CHAPTER 2

 

Girls?” says Mom when the dishes are cleaned, dried, and put away and she’s all out of hoo-ahs. “Your father will be home in fifteen minutes.”

“Should we have saved some chicken pot pie for him?” asks Hannah. She’s fourteen and super-sweet. “I would’ve skipped my second helping if I knew Dad was coming home in time to eat.…”

“What about the third helping?” asks Sophia. She’s eighteen and the second oldest or, as she likes to put it, the “oldest sister still living at home,” because Little Sydney, who’s nineteen, is in college at Princeton. Hannah and Sophia are both kind of boy-crazy. And sometimes, they’re both crazy about the same boy at the same time.

Awk-ward.

“If you want my opinion,” says Victoria, who’s only fifteen but already knows everything about anything, “it’s extremely rude for Sophia to count how many helpings of chicken pot pie Hannah had for dinner.”

“Girls?”

That’s all Mom has to say. Especially when she cocks her left eyebrow up half an inch and gives us…

“Your father already had dinner with some colleagues at the diner,” says Mom.

“Good,” says Hannah. “But if he’s still hungry, he can have some of my fudge. I hid some under my pillow.…”

Yes, Hannah does that. A lot. Which is why, sometimes, she wakes up with melted chocolate in her ear.

“He’s fine, honey,” says Mom. “Your father and I need to see you all in the living room at nineteen hundred hours. Family meeting.”

“Nineteen hundred hours” is military speak for 7:00 p.m. I glance at the kitchen clock. It’s 6:46.

“Between now and then,” says Mom, “finish your homework. Dis-missed!”

Everybody bustles out of the kitchen except Riley and me. Riley’s eleven and is in the unfortunate position of being my next-younger sister. That means she looks up to me, which is not always the best or wisest move. (I wasn’t exactly a super-duper role model when I was twelve. Okay, I was probably the worst role model ever. A dinner roll would’ve been a better role model.)

“What do you think’s going on?” Riley asks.

“I don’t know!” I pretend to panic. “The suspense is killing me. Literally!” I bring my hands up to my throat, bug out my eyes, and act like I’ve just swallowed poison, then collapse to the ground. “Gak! I’m dead! Killed by suspense.”

Riley laughs.

I take a little bow.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s probably something good. Hey, maybe now that Mom is home, we’re all going somewhere cool for a family vacation.”

“Do you think it’s Disney World?” gasps Riley, her eyes going wide.

She’s been wanting to go to Disney World ever since she saw the New Kids on the Block Wildest Dreams special on TV. (FYI—New Kids on the Block were the big boy band back in the 1990s. They were sort of like whoever’s replaced Justin Bieber and One Direction on your lunch boxes.)

“I hope so,” I tell Riley.

Dad arrives home at 6:59, on the dot. We all assemble in the living room.

“Girls?” he says. “I have some terrific news.”

“We’re going to Disney World?” Riley blurts out, sounding like a Super Bowl commercial.

“Not this summer, dear,” says Mom. “Your father has a new job!”

“You’re not going to head up the lifeguards?” I say.

“No, ma’am,” says Dad, taking Mom’s hand. “In fact, I am taking the first steps on the road to my dream job.”

“You’re going to be a cop?” gushes sweet Hannah. “Oh, Dad, that is so wonderful! All your hard work, all your studying, all your nights away from home…”

It’s true. Dad worked really hard studying to take his police officer exam. So hard, we hardly ever saw him last fall. Some of us even got a little suspicious about where he was going all the time. (That would’ve been me.)

“Congratulations, Father,” says Victoria.

“Woo-hoo!” I say, giving Dad a hearty arm pump.

Emma just races across the room and hugs his leg.

Dad laughs. “Thank you, ladies. I couldn’t have done it without your support.”

“And,” says Mom, “he won’t be able to continue doing it without your continued support.”

“That’s right, girls,” says Dad. “I know school’s nearly over. That you all had big plans for the summer.”

Uh-oh.

Dad just said “had.” As in, past tense.

That means we probably shouldn’t have them anymore.