I’m still flat on my back when Dad comes crashing out of the den, briefcase on his shoulder and red suitcase in hand. Canned vegetables scatter in his wake. The suitcase wheels keep getting caught on the cans, but Dad just yanks on the handle, sending the bag airborne. My father, the spacey, mild-mannered professor, is in the middle of a full-fledged, royal tantrum. I blink up at him.

“Oh, hello there, Annabelle,” Dad says, and his suitcase lands a few inches away from the spot where I fell. “I didn’t realize you were home. How was the party?”

I stay on my butt and blink up at him. Our entryway looks like the canned-goods aisle of a grocery store after a major earthquake. And he wants want to know how the party was?

“Dad, what’s going on?”

He glances toward our blocked-off parlor window. “Oh, nothing much. I’m just off for the UK tour.” Dad takes a group of community college students around England, Scotland, and Wales every summer. Their first stop is always 221B Baker Street. The Sherlock Holmes Museum in London. You’d think they would head for Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace first. But not if my dad is your tour guide.

“I thought that wasn’t until next week.”

“Yes, well … ” He shifts slightly from foot to foot. I might not have noticed his fidgeting except, for some reason, I haven’t picked myself up from the floor yet. I sit there and watch him squirm. “I thought I would head over a little early this year. It’ll give me some time to do a little research for a paper I’m writing.”

“Since when?”

“It was a snap decision,” he says. Then he sighs and squats down next to me. “You might as well know. Your mother and I had a little tiff last night.”

I snort. I can’t help it. Anything that would end in canned vegetables scattered everywhere has to be a lot more serious than “a little tiff.” My mom might be a neurotic collector, but she is also neurotically systematic. Everything in our house has its place, its proper pile, its own room assignment. And the canned vegetables are always stacked like store displays in Dad’s den.

“—we had a little tiff,” Dad repeats firmly, as though I hadn’t snorted at him. “And I decided it would be for the best if I left on my trip sooner than planned. Your mother knows what I expect of her while I’m gone. Try to help her out, Annabelle. She hasn’t learned to let things go like you have.”

“Does Chad know you’re leaving?” I ask, feeling betrayed that he didn’t say anything while we were in his truck.

Dad shakes his head. “Your mother and Leslie know, but I haven’t spoken with Chad yet. Where is he?”

“Putting the truck in the garage. He said he was gonna check the oil or something.”

A horn honks from outside. I look through the dusty windows that surround our front door. I can just make out a blurry green car in the drive.

“Ride’s here,” Dad says. “I’ll stop by the garage and speak to Chad on my way out.” He pulls himself up from his squat. He grunts a little, and I hear his knees pop. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.” He doesn’t offer me a hand up.

“Wait, when?” I ask. “When are you coming home?”

Dad doesn’t answer. He’s already out the front door.

I stand, dust off my shorts, and take my stuff upstairs, wondering if this really is the end of Mom and Dad’s marriage.

I wish we could go back to the way we were before.

I go right past Leslie’s bedroom. Her door is closed, which is unusual. She doesn’t like being shut up in the Toy Catacombs. I think about checking on her. But I can’t. Not now. I have something I have to do first. Have to, have to, have to. During the school year, I do it every day as soon as I get home. In the summers, I only do it if I’ve gone somewhere. If Dad ever remembers his promise to take me on his UK tour, I’ll need to bribe Leslie or Chad into helping me. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course Leslie would help me. Bribe or no bribe.

Once I close the door to my room (unlike Leslie, I keep my door closed as often as possible), I start by unpacking from the sleepover, careful to put everything in its proper place. Then I walk the perimeter of my room in a clockwise direction, starting at the door. I walk with my feet as close to the wall as possible. When I reach a piece of furniture, I walk around it, still remaining as close to the wall as I can. The furniture always slows me down, because that’s where I have to check the most closely.

I reach the desk first. I open each drawer, examining it for anything new, anything I haven’t personally put in there. Then I have to look under the desk, under the chair cushion, and, most important, behind the desk. When I first started the ritual, I didn’t think to check behind the desk, and by the time it finally occurred to me, there were already fifteen or twenty Real Simple magazines wedged back there.

I reach the bed next and go through the same thing, remembering to lift the mattress. That’s another place I’ve found old papers piling up. Then I check the nightstand, the dresser, and the closet.

I know it makes me sound a little crazy, and I haven’t exactly told anyone about my system. But what’s one more secret in a house piled up with them? And the ritual is necessary. It keeps my room clean.

See, when I was younger and stupider, I wasn’t quite as careful as I am now and a few weeks after my tenth birthday, I noticed things were starting to pile up in my room again. It wasn’t obvious at first. I would bring clean laundry up to my room, and there would be color-coordinated clothes that didn’t belong to me tucked in the pile. A couple of pieces of junk mail would, somehow, navigate their way onto my desk.

My room slid from pristine to comfortably messy and, before I caught on, it was getting cluttered again. That’s when I realized that rather than a head-on confrontation, Mom was using stealth. My room—all that lovely empty space—had to be filled. She’s like a goldfish growing to the size of its bowl.

So I purged my room again. This second time, I carried it out in trash bags rather than sending it out the window. After that, I started checking my room on a daily basis.

On this particular sweep, I don’t find anything, which makes me even more nervous about whatever went down last night. If Mom didn’t take advantage of the fact that I was gone for over twelve hours to at least tuck a candy wrapper under my desk, then things must have been bad. Really bad.

Just as I am finishing the ritual, Leslie’s voice interrupts me.

“Oh good, you’re home,” she says, appearing in my doorway. She looks awful, like she got even less sleep last night than I did. “Annabelle, I think I made a huge mistake.”

“Leslie, it’s not your fault that Dad left early for his trip.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she says. “It’s worse than that. Much worse.”