Watch Your Step (30 page)

M
y friends and I spend
the next few days gathering information for Troublemaking Tuesday. When we report for cleaning duty in our families' cabins, we observe our parents' behavior, let them act out the way Mystery tells them to, and note their strengths and weaknesses. This helps us plan our retaliation. I still don't want to prank my parents, but watching them—or watching Dad, since Mom's still mostly MIA—is useful. Or it will be, when the time comes.

I feel more prepared, and confident, every day. But I'm still
caught off guard when, on the Monday before Troublemaking Tuesday, Dad throws a curveball.

Dear Seamus,

Your mother and I would like to invite you to dinner at our cabin tonight. Seven p.m. Bring your appetite!

Love,

Dad

I found the note taped to our tent flap early this morning. Standing on my parents' front porch now, I read it for the hundredth time, searching between the lines for hints of a hidden agenda. Because it's been five days since my friends and I spied on the Angel Makers meeting. Nine days since we all arrived at Kamp Kilter. According to Annika, my parents have been ignoring her Role Reverse invitations. And this is the first time since we got here that they've wanted to spend time with me.

So I can't help but wonder . . . why?

There's only one way to find out, so I raise a fist. The door swings open.

“Hello, Seamus.”

“Mom?” I ask. Because the woman before me kind of resembles the one I've known as my mother for thirteen years. Her hair's still brown. Her eyes are still green. She's wearing her favorite red sundress and matching red sandals. But something's different.

“Oh, it hasn't been that long, has it?” Mom opens the door wider. “Won't you come in?”

Still trying to pinpoint what's off, I step into the living room. She closes the door behind me.

“These are for you.” I hold out the bouquet of wildflowers I picked from the woods behind our underground house. Mom and Dad always bring flowers whenever they're invited to someone else's house for dinner, so it seemed like the thing to do.

Mom gasps. Brings both palms to her heart. Smiles.

That's it! Her smile. It's totally different. Usually her lips press tightly together. The corners of her mouth barely lift. Her cheeks, chin, and forehead are tense, as if it's taking every bit of her facial muscle strength to hold the expression.

But now her lips actually part. The corners of her mouth lift
up her cheeks, which are totally relaxed. Instead of being frozen in place, her face looks warm. Open.

Happy.

“They're
beautiful
!” she exclaims, taking the flowers. “Thank you. Come into the kitchen with me while I find a vase.” She turns, stops, and turns back. “I mean, would you
like
to come into the kitchen with me while I find a vase?”

I shrug. “Sure.”

She beams. As I follow her across the room, I note the lit fireplace. Soft light coming from a dozen candles set on the coffee and side tables. Jazz music playing from several round wall speakers.

“The place looks great,” I say once we're in the kitchen.

“All thanks to you.” Mom opens a cabinet and takes out a tall glass cylinder. “You're doing great with your chores. I've never seen a house so immaculate day in and day out.”

“What about our house? Back home? You always make it look it perfect.”

She stops arranging the flowers in the vase and looks at me. I think her eyes might start to water.

“Do you really think so?” she asks.

“Of course. The only reason I know how this house should look when I'm done is because you've shown me a million times.”

She sniffs. Blinks. Continues arranging the flowers.

“It smells great too,” I say. “What's for dinner?”

Her face brightens. “Baked ziti!”

This throws me off for two reasons. The first is that she didn't say fish sticks. The second is that I can't recall baked ziti in my internal dinner database.

“Is that filled with tofu?” I ask.

“Nope,” she says, placing the flowers on the table.

“Broccoli?” I ask.

“Not a spear.” She hurries to the stove and puts on quilted oven mitts.

“Soy cheese?”

She opens the oven door, pulls out a deep dish, and places it on the counter before me. My nostrils tickle as all sorts of yummy smells—garlic, tomato sauce, more garlic—float up with the steam.

“Nope,” Mom says. “
Real
cheese.”

