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worry and they’ll know more if new symptoms show up and she feels like a ticking time bomb, a damn ticking time bomb, which is what she told Dad yesterday when he brought her a bunch of brownish-pink hydrangeas from the garden to cheer her up and they thought I was loading the dishwasher but I was actually spying on Mom.
    “Very clever,” Dad says, staring at the screen. “I’m actually quite impressed.”
    “Yes,” Rachel says. “It’s really impressive.”
    “The dialogue is well written and certainly holds its own,” Dad says.
    “Yes,” Rachel says, “it really does.”
    I want to yell,
MOM, I KNOW YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE LAUGHING
, but she’s trying so hard to be a good sport, nodding and giggling and holding Dad’s hand, so I just touch her hand and smile.
    “My bird girl,” she says, looking away from the TV for a second and right at me with her dark brown eyes, and suddenly I want to tell her about the marsh lady and her shooing stick. Then I see the purple circles under her eyes and I know it isn’t right to say anything. Mom is sick and I am fine.
    Dad says, “This is terrific, watching TV together. Isn’t it?”
    So I laugh when Agent 86 takes off his shoe and uses it as a phone, and I laugh when the Cone of Silence comes down on Agent 86 and Chief and they start yelling secret things at the top of their lungs for everyone to hear. I fill the room up with my
haaaa
so there’s no room for anything else.
    When Rachel and I are upstairs in the bathroom brushing our teeth, she says, “You know, Mom will die if she has to give up dancing.”
    “No, she won’t!” I say. “Take it back.”
    “It’s just an expression. Don’t you know that?”
    “Take it back anyway.”
    “No,” she says. “Don’t be stupid.”
    “Just take it back!” But she shakes her head, allstuck-up and stubborn, so I elbow her in the ribs and she spills water all over the front of her yellow nightgown, which makes what she’s got on her chest totally obvious.
    “You’re
such
a baby. Look what you did!” she yells.
    “Girls!” Dad shouts up from downstairs.
    “Sorry, Daddy!” Rachel shouts back.
    We’re both red ashamed, because Mom and Dad need our fighting right now like a hole in the head. But still Rachel doesn’t take it back. She rubs her nightgown really carefully with a towel, like she thinks that what she’s got might disappear, and stomps off to her room. And I go to bed without saying good night.

    Miss Gallagher has pink lipstick on. She’s put Dixie cups filled with Hawaiian Punch and a plate of store-bought sugar cookies on Claire’s desk and is saying, “Please, everyone, make yourselves at home, have a cookie, and then we’ll get started.” Mom could make herself at home much better if there was a couch she could stretch out on, like in our living room, and if everyone wasn’t staring at her, trying to figure out if there’s anything else wrong with her,
poor thing
, besides her draggy leg.
    Yesterday in assembly our principal, Mrs. Mitchell, said that it’s a bold new adventure to invite students to accompany their parents to back-to-school night,and she’s sure it will be a worthwhile experience for us all. I’m not so sure. For example, Tommy is wearing a white button-down shirt and a navy-blue tie that must be strangling him, because he keeps pulling at the knot, even though Mr. Gale glares at him and whispers, “Cut it out, boy.” Joey doesn’t have a parent problem, because his parents didn’t even show up. He’s sitting by himself with at least five sugar cookies stacked up neatly on a napkin on his lap, but no one says anything to him, since he’s probably allowed to have extras to make up for the fact that he’s all alone. I don’t know how he got here, but if Mom and Dad offer him a ride home, I’ll say
Race you to the car
and I’ll get a head start so he’ll chase me and he won’t end up walking behind Mom and having extra time to see her draggy leg. My final