Friday morning Lindsey caught up with Alex before they walked into Mr. Kenerson’s homeroom.
“Alex,” she said gravely. “Can I talk to you privately?”
“Um, sure,” said Alex, her voice high and tight. Her stomach did a cartwheel. This was it. Lindsey was going to let her have it for pouncing on her ex-boyfriend the second they’d broken up. She was going to tell Alex it was the end of their friendship. Alex would be shunned by the group. She might as well drop out of school now and ask her mom to homeschool her, or send her away somewhere. Maybe military school. Anything would be better than—
“Alex?”
Alex jumped. “Sorry,” she said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I wanted to make sure,” said Lindsey, “that it’s really okay for you guys to host the party. Your mom didn’t seem too psyched about it in the car the other day, when we brought it up.”
Relief eddied through Alex’s entire body, like warm waves foaming around a rocky shore. It was about the party, not Corey! “Oh! That!” She laughed lightly. “Of course it’s okay! My mom was just, ah, just concerned about how much turkey chili to make, that’s all. We are totally psyched to have the party.” She would just have to convince her parents to change their minds. Maybe if she could get them to see that not hosting this party would mean the end of Alex’s social existence for the remainder of her life in Ashland, they’d understand how important it was.
Lindsey looked relieved. She smiled, her bright-white teeth glinting. “Oh, good. Well, just wanted to make sure.” She gave Alex a friendly bump with her shoulder, and together they went into homeroom.
The rest of the school day proved uneventful, except that when she dropped her eraser in math class, Corey went practically horizontal as he leaped out of his chair to retrieve it for her. The whole class laughed, even Ms. Kerry.
That evening, Alex finished her social studies reading just as her mother called her to set the table for dinner. It was a unit on economics, which other kids had complained was boring, but Alex secretly found fascinating. She loved learning about balancing budgets and learning terms like “supply and demand” and “opportunity cost” and “economies of scale.”
As she descended the stairs, a sudden thought struck her. An amazing, incredible thought. It was the answer to her problems! She bounded down the rest of the stairs and found her parents talking together in low voices in a corner of the kitchen, their heads bent toward each other as though they didn’t want to be overheard. When Alex came in they jumped back, almost guiltily.
What is the big secret? Alex wondered. She was no longer optimistic about it being a special Christmas surprise, but what else could it be? She pushed her curiosity aside for the moment—first things first. She skipped over to the cupboard and pulled out five dinner plates, and then pirouetted over to the table to lay them down, humming a little.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Have you decided to cheer up, then, Alex?” she asked. “You’ve been doing a lot of dramatic sighing these past few days.”
Alex smiled. “I know, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much our flights to Boston would have cost the family, so I shouldn’t have assumed we could also afford to throw a party. I know that the opportunity cost of flying to Boston meant we would need to forgo the party, because to do both would have been prohibitively expensive for our family budget.”
Coach nodded warily and handed Alex five napkins from the drawer.
“But here’s the thing,” said Alex, laying each napkin to the left of each plate. “What just occurred to me is, now that we’re not flying to Boston, we’ll suddenly have all that money back in the bank, right? So according to economic theory, the value of the resource we didn’t use can now be applied to the next most valuable resource.”
Her mother crossed her arms and lowered her chin, frowning at Alex.
“So,” Alex continued, a bit more uncertainly, “what I was thinking was, maybe now we can? Have the party? Here? With all the money we saved? It wouldn’t cost more than one-fifth of one ticket. Or one-fourth maybe.” She trailed off in a whisper and looked first at her mother and then at her father.
Fathers are not supposed to roll their eyes, Alex thought. That was kind of a violation of the laws of nature. But she was pretty sure her father had just rolled his eyes.
“Alex, your mother and I have said we can’t host your party,” he said. “We haven’t changed our minds. What we do with the family’s finances is, frankly, not really your business. Your mother and I work hard for a living, and at keeping this family clothed and fed and reasonably happy and healthy. But we must make choices. And hosting a seventh-grade holiday party is not, I regret to have to say again, a top priority.” He handed her the silverware.
Alex’s heart sank. Despair and anger at her parents engulfed her. She practically flung the silverware down at each place setting and stomped out of the kitchen without a word. Did her parents enjoy ruining her life?
Dinner that night was another quiet and gloomy affair. Mr. and Mrs. Sackett seemed annoyed at the three Sackett kids. For what, Alex could not fathom. They were the ones who had destroyed Tommy’s music career. And Ava’s basketball career. And Alex’s social life. No, correction. Her whole entire life. And on top of that, they were the reason there’d be no snow this Christmas. No one said much, and even Tommy pushed away his plate after only three helpings.
Finally Alex asked to be excused. Her siblings muttered the same.
“Dishes first,” said Mr. Sackett.
Well, of course. When do we not have to do the dishes? Alex thought bitterly. She knew of plenty of kids who were never asked to do dishes. In fact, Charlotte had casually mentioned the other day that they had not one, but two different housekeepers. And once, Charlotte had gotten picked up from school by her father’s driver. Charlotte has probably never lifted a sponge in her entire life, Alex thought as she rinsed a plate. But given her parents’ sudden and utter lack of comprehension of what it was like to be in middle school, and how much things mattered, like not backing out of hosting a party after you’ve said you would host it, it seemed wise to keep these thoughts to herself.
“One moment before you go, kids,” said Mrs. Sackett.
The dishes done, all three kids had started for the door, but now they halted.
“Mrs. Barnaby is going to need some help again at the day-care center on Sunday afternoon,” said Mrs. Sackett.
“I have rehearsal at three,” said Tommy quickly.
Mrs. Sackett smacked her brow. “Of course. I forgot. Well, at least I’ll have Ava and Alex.”
The twins exchanged outraged looks.
“The day care isn’t usually open on Sundays, but the college is administering a big exam, and many of the staffers can’t be available to watch people’s kids,” said Mrs. Sackett.
Alex was not inclined to say yes in light of how her mother had said no—again, and for no good reason—to her party. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I might have plans.”
“Me too,” said Ava, who was clearly not feeling generous toward her mother either.
Coach put down his glass and stared at the twins. “You’ll both help out,” he said firmly.
Both girls started to protest, saw the look on his face, and closed their mouths again.
Moxy was under the table, where she’d been waiting for the possibility of scraps falling. Suddenly she streaked out and nosed open the swinging door of the kitchen, barking like crazy.
And then the front doorbell rang.