Why is it that everyone expects something epic to happen at the end of the school year?”

David shrugged. “Because we’re dumb, man. Hollywood creates these false realities and stupid teenagers aspire to them.”

“‘Man’? Are you going for a new stoner vibe now?” I shoved David as we walked up to my house.

“I can’t help it if my speech is always ten steps ahead in coolness of yours, Hiz,” he said with a condescending shake of his head. I opened my front door and was about to respond with something truly brilliant but was stopped in my tracks.

“Dad? What are you doing home?” He was standing in the middle of the living room with his driver in hand, practicing his golf swing.

“Oh, just came home early,” he replied between swings. “Hi, David.” David waved and said with Asian Child Politeness (ACP), “Hello, Mr. Kim.”

“Why?” I demanded.

My dad ignored me and said, “David, studying hard this year?” His eyes didn’t move from his grip.

“Yup, as usual!” David said in the cheerful voice he reserved for my parents.

“Good, good,” my dad replied. And continued practicing his swing.

I stared at him. Why wasn’t he answering my question? Also, I knew that when my dad practiced his golf swing like this, it only meant bad things. The last time was when our pet gerbil went “missing” and my dad avoided telling us Crackers had been dead for days. There was something he wasn’t telling me, I just knew it.

I waved David toward the backyard. (I wasn’t allowed to have David in my room, believe it or not. They’ve known him forever but a boy is a boy is a boy to my parents.) After dropping our backpacks in the dining room, we stepped outside and sprawled out on a couple of lawn chairs.

“Well, that’s weird,” I muttered.

“What, your dad?”

“Yeah. He’s never left work early or even taken a sick day in the twenty years he’s worked for the air base.” My dad was an engineer for the Miramar air base — you know, where Top Gun took place. I love that a Tom Cruise movie is San Diego’s claim to fame. That and a killer whale named Shamu.

“Maybe everyone went home early today,” David suggested with a shrug.

“Maybe. Anyway, I, for one, am not looking forward to the end of this year, believe it or not.”

“Why?!” David comically whipped off his sunglasses and widened his eyes. I reached my left leg over to kick his chair.

“Because. I have to go to SAT school this summer.”

David shuddered and made a face. “Seriously, that will ruin your entire summer vacation.”

“I know! Since my first day of high school, my mom’s life has revolved around me conquering the SAT. You would think my entire future existence hinged on this one stupid, completely biased test.”

David yawned and stretched out like a cat in the sun. “Yer preachin’ to the choir, my friend.” I stared out into the yard and felt like I was staring into the abyss that was my boring future. A pair of fingers snapped two centimeters away from my face, shaking me out of my self-pitying reverie. “Yo, Hiz-house, did you hear me?” I swatted his hand away.

“NO. Geez.”

“I was saying, maybe with this craptacious summer ahead of you, we should do something epic. You know, live up to the hype in the movies.”

“Like what?” I asked with (completely justified) skepticism.

“Liiiiike … skipping up to LA to see Hot Chip play at the Hollywood Bowl!” He was literally jumping up and down in his chair. Hm. Hot Chip was my favorite band of the moment. But LA?

“Even if I wanted to, no way in hell would my parents let me go to LA to see a show.”

David rolled his eyes. “So lie to them.”

“UM, easier said than done! Do you not know Mrs. Kim? She who can detect a lie within a ten-mile radius?”

“Pfft. I think we should do it. And not just go up to see the show, but stay there for the night. The show’s on a Saturday so we can drive up early, and hang until Sunday! We can stay at my cousin Lawrence’s apartment near UCLA. I’ve been wanting to plan something like this forever!”

Needless to say, the prospect of hanging out with chemical-engineering-major cousin Lawrence did NOT excite me. “Okay, D, what?! Why do we have to stay there? Hello, going up to LA with you guys is already pushing the Mrs.-Kim-death-wish-o-meter! A weekend trip? I might as well —”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” David rudely interrupted. “You make excuses for everything. How long is your mom going to rule your life?”

“FOREVER! Do you not know me and my Korean girl curse? The curse is forever.”

“Break that curse.”

