So I'm walking home from school by myself because it's Thursday which is my late day because of Girls' Glee Club after school which most other days I walk home with my best friend Poppy Cordesi who lives across the street and which her mom's divorced and no one knows where her dad is. I get to the top of our street which is a little hill and I look down on the ten houses, eleven if you count the Pierce's but they have their own private driveway which goes right out onto the highway. I look down at all the houses and they look normal as day but when I look at our house there's something different.

Not a big different, just a little different, almost like how toast smells a little different right before it burns.

I look at our dark brown house.

We have the only dark brown house on the street. Every other house is white or beige or pale green but ours is dark brown with red trim, whoever heard of that, plus the red is faded to icky pink and which I have one word for that: grossamundo.

Which is this sort of language Poppy and I made up but I'll get to that later.

I look at the dark brown and the icky pink, and something is not right. It's not just that our car is gone, which it is, and which it shouldn't be on a Thursday at four-fifteen. Everything looks weird, the sun and the sky and the clouds and it's too warm for April which by the way is my favorite month because I just had my thirteenth birthday last week so I am now officially a teenager which it's about time.

I walk down the hill and I tell myself I'm just making this up.

There's nothing wrong.

Except there's this thing in my stomach, this thing I get sometimes that I call the big clench only right now it's a little clench and I tell it to shut up, go away, there's nothing wrong.

I walk past the Sullivans' house, then past the five peach trees that belong to the Sullivans but we can pick peaches whenever we want because there's just Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan and they can't eat all those peaches by themselves and there are four of us, Mom and Dad and me and Lisa who's seven, but really it's more like three and a half people because Lisa is such a puny little thing and really more like three because Mom hasn't been eating much lately.

I get to our driveway and I stop and look at our front yard because even it looks weird.

The clench in my stomach gets clenchier but I tell it to shut up.

I tell myself it's just our plain old green lawn with the apricot tree and some flowers and six junipers along the fence, which Dad is threatening to take out the whole lawn and put in all junipers because he doesn't want to be a slave to that lawn anymore but then Mom always has to go lie down when he says that but then she has to lie down a lot these days.

I get to our front walk and there's someone in our front window who is not Mom.

Which is weirdamundo.

Now I definitely have the big clench.

It's Mrs. Sierra in the window, Mrs. Sierra from next door who lives in a beige house with nothing but gravel for a driveway and who used to be a nurse with Mom in the olden days before Mom married Dad. Mrs. Sierra is this enormous woman with yellow skin who wears these tent dresses but is awfully, awfully nice, I mean you just have to like her because she's just so nice, plus you have to feel sorry for her because her son Jimmy is at this very moment over in Vietnam getting shot. I mean shot at.

Mrs. Sierra sees me and opens our icky pink front door and her little black eyes look at me all serious and concerned, and her forehead goes into a deep "V" and she says, Oh Abby, and her voice is so low and sad that the big clench in my stomach is turning into a very big clench.

Because even though I'm pretending to myself that I don't know what's going on, I really do.

No doubt about it.

I know.

I walk in and I say, Where's Mom?

Like I don't know.

Mrs. Sierra puts her big yellow arm around me and squeezes real tight and now I know for sure that something is wrong because it's one of those kinds of arm-hugs, the kind where there's something really, really wrong.

So now I know for sure, that thing I knew at the top of the hill.

Chapter 13

It's a rainy February morning. It's raining so hard the drops bounce back up when they hit.

It's a school morning and I come downstairs with my denim binder balanced just so on my hip and in the crook of my elbow which is how you're supposed to carry your binder if you're a girl and you go to Sequoia Junior High.

Lisa is practicing the piano and Mom is in her faded red bathrobe bending over Lisa. Lisa plays another wrong note and Mom stands up and puts her hand the whole way across her forehead like she's holding something in.

No, Lisa, Mom says, her voice all worn out. F-sharp, not F-natural, can't you hear it?

It sounds right to me, Lisa says.

Try it again, Mom says.

I get to the front door and open it and yell, Bye!

I almost get out but Mom is too quick for me, even with her hand all the way across her forehead.

Her eyes are on my feet, on my brown suede shoes which I've worn so much the toes are scuffed white.

Where are your galoshes? Mom says.

Crap.

I knew it.

Mom was having one of her better mornings if she was noticing things like feet.

