Amber Brown Goes Fourth (6 page)

I, Amber Brown, must find out the answer before I get very upset.

“Mom!” I yell. “Who else is coming to dinner?”

“No one. Just the two of us,” she calls out from the kitchen.

Again, I look at the table . . . . three plates . . . . three knives . . . . . . three forks . . . three spoons . . . . . three napkins . . . three glasses.

It looks like three to me.

I stand there wondering.

Does my mother have an imaginary playmate?

Has Max turned invisible, and is this their way of him being in the house without my having to see him?

Is my mother getting old-timers’ disease?

Are my eyes getting bad and am I seeing triple or double plus one?

Have I turned into a major worrier and is there some regular reason for three of everything?

My mother walks into the room, puts down the bowl of spaghetti, and says, “I don’t believe it.”

She picks up the extra setting, puts it away, and again says, “I don’t believe it.”

She talks to herself as if I’m not even
there. “I just set the table for the three of us . . . . Phil, me, and Amber . . . as if nothing’s changed.”

I tug at her sleeve. “Maybe that means you want to get back together again with Daddy.”

She shakes her head. “No, it just means that I’m tired and just wasn’t thinking. For a long time, the table was set for three, and I guess I just did it again, out of habit.”

Getting very quiet, she sits down at the table.

I sit down too. “That’s kind of like when I start going over to Justin’s old house, or when I pick up the phone to call his old number.”

She nods and smiles. “I guess it’s all part of our history and we don’t always remember that it’s not part of our present, at least not in the same way.”

I, Amber Brown, think I am too young to
have a history . . . . especially one with so much sad stuff in it.

I remember when everything was fun and easy.

I hope that isn’t history.

I look at my mother.

She looks sad and tired.

I know how I feel.

“Mom, let’s have a spaghetti-slurping contest.”

She laughs. “Amber, I’m a grownup. Grownups don’t have spaghetti-slurping contests.”

I make a silly face at her.

She laughs.

“Oh please, oh please, oh please,” I beg.

She shakes her head, laughs again, and then nods.

We measure out spaghetti strands and then we slurp.

I win.

“The best out of three.” My mother has a line of spaghetti sauce on her chin.

We slurp again.

This time, she wins.

A third slurp . . . . . . . . and Amber Brown is champion.

I look at my mother’s face. . . . . It is a grinning, spaghetti sauce—messy face.

“Can you teach me to snap my fingers?” I ask, and show her how I make the thwip sound.

“Nothing to it.” She snaps her fingers.

We practice.

Soon I am making a sort of thwip-snap sound.

It’s not perfect, but I’m getting there.

When I learn to do it perfectly, I’m going to snap my fingers and say, “Do-over.”

If it doesn’t work, I’m going to say, “Keep On Going.”

I, Amber Brown, am going to get through all of this.

Thwip.

Snap.

Elementary Extension.

Every afternoon, it’s Elementary Extension . . . . . the same old thing.

But it’s different today.

Brandi’s here.

I heard her tell Mrs. Holt that her mom has gotten a job.

That means she’s going to be here from now on.

When she walked into the room, I smiled at her . . . a kind of friendly-but-not-too-friendly smile. I, Amber Brown, have decided not to worry so much about making a new best friend, even though I really want one.

So I gave her just a normal smile that you give to the people in your classroom . . . not a please-oh-please-be-my-best-friend smile.

She nodded, looked around the room, and saw that we are the only two fourth graders in the room.

And then she sat down next to me.

There’s a loud noise coming from the other side of the room.

Three of the fifth-grade boys are pretending to be Karate masters, chopping at the air, and making noises like “Hi Ya!” (not the hello, “Hi Ya,” but the Karate “Hi Ya.”)

The teacher makes them sit down.

In fact, she makes everyone sit down, and then yells, “Put your heads on your desks!”

I start to laugh.

I try not to, but I can’t help it.

“Would you mind sharing with the rest of the group what is so funny, Miss Brown?” the teacher says in a sarcastic voice.

I can’t help it if when she said “Put your heads on the desk” I wanted to say, “I can’t. It’s still attached to my shoulders.”

She looks at me.

I think about how my parents are always telling me that I’m going to need a good education to get ahead . . . and I wonder how am I going to get a head if I have to put it on the desk.

I just can’t stop laughing.

I try, but once I start, I can’t stop.

“You have detention.” The teacher walks up to me. “Put your head down, right now.”

I do.

Somehow when you have to stay after school every day, it’s kind of hard to worry about getting detention.

I keep my head on the desk and think about how, if Justin were here, I could put my sweater over my head and pretend that I had no head.

I look over at Brandi.

She raises one eyebrow, and then bites her lip to keep from laughing.

I put the sweater over my head and pretend that I have no head.

She sort of explodes with laughter.

That makes me laugh more.

It also gets me another day of detention.