how much her father enables her mom’s addiction. The Dixons (Dot and Bob) have stopped socializing with the Sinclairs as a result of Dee and Cliff’s alcohol use, and this abandonment has caused the Sinclair family some sadness. Dee wonders why Dot and Bob are no longer calling and why her friends seem to be keeping their distance. Cliff rationalizes by saying that he wasn’t all that close to Bob anyway: anything to avoid thinking too deeply about the situation.
All Addie wants is to have the warm and fuzzy family she used to have when she was a kid. She wants to have the house filled with groceries and decorated for holidays. She wants her parents to “grow up” and be adults. She wants to be taken care of, not look after her parents. She feels that she is the most responsible member of her family and that her mom and dad need to get themselves together.
Throughout her experiences, she always tries her hardest to be the best person she can be.