My mouth starts moving even though I hadn't thought about what to say yet.

I'm not wearing those stupid galoshes, my mouth says.

I look Mom right in her raccoon eyes.

I can't believe I'm doing this because possibly the biggest rule at our house is no backtalk.

No sass.

No lip.

Young lady.

Lisa stops playing the piano and turns to look at me, her eyes and mouth open all fish-face.

Mom takes her hand off her forehead and puts it on her hip.

What did you say? she says. The words hit me like sleety rain which we sometimes get even in the Bay Area. It even freezes here in the winter, with ice on the puddles and everything.

I'm not wearing them, I say, they're stupid.

This is huge backtalk and I am in so much trouble.

But I don't even care.

I have no idea why I'm doing this and I don't even care.

I hold Mom's raccoon eyes with my eyes. I'm not scared because I'm not really here, this is not me doing this. The real me is sitting on the highest shelf beside the fireplace, up there by the ceiling where the white paint is cracking, watching the girl with the frizzy hair talk back to her mom in the faded red bathrobe.

Showing no respect.

Breaking the fifth commandment.

Honor thy father and thy mother.

Mom stares at me without blinking for like a year and I don't blink either so we're both standing there with our eyes drying out and my body in two different places at once and I feel the whole world stop just for a few seconds. The rain outside stops and the cars on the highway stop and the only movement I can see from my perch near the ceiling is Lisa's one leg going back and forth at the knee because she's too short for the piano bench.

Mom raises one faded red arm and points to the garage.

The garage is where we keep the galoshes.

Where my yellow galoshes are.

Which no one calls them galoshes except my stupid parents, everyone else says rain boots.

For a sec I consider running. Running out the door and running all the way to school.

Running through every puddle on the way to make sure my feet get soaking wet.

Running would be enormous backtalk.

I would be in the most trouble I've ever been in in my whole life.

I don't even know what the punishment would be.

I stand there. I mean, the girl with the frizzy hair, she stands there, frozen.

Mom's arm is still up there and pointing, her index finger looking very white and bony and long and it seems to be getting longer, the longer I stare at it.

And then, it's over.

Because I don't have a lot of choices here.

My brown suede shoes with the white toes take one step and then another and another and then I'm in the garage picking up my yellow galoshes.

But something happens while I'm in the garage.

Something explodes inside me.

Something like a glass balloon and I have little pieces of glass stuck all over inside me now and they hurt like crazy.

I come back out and Mom is bent over Lisa again who is playing again and hits the wrong note again and Mom goes, Ah! Lisa! She says it like someone just shot her in the back.

Mom's hand goes over her forehead again.

I divide into two me's again.

One me is on the top shelf by the fireplace, and the other me, the me full of glass, is holding the yellow galoshes.

I toss the yellow galoshes at Mom's feet. They hit her bare white feet and sit there looking like stupid yellow galoshes.

Here, you wear 'em, I say.

There's a siren going off in my head.

I have just crossed a line I've never crossed before.

Lisa stops playing.

Mom looks at the yellow galoshes.

This is all in slow motion, one Polaroid at a time.

At this speed I can see stuff I didn't notice before.

Like there's a big rip under the arm of Mom's faded red bathrobe and you can see her filmy blue nightgown underneath.

Like Lisa's leg is still going back and forth at the knee, like a really fast grandfather clock.

Like there's a lot of gray in the roots of Mom's black hair, at the part.

Like Mom's hands are all dried out and flaky and her cuticles are all grown up on her fingernails and you can't see the half-moons anymore.

Like Mom's lips are all dry and cracked and faded red.

And then the world starts up again in regular motion.

Mom picks up the yellow galoshes.

She looks at the yellow galoshes like she's never seen them before.

She turns toward the fireplace.

Her hand with the yellow galoshes swings back and then forward.

She tosses my yellow galoshes into the fireplace.

They land in a pouf of ashes and bathroom trash, which is sitting there waiting for Mom or Dad to burn it. Rolled-up Kleenexes and brown toilet paper tubes and big balls of my frizzy brown hair from my hairbrush and long stripes of Lisa's white-blond hair from her hairbrush.

Mom walks right up to the fireplace and just for a sec I think she's going to jump in.

I don't know why I think that.

That siren is still going off in my head.

