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hard to write.
    “And did you gather up all your laundry like I asked you to?”
    “Yes,” I lie, looking around at the dirty clothes strewn around my room. Because—what’s she going to do if I
don’t
gather up my laundry? Ground me? Too late!
    But then I remember what happened the last time I lied to my mom—about Annie Pat and Marine Universe—and I start gathering. I finish just as Mom steps into my room. “All done,” I say, trying not to pant as I stuff the last T-shirt into my laundry basket.
    “Good girl. You can help me get the first load started, and then I’d like you to empty all thewaste-paper baskets and take the trash out to the Dumpster.”

    Just like Cinderella! Taking out the trash is my least favorite chore, because other people’s garbage smells so yucky. And even though I have to throw our garbage bag up really high to get it over the side of the condo Dumpster, I worry about falling in. Especially today, when it’s slippery outside because of the rain.
    Mom gives me a challenging look until I mumble, “Okay.”
    “This is how I spend
every
Saturday,” she reminds me.
    Never grow up
, I remind myself.

    Mom tells me to take a seat in the kitchen just before lunch. She is holding the apology letter she made me write to her. “We need to talk,” she says, looking serious.
    Uh-oh. “But why?” I ask her. “Don’t you like the letter I wrote? I worked really hard on it.”
    “It’s perfectly fine,” she says, giving it an absentminded pat. “Apologies come very easily to you, Emma.”
    “They do not,” I say, trying to keep calm. “I
hate
apologizing—to anyone!”
    Mom sighs. “Well,” she says, “you obviously know that lying to your mother is wrong, at least.”
    “Lying to
anyone
is wrong,” I tell her, hoping this will give me extra credit.
    But Mom doesn’t even hear me. “I’m just worried about you lately, sweetie,” she says. “You really hurt Annie Pat’s feelings, and that’s not like you.”
    It’s
exactly
like me—when I’m not thinking
, I feel like telling her.
It was a mistake! Can’t a person
make a mistake around here? It’s not like
you’re
so perfect!
    Naturally, I don’t say any of this out loud, or I’d have to sit here forever.
    “Didn’t it hurt your feelings when Cynthia stopped being friends with you, Emma?” Mom asks. “It was only a few weeks ago, after all.”
    I give a tiny shrug. “I didn’t care,” I mumble.
    “I think you
did
care, honey,” my mom says. “I think you felt really sad and confused when it happened. And I think that’s the way Annie Patmust have felt when you forgot about her and started going after Kry Rodriguez, just because she’s exciting and new.”

    “But Cynthia shouldn’t get to have her,” I say, finally daring to argue a little. “Cynthia is mean. That’s the whole
point
, Mom. And she gets to have everything!”
    “Kry isn’t a ‘thing,’ Emma,” my mom says, frowning. “She’s a person, and she can make up her own mind about who she wants to be friends with, don’t you think?”
    “But what if she decides wrong?” I say, trying to make my mom understand.
    “Then she’ll have made a mistake,” Mom says calmly. “And that’ll be her problem, Emma. Not yours. Look,” she says, leaning forward. “Do you remember when you kept losing your doll clothes after we moved here? And do you remember when you
completely
lost that library book last month, and we had to pay the library fourteen ninety-five to replace it?
Fourteen ninety-five
?And remember when you lost the front-door key a couple of weeks ago?”
    She’s gonna bring up
everything?
What do moms do, keep an invisible list?
    “I guess,” I say reluctantly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
    Mom reaches over to hug me. “Oh, honey, I’m not trying to make you apologize again,” she says. “I’m only trying to tell you that being careless with
objects
is one thing. But you can’t be careless with