Smiling wider, she reaches back into the oven and pulls out a long, skinny slab wrapped in tinfoil. She places that next to the
baked ziti and peels back the tinfoil so I can see what's inside.

“Garlic bread?” I ask. “Made with . . . ?”

“Real butter? Yup.”

Practically drooling, I reach one hand toward the loaf. Then I stop.

“Go ahead,” Mom says. “Have a piece.”

“But we're not seated at the table.” She's scolded me for pre-meal munching countless times before.

She peels back the tinfoil some more. Then she tears off two pieces of bread, hands one to me, and keeps the other for herself.

“I won't tell if you don't,” she says, and takes a big bite.

I smile. Take a bite. And another. And another. The bread's hot and moist and salty. I don't know if I've ever tasted anything so delicious in my entire life.

“Well, well! Look who's here!”

I turn around. “Hi, Dad.”

He's standing in the kitchen doorway. His eyes shift from me, to the counter, to the floor, to the ceiling, to each wall, and back to me.

“Thanks for coming,” he finally says.

“Thanks for inviting me,” I say.

“Dinner's ready,” Mom says. “Shall we?”

Dad comes all the way into the room. Cautiously. Like he's afraid the floor's booby-trapped. I stay where I am so he can give me a hug before sitting down.

But he doesn't give me a hug. He breezes past and sits down.

“Isn't this nice?” Mom motions for me to take the chair across from Dad. “The whole family, together again.”

“It is.” I glance at Dad.

“Indeed.” Dad glances at me.

Mom scoops the gooey pasta onto our plates. We start eating.

“This is great,” I say. “Thanks for making it.”

“You're very welcome.” Mom beams for about the fourteenth time since my arrival. “I was hoping you'd like it. I thought it'd be fun to cook something none of us has ever eaten before. As a way to . . . kind of . . . I don't know. Start over?”

Dad and I stop chewing. Our forks hover over our plates.

“From what?” I ask.

“Yes,” Dad says. “From what?”

“Oh, come now. We all know it's been a difficult few months. A lot's happened. Changes have been made. Our whole world was turned upside down.”

I shove another forkful of gooey noodles into my mouth to stifle the question that wants to pop out.

Whose fault was that?

“Anyway,” Mom continues. “Now we're here. It's summer vacation. Which is for recharging. Preparing for whatever comes next. And I thought, even though we're not spending every second together, that we could still try to do all those things. As a family.”

“It was a very nice thought,” Dad says, and pats Mom's hand.

It
was
a very nice thought? Does he think starting over as a family is impossible? Or that it's simply too late?

This reminds me of Annika's last e-mail.

“By the way,” I say casually, “how come you didn't get back to Annika about her Role Reverse invitation?”

“I got back to her,” Mom says.

“With an answer?” I ask.

“Well  . . .” Mom avoids eye contact. “We need parmesan!” She jumps up and heads for the refrigerator.

I look at Dad. “She said she wrote you, too. And didn't hear anything.”

Dad becomes very busy spearing noodles with his fork. “Yes.
Ah, I did get those notes. And I've been meaning to respond. There's just so much to do! We've been so busy!”

“Too busy to type yes or no and hit send?” I ask.

Dad shoves the noodles into his mouth. Chews. Shrugs.

“Everyone else's families have already role-played. Annika says it helps kids understand parents and parents understand kids. Which helps them become better families. Don't you want our family to be better?”

“Water!” Dad gulps, then jumps and heads for the kitchen sink.

Mom comes back to the table with the grated cheese. Dad fills and empties the same glass three times. They must have their reasons for avoiding Annika's role-playing request, and they're clearly not about to share them.

I've been here all of fifteen minutes and I'm way more confused than I was before I walked through the door. Deciding I'll need to control the situation better if I'm going to figure out what this night's really about, I ask another question I've been holding back.

“So how'd you swing this?”

“Swing what?” Mom asks.

