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reporter on another channel.
    â€œOr not,” Christopher said, laughing. “Could your hair look any worse? Helmet hair, dude.”
    I slumped down in my seat, wishing I could be invisible. Maybe it was a good thing we were losing cable. Maybe everyone should give up cable.
    In the past twelve hours, according to my mom, my face had been on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, and CBS. It was on Web sites, social media, everywhere. My mom had been up since five watching TV. She said she couldn’t sleep well, so she’d decided to get up and enjoy our last day of cable.
    Mom wasn’t quite herself these days. One day, a few months ago, she’d gotten laid off, just like that. No advance warning. She and my dad argued a lot about money now, but never directly in front of us. It was awkward, to say the least.
    Lately, she’d been shuffling around in her robe, doing crosswords and watching too much TV during the day, so then she couldn’t sleep at night. She kept downloading recipes she’d never cook and redecorating ideas she would never try. She had printed pages of this stuff, scattered on the coffee table. Then she and my dad would argue about where she should keep it all. He’d put it in a notebook, and she’d take it out and say he had put the pages in the wrong order.
    Just then, Dad’s pickup pulled up in the driveway as he got home from the overnight shift. He goes to work at midnight and gets home after eight.
    A minute later, he ducked through the front door, while our dog, Sassafras, barked and growled. When I looked outside, I saw that our lawn and driveway were full of reporters, shouting questions.
    â€œThat was insane,” said my dad. “Do you know how many people are out there? We’re in the spotlight, for sure.”
    â€œIt’s all because of doofus here,” said Christopher. “He’s like the MVP of YouTube.” “Hey, one of them said I was good on defense!” I spoke up. “They tried to interview me at work, but the security guards wouldn’t let them in,” said Dad.
    â€œWhy not? What are you hiding?” I asked. “Nothing!” Dad said. “It just cuts into our work to have visitors.
    â€ “They’re worried about spies picking up on trade secrets,” said my mother.
    â€œYeah, right!” Christopher laughed.
    Neither my mom nor my dad joined in.
    â€œSeriously?” I asked. “Spies at FreezeStar?”
    Dad nodded. “Not that there are any now, but corporate espionage is something we all need to be prepared for,” he said. He sounded like he was reading from an employee handbook. “In the new economy, there may be threats we haven’t anticipated.”
    If I heard anything about the “new economy” one more time, I was going to hit someone. Every time we heard it, we got one more thing crossed off our Christmas or birthday lists.
    All of a sudden, Sassafras started barking again like crazy.
    â€œSomeone’s at the door,” Mom said.
    Christopher and I ran over to the living-room window and looked outside, parting the curtains. A taxi had parked behind Dad’s pickup, and three people emerged. They all looked familiar from the day before.
    One was the tall, bald, African American general who had insisted Emma wear a Cleveland Indians baseball cap. He was wearing khakis and a crisp, white button-down shirt. The other man was much younger, with square black glasses and spiky hair. He had his tie flipped over his shoulder and was texting into a phone as he walked, plus he was having a conversation into an orange headset. The third person was a woman with short, dark hair who’d been hovering beside Emma the day before. She was wearing a business suit and walked briskly up to our front door.
    â€œGreat, more reporters,” Mom said as she prepared to open the door.
    â€œActually, I think they’re—” I started to say.
    â€œGet