“Court,” I say. “Like Judge Judy?”

That question probably doesn’t capture just how mad I am right now, but it does a pretty good job of capturing, you know, what the heck do I know about getting sued? All I know are the crazy stories that make it into the news, like the one about the guy who fell through a skylight trying to break into a house and then sued the guy he was trying to rob.

And it always seems like people are suing for these huge, fantasy-land amounts of money, millions of dollars, because their herbal tea was too hot or the dry cleaner lost their pants. I should probably get less of my news online, but the more I think about it, the madder I get.

I’m trying to ask Mom more questions, but I’m too mad to talk. And then I remember Mars and that smug look on his face: “You’re going to be getting more than a bill….” He already knew, Mom had already heard, and I was still clueless, still trying to be nice to him. Now I really want to punch someone, but Mom is the only one out here, and she’s one of the few people I don’t want to hit.

I spot an old bobblehead figure that Mom rescued from the trash and put out by the little cement birdbath like an extra sporty garden gnome. I got the thing at a baseball game when I was a kid.

Back then I could have been anything: a baseball player, a bobblehead collector, anything. But the last sport to interest me at all was skateboarding, and that was years ago, and the only thing I collect now is loud music. So I threw the bobblehead out as part of a larger room purge last year. And Mom rescued it, and now I have it again. For a second, I’m just holding it in my hand. The head bounces stupidly on its rusty spring, the blue cap going up and down, like: Yes, do it.

“Oh, don’t,” says Mom, but she says it softly, and that just makes me madder.

My hand goes up and then comes down hard as I throw the thing at the concrete base of the birdbath. It’s a direct hit. The fat little body goes one way, the head goes another, and the spring splits the difference. I turn back toward Mom. I don’t know if I feel better, but at least I can get the words out now.

“They’re suing?” I say.

She looks at me for a moment, then looks around at the broken pieces. Finally, she just shakes her head.

“They’re looking for money,” she says. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Like, millions?” I say.

“Not millions,” she says. Stupid Internet.

“So what, then?” I say. “I mean … what?”

“We’re going to have to go to court,” she says. She sizes up the blank look on my face, takes a breath, and continues. “They’ll ask for what they think they can get, probably more, and your uncle Greg will help us.”

Greg is Mom’s brother. He has defended murderers, even a mobster once.

“Wait, do we go to court against, like, the state?” I ask. “Or against them?”

“Against them,” she says.

“But what can they even — Mars jumped the fence!”

“That’s not what they say.”

And I can’t prove it. My head is swimming. How do a few bandages turn into a sling? How does a bite on the hand turn into a lawsuit? None of it makes any sense, but I guess it’s the law, so it doesn’t have to. There just has to be money involved.

I look up at Mom. She looks sad and tired. She’s standing in the middle of the lawn and the house is directly behind her. She’s centered in it, like it’s a picture frame floating in the air. That’s the thing, I realize, the house — the mortgage that’s been hanging over her head. I don’t know all the details, but it’s called an adjustable rate mortgage, and a few years ago, the rates adjusted a ton. We could lose the house over this.

“Dammit!” I shout, and then I shout something worse.

Mom flinches the first time, at the volume, but not the second. Inside the house, JR starts barking. He heard me. Maybe he even thinks I’m in trouble. He has no way of knowing how backwards he’s got it.