Read Fabulous Five 006 - The Parent Game for Free Online Page A

and my dinosaur can be the boy."
    "Dinosaur?" asked Jana incredulously.
    "Sure. Don't worry. He's stuffed. I asked Mrs. Clark
about him just now, and she said okay."
    Jana smiled weakly and headed for her next class. Oh,
brother, she thought. First Igor and now a dinosaur. What am I getting myself
into?

CHAPTER 8
    Jana wadded the sheet of stationery into a ball and threw it
into the wastebasket next to her desk. The pink bunny her father had given her
sat on the desktop in front of her, and Rex, Shane's dinosaur, was in the chair
next to her bed. He had said that he'd named it Rex because that's what it
was—a Tyrannosaurus rex.
    The whole thing seemed like a story out of a little kids'
picture book to Jana. Both of the stuffed animals were dressed in makeshift
diapers she had made from clean dustcloths, and they had soda bottles with
rubber nipples on them filled with the make-believe formula that she had
prepared. She had even filled out the schedule on their feedings and things.
    What made it even more weird was the way Rex looked. Rex was
the biggest stuffed animal Jana had ever seen. He was green with a purple belly
and a yellow tuft of hair sticking up from the center of his head, and the
wacky look on his face was positively stupid.
    Jana shook her head in disbelief at the dinosaur and pulled
another sheet of stationery from the desk drawer. She tried starting the letter
for the third time.
    Dear Father:
    I am writing this letter to tell you about Mom and Pink's
wedding. I am sure you will be just as happy about it as I am.
    Jana paused and looked at what she had written. Did it still
seem too formal? Or was it too casual? She didn't want him to think that she
was dying to see him, because she wasn't. But she also didn't want him to think
that she hated him, because she didn't think she did. She didn't really know
how she felt—about him, about Pink, about the wedding, about any of
it—but she knew someone should let him know about the wedding.
    Pink is a very nice man.
    Would her father think she meant that he wasn't a
nice man? She crossed out the last sentence and thought for a moment.
    It will be nice to have a man around the house to help
Mom with things.
    If he thought that was a slam about his not being around,
well, he could just think it. He hadn't even come the one time he had written
to say that he would.
    They are getting married one week from Saturday.
    Would he think that was an invitation for him to come to the
wedding? No, of course he wouldn't. Children of people getting married didn't
send out invitations. She didn't know if he even cared that her mother, his
ex-wife, was getting married. He hadn't cared enough to keep up the alimony and
child support payments, and her mother had quit trying to collect them a long
time ago. There had been times when her mother sat at the kitchen table with
the bills, and Jana knew she was worrying about having the money to pay them.
Why should he start caring now? Why was she even writing the letter to him
anyway?
    She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.
Probably for the same reason that I keep putting off getting my dress, she
thought. It was hard to admit it to herself, but she knew that getting the
dress would mean that everything was set. All the details were taken care of,
and the wedding would take place. That was okay for her mom. In fact, it was
super for her.
    "But what about me?" she whispered. Just as tears
started to well up in her eyes, she was aware of Rex, smiling at her from his
chair.
    Jana glanced at the green and purple dinosaur again and
smiled back at him, in spite of herself. Shane had said that Rex was the only
stuffed animal his parents had given him as a baby. He said for a long time he
had thought Rex was his big brother. He was only kidding of course, although
Melanie, who was with them at the time, had believed him.
    Her thoughts went back to the letter. What else should she
say to her father? How are things going? I'd