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even watching,” Ian said to me.
    “I am, too.”
    After a beat I added, “Why can’t you do that in your room?”
    He didn’t answer, but it seemed to me he played louder after that. When the movie was finally over, I held out my hand for the controller.
    “Now it’s my turn,” I said. We each were allowed sixty minutes for TV choice a day. That was Ian’s rule. Sometimes, he’d rack up minutes from the day before and add them to his time the next day or even the next week. When I’d say that wasn’t fair, he’d say I could do it, too, only I could never keep track of something like that.
    “No, it isn’t,” Ian informed me. “I’ve got twenty-three minutes left over from last Tuesday.”
    “ Ian . It’s my turn to pick a show,” I said. The only response I received was a jazzy riff on the guitar but no controller.
    I cannot say that on other occasions I had not thrown myself completely into the fight, beginning with a few whines then moving onto a fierce lunge for the controller. Throwing a pillow, yelling for my father, or worse. But that day I didn’t have it in me. The weekend was almost over. I just wondered why Ian had to be so mean to me. Why he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, just want to make me happy one time. Like the families on the TV shows. Just like that. Just to be nice.
    I decided to walk away. Ian sat still playing, the guitar between his heart and his lap like a shield. He still didn’t offer me my turn.
    The music that came out of his guitar seemed just as distant. Far away from me. Where did it come from? Why had he inherited something from a mother who liked to sing?
    And what about me?
    As I left the room, I thought I heard his voice.
    “Here, take the dumb controller.”
    *
    I went downstairs and played video games by myself till my thumbs ached. I went back upstairs to the kitchen and stared into the pantry, but there was nothing to eat.
    I wasn’t hungry anyway. I wandered outside for no other reason than I had nothing better to do than watch acorns fall from the trees and I didn’t feel like working on my science project.
    Acorns were dropping so fast it was like someone was throwing them. One hit me square in the neck.
    “Ow.” I spun around and rubbed the spot behind my ear.
    But acorns don’t fall sideways.
    “Knock it off,” I shouted into the empty yard.
    No one was there, but I knew. Throwing acorns was Ian’s signature move.
    Another acorn flew by my right shoulder. Now he was asking for it. I ran around the side of the house by the cellar door. As I ran I grabbed as many fallen nuts from the ground as I could. I zigzagged back and forth, which I knew from experience made me a moving target, harder to hit. Only one more acorn landed on the back of my leg before I reached cover. Once I was safely behind the house I thrust the acorns into my pockets and filled my fists with more. I peered around the house.
    Ian was in his favorite spot. He liked to climb to the top of our old swing set and strategically straddle the bar across the slide. He couldn’t run anywhere, but, of course, he had a clear view of me from almost anywhere in the yard, and his aim was better so it didn’t matter.
    I decided on a surprise attack. I hated to get spiderwebs in my face, but that’s just what Ian counted on. Instead of running across the lawn, I would go around the other side of the house, crawl under the porch, and get off at least my one or two shots before Ian could turn around. (Our rule had always been only one acorn at a time; heaving a whole handful was not allowed. And not in the face.)
    “C’mon in! Supper!”
    It was our dad. He had come out onto the porch. If Ian turned around now he would see my hiding place. I withdrew deeper into the spiderwebs. They stuck to my fingers and my hair, but I didn’t make a sound.
    Ian jumped down off the swing set and headed inside, right toward me. But I could still leap out as he walked by. At close range I might even hit him for