SEPTEMBER 4, 9:45 P.M.

I’m not even tired. Mom wanders in as I’m watching a rerun of Top Cop.

“How does Top Cop manage to catch all those criminals by himself?” my mother asks as she sits next to me. I put my head on her shoulder. I have to lean over because I am taller than her. I can remember when my mother used to be able to carry me.

“Top Cop’s the best,” I explain. “But he’s the first to say that he can’t do it alone.”

Mom turns to me. “Stanny, shouldn’t you be getting ready for bed?” She hasn’t called me Stanny since I was little. “Seventh grade starts tomorrow, and you have a big day ahead of you.”

“When’s Dad coming home?”

“I don’t know. They are announcing the promotion tonight at some fancy dinner.” I nod. “But you, sir,” she says, giving me a peck on the cheek. “Off to bed, you!”

Before heading to my room, I stop by the refrigerator and stare at the F on my Holes paper. Then I take it down, crumple it up, and score a nice clean shot into the trash can. In the empty spot on the fridge I put up my new Holes book report, the one with the B-plus on it.

Instead of going to sleep, I watch the black spider busy in her web. Is it too late to call Emily? I take a chance.

“Emily Ebers, please,” I tell her mother.

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Stanford Wong.”

“Just a moment.” I hear Mrs. Ebers call out, “Emily, phone! It’s a boy. Stanford Wong?”

“Mommmm.” It sounds like Emily’s covering up the mouthpiece. “May I please have some privacy?!!!”

“Okay, but only talk for ten minutes; then you have to get to bed.”