“Dinner. Here. With me. None of my friends' parents invited
them over tonight, so this can't be an Annika-approved event. That means you got special permission.”

“We don't need Annika's permission,” Dad says quickly.

Mom and I look at him. A second later, they continue eating. I watch his hands. He holds a fork in one hand, a piece of garlic bread in the other. The fork's shaking. The garlic bread keeps slipping and dropping onto the gooey noodles.

He's nervous.

Mom, on the other hand, seems perfectly at ease. Despite getting a little emotional before, when I said how nice she keeps our house back home, and jumping up for cheese when I brought up role playing, now she looks as if she hasn't a care in the world. She sits back. Eats slowly. Offers me more bread. Gives me more teeth-revealing smiles.

And when Dad's done talking, she asks a very unexpected question.

“How are you?”

I stop chewing. “Fine?”

“Good,” she says. “Your teachers seem to be keeping you very busy.”

I swallow. “They are.”

“But I hope it's not all work and no play.” Now Mom sounds concerned. “This is your summer too. I understand you have certain . . . lessons . . . that need to be learned, but I hope you're being appropriately rewarded for your efforts.”

“Like how?” I ask, genuinely curious to know what she thinks that I deserve.

“With the kinds of things all kids enjoy at sleepaway camp. Dances. Pool parties. Movie nights. Free time.”

“Free time's for good kids. And if I wanted to be treated like a good kid, maybe I should've acted like one.”

Which is what she said to me right before she and Dad left me at Kilter nine months ago. I've replayed this sentence in my head so many times it must be permanently etched in my brain tissue. But Mom doesn't seem to remember it all. And I have to admit, she's being so nice now, it doesn't sound quite as bad as it used to.

“You
are
a good kid!” she exclaims, and my heart warms. “You're the
best
kid! All parents should be so lucky to have such—”

She stops talking. Probably because a butter knife just sailed past her face, nearly taking her nose with it.

“Nice catch,” Dad says.

“Thanks.” I reach across the table to hand him the utensil.
“Hang on tight to that. Real butter's slippery.”

“As I was saying,” Mom continues, “Seamus, you're—”

“Whoopsie!” Dad cringes. “Sorry, son. Don't know what happened there!”

I do. He took a fistful of ice cubes from his water glass and chucked them right at me. I then picked up my water glass and quickly moved it up, down, left, and right to catch the flying cubes.

“No problem.” I place the glass back on the table. “Frozen water's slippery too.”

Mom tries again. “Seamus, you should never—”

Take my eyes off of Dad. Because next he flicks gooey noodles from his plate. Before they can splatter across my face, I pick up my plate and angle it down so that his noodles land on top of mine.

“Thanks,” I say when he's done. “I am pretty hungry.”

Dad frowns. Stares at my hands. Holds the edge of his plate with both of his.

“Eliot, are you feeling okay?” Mom asks.

“What? Of course! Never better!”

As if to prove his point, he scoops more pasta onto his plate and starts shoveling forkfuls into his mouth.

“May I be excused?” I ask, trying not to smile. “I need to use the restroom.”

“Of course,” Mom says.

Now trying not to laugh, I dart down the hallway and into the bathroom. I quickly close the door, then crack up into a towel for a few seconds. When that's out of my system, I take out my K-Pak. Imagining how fun it'd be to trade tricks with Dad at home, especially if we both knew that's what we were doing, I start a new e-mail.

TO:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

FROM:
[email protected]

SUBJECT:
Tomorrow

Hi, guys!

Just wanted to check in. Everything's fine here so far, although my parents are acting really weird. I expected it from Dad, who keeps trying to pull pranks, like, right in front of me, but I didn't expect
it from Mom. Why would I? She's being super nice, which she never is. And she seems to really care about making me happy. That's also a first.

We know why Dad's acting up, so I'm not worried about him. In fact, stopping his table tricks is kind of hilarious. Between that and Mom being so nice, it's turning out to be a great night.