Getting louder and louder.

Mom gets the matches from the mantle and everything gets all slow again and suddenly I'm so tired of slow, I'm so tired of everything. I'm tired of Mom being tired and dried out and faded and lying down and swimming in the neighbors' pool at night and throwing crock pots into Christmas trees and forgetting to pick up her own daughter at Girl Scouts and I'm tired of this whole mess that our whole family has become and it's all her fault and I am really, really, really starting to hate her.

Some days I hate her so much it makes my stomach hurt.

Like today.

Oh, if she only knew.

And if she only knew that Lisa hits that F-natural on purpose and that I talk back to her on purpose, and the purpose is to shake her good, slap her on both cheeks, wake her up out of this half-sleep she's in all the time.

Mom lights a match and throws it in the fireplace with the bathroom trash and my yellow galoshes.

The Kleenexes catch fire immediately.

There's little orange flames all around the yellow galoshes.

Then more flames and more flames and pretty soon the yellow galoshes have orange flames all over them and the room fills up with this grossamundo smell of burning hair and burning rubber.

Mom just stands there, watching the fire.

It's what we're all doing, like we're hypnotized.

No one moves, not even Lisa.

Lisa's hands are gripping the edge of the piano bench so hard her knuckles are sticking out all bony and white.

One of the yellow galoshes starts to melt, a little yellow river runs down the side of it and into the orange flame.

No one's breathing.

There's no air in this room.

Mom stares into the fire.

Me and Lisa stare at Mom.

The clock in the hall ticks.

I don't have to look at it to see that it's so late that Poppy already left for school.

Mom drops one hand from the mantle and puts it in her bathrobe pocket.

There, Mom says to the fire.

Her voice is real hard and flat.

Now nobody has to wear them, she says.

I slide over real slow and quiet to Lisa on the piano bench and I stand real close to her. The back of her shoulder touches my arm and she leans back into me, her shoulder making a little indent on my arm. That indent has my heartbeat in it, it's beating a zillion miles a second, even faster than a hummingbird heart.

Mom dips her head down like she's praying.

You two, she says to the melting yellow galoshes.

For a sec I think she means the two yellow galoshes.

She shakes her head real slow.

You two make me so tired, she says.

I don't think she means the two yellow galoshes.

Without looking at Lisa or me, Mom turns and walks out of the room, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet but the floor creaking like crazy, like she suddenly weighs nine hundred pounds.

Mom's bathrobe comes open as she goes into the hall and it hangs in tired folds behind her and for a sec it looks like a faded red bathrobe walking all by itself, with no one in it.

Mom's door closes and I hear her bedsprings squeak.

Lisa and I don't move.

We watch the fire, which has almost burned itself out.

I don't know what we're waiting for.

I wait until the fire is all the way out.

Then I say, We better get to school.

My voice sounds like I'm six years old.

Lisa gets up and puts on her raincoat and we walk out to the front porch and get our umbrellas. Lisa's is blue and mine is pink and they have the same flower pattern because they're from Grandma and which they're real parasols from Japan.

Which by the way Lisa gets everything blue even though it's my favorite color. It's her favorite color, too, but she just copied me. But everyone always remembers it's Lisa's favorite color because it matches her blue eyes.

No one ever remembers what my favorite color is.

It's still raining really hard.

I point to Lisa's feet.

Go get your galoshes on, I say.

Lisa looks out at the rain and then looks at me with such big sad eyes I almost want to hug her.

No, she says in a little quavery voice.

I roll my eyes at her.

I run into the garage and get Lisa's blue galoshes.

She doesn't say anything as I put them on over her shoes.

For just a sec I feel like I'm six and she's three.

We go out into the hard rain which hammers on our umbrellas so hard I can hardly hear all the crazy thoughts in my head.

We don't talk all the way to Lisa's school, which is on the way to my school.

I want to say stuff like, Lisa's it's OK, or Don't worry, it'll be alright, but my mouth is glued shut. Instead, I bump my pink umbrella against Lisa's blue umbrella about fifty times until she gets mad and goes, Quit it!

And then I smile at her and she kinda smiles back.

We get to her school and she says, Will you pick me up after school and we can walk home together?

And I say, Yeah, sure, I'll see you at three-fifteen.

Which might seem like nothing except that Lisa and I never walk home from school together.