Chapter 1 1
I don’t think I’ll ever get married. Why should I? All it does is make you miserable. Just look at Mrs. Singer. Last year she was Miss Pace and everybody loved her. I said I’d absolutely die if I didn’t get her for sixth grade. But I did—and what happened? She got married over the summer and now she’s a witch!

Then there are my parents. They’re always fighting. My father was late for dinner tonight and when he got home we were already at the table. Daddy said hello to me and Jeff. Then he turned to Mom. “Couldn’t you have waited?” he asked her. “You knew I was coming home for dinner.”

“Why didn’t you call to say you’d be late?” Mom asked.

“It’s only twenty after six. I got hung up in traffic.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Mom asked.

“Never mind!” My father sat down and helped himself to a slice of meat loaf and some spanish rice. He took a few mouthfuls before he said, “This rice is cold.”

“It was hot at six o’clock,” Mom told him.

Me and Jeff kept on eating without saying a word. You could feel what was going on between my parents. I wasn’t hungry any more.

Then Daddy asked, “Where’s Amy?”

“In the den,” Mom said.

“Did she eat?”

Mom didn’t answer.

“I said did she eat her supper?”

“Of course she did,” Mom snapped. “What do you think I do—starve her when you’re not around?”

My father pushed his plate away and called, “Amy… Amy…”

Amy is six. When she doesn’t like what we’re having for dinner she eats a bowl of cereal instead. Then she races into the den to see her favorite TV show. But when Daddy called her she ran back to the kitchen. She gave him a kiss and said, “Hi Daddy.”

“How’s my girl?”

“Fine.”

“Sit down at the table and drink your milk,” he said.

“First a riddle,” Amy told him.

“Okay, but just one.”

Amy is driving us crazy with her riddles. Ever since she started first grade it’s been one riddle after another. And you can’t tell her you already know the answer because she doesn’t care. She’ll keep asking anyway.

“Why did the man put Band-Aids in his refrigerator?” Amy asked.

“I give up,” my father said.

“Because it had cold cuts!” Amy laughed at her joke. She was the only one who did. “You get it now? Cold cuts. The refrigerator had cold cuts! Like bologna… get it?”

“I get it,” Daddy said. “That’s a very good riddle. Now sit down and drink your milk.”

As Amy sat down she accidentally shook the table and her milk spilled all over the place. Mom jumped up to get the sponge.

“Don’t be mad, Mommy. It was an accident,” Amy said.

“Who’s mad?” my mother shouted. She mopped up the mess. Then she threw the sponge across the kitchen. It landed on the counter, next to the sink. “Who’s mad?” she hollered again as she ran out of the room and down the hall. I heard a door slam.

My mother’s temper is getting worse. Last week she baked a cake. When she served it my father said, “That’s not mocha icing, is it?” And my mother told him, “Yes, it is.” So Daddy said, “You know I can’t stand mocha. Why didn’t you make chocolate?” And Mom said, “Because I’m sick of chocolate, that’s why!”

I love dessert and by then my mouth was really watering. I wished they would hurry and finish talking about it so I could start eating.

But my father said, “I’ll have to scrape off the icing.”

Mom looked right at Daddy and told him, “Don’t do me any favors!” Then she picked up that beautiful cake, held it high over her head and dropped it. It smashed at my father’s feet. The plate broke into a million pieces and the chips flew all around. It was one of our ordinary kitchen plates. I’ll bet if it was an antique, my mother never would have dropped it like that.

Later, when nobody was looking, I snitched a piece of cake off the floor. Even though it had fallen apart it was still delicious.

But that was last week. Tonight Mom didn’t throw anything but the sponge. As she ran out of the kitchen my father cursed, crumpled up his napkin and got up from the table. Jeff pushed his chair away too, but my father hollered, “You stay right where you are and finish your dinner!” He grabbed his coat and went out the back door. In a minute I heard the garage door open and the car start.

“You really picked a great time to dump your milk,” Jeff told Amy. He is fourteen and sometimes very moody.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Amy said. “You know it was an accident.”

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” he told her. “Because the whole rotten night’s ruined for all of us now!” He cursed like my father and Amy started to cry.

“I’m going to my room,” she told us. “Nobody loves me any more!”

Jeff was the next one to walk out of the kitchen, leaving me there alone. I knew where he was going. To his private hideaway. It’s on the third floor and it used to be the spare room. The ceiling is low on one side and the windows are small and up high. I don’t see why anybody would want to sleep in there if he didn’t have to.

Jeff spent a lot of time decorating it. There’s a big sign on the door that says Jeff’s Hideaway/All Who Enter Do So at Their Own Risk. Then there’s a purple light hanging from the ceiling and a million posters all over the walls. It’s very messy too. In the fall we had to have the exterminator because of Jeff. He took so many cookies and crackers and cans of soda up there we got bugs. My father was really sore! Jeff doesn’t throw his garbage under the bed any more. And he’s not supposed to drink soda anyway. It’s bad for his zits. My mother calls them pimples and says he’s lucky that he’s only got one or two.

His zits don’t stop the girls from calling though. They call all the time. My father has threatened to limit Jeff’s phone conversations to two minutes. Jeff doesn’t care. There’s only one girl he wants to talk to anyway. That’s Mary Louise Rumberger. She’s in his homeroom. I’ve only seen her once. She has very nice hair and she smells like Noxzema.

I know what Jeff does up in his room. He lifts weights. Isn’t that the dumbest thing! He wants to be on the wrestling team next year. My mother’s worried sick because she’s afraid he’ll get hurt. I wonder if maybe Mary Louise Rumberger likes big muscles?