I almost started laughing until I saw that David was dead serious. “Holly, let’s just have fun already. We can all hang out there for the weekend, away from this armpit of a town.”

Geez. It’s not like we lived in the middle of Kansas. And um, LA is like two hours away. You’d think we were traveling to Paris for a spontaneous getaway, the way David was getting excited. He was already pulling out his phone and texting someone. “You’re so boring. I’m telling Carrie to come over, she will totally be down for this!”

“Boring” stung. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called that. Sometimes it was hard being best friends with an Extreme Sportsman (David), a Hippie Outdoorswoman (Carrie), and a Professional Everything (Liz). I was the token Stick in the Mud. “I’m not boring! I mean, how am I supposed to pull this off? This isn’t like, some rebellious episode of iCarly. I’ll get caught quicker than you can say ‘Omo.’”

“I’ll figure it out. Leave it to me, Hizzle.”

I snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

David just shook his head. “Oh ye of little faith. Who do you think I am?”

“Count me out,” I said stubbornly, crossing my arms.

* * *

“So is David staying for dinner?”

I was reaching over my mom’s shoulder to grab a cucumber slice she’d just chopped. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Aren’t you getting a little old to be playing with David all the time?”

I almost choked.

“Play! What are you talking about? David’s been my friend for four years. Do you have a problem with him all of a sudden?” My voice was lowered because David was in the dining room helping Ann with some math homework. My mom wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and kept chopping the vegetables for the salad she was preparing.

“I don’t have a problem. But you are getting older now, and David’s a boy. What will other people think when you are with a boy all the time? Just alone, you two?” What was my mom saying?

“What is wrong with you? Why are you being so Korean and stupid?!”

Even before the words came out of my mouth I knew I had reached the point of no return.

My mother shoved the chopping block of vegetables into the sink with a huge clatter, and whipped around so that her face was inches away from mine. “You are a bad daughter!” she said in a dangerously low voice. I flinched. “I’m your mother and you need to treat me with respect! I’m not some trash on the street! So, say that again! SAY IT AGAIN!”

Tears pricked my eyes. “No!” I yelled back.

She stared at me with murderous rage for another few seconds before she turned on her heel and left the kitchen hollering, “Ungrateful brat!”

I was standing in the kitchen crying, pressing my shirtsleeve into my eyes when David walked in awkwardly. “Hey, are you okay? What happened?”

I wiped my face quickly, embarrassed. “Nothing. I mean, nothing new. I just don’t get her sometimes! I think … I think I hate her.”

“Aw, c’mon. You guys will make up,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Ann walked in with wide eyes. “What HAPPENED? Mom is soooo mad!”

“None of your business!” I snapped. “Get out of my face!” Ann’s eyes welled up with tears and she ran out of the kitchen, pushing past my dad.

“Holly! Why are you yelling at everyone? What’s wrong with you?”

I wanted to die. I hated that David was witnessing this. He seemed to read my mind because he threw me a sympathetic look and backed out, saying, “I should probably go. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, Mr. Kim.”

My dad shook his head sadly. “Holly, you shouldn’t fight with your mother so much.”

“I didn’t do anything! She’s the one trying to control my life all the time!” I said between heaving sobs.

“Your mom is only trying to raise you right. You have to understand that it’s all for your benefit.”

“She needs to learn to mind her own business. I’m not some robot child who will let her control my life!”

“You’ll have to learn to get along.” My dad sighed. “Because now there’s a chance I’ll be laid off from my job, and we’ll have to really support each other.”

I felt like someone punched me in the stomach. “Laid off?” It was one of those grown-up phrases that terrified me. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I work for the government. They don’t have enough money to keep the air base open.”

“What?! B-but, we’re America! We love wars!” I cried.

My dad shook his head. “Holly, stop being funny.”

“So, does this mean that our family’s going to go broke?” Whenever you heard of parents getting laid off, families were always moving to different homes. Or different cities, even.

“Nah. Your mom still has a good job. I’ll find something.” Although my dad was acting like everything was going to be fine, I felt a huge sense of dread … on top of the stress I already felt from my fight with Mom.

Worst day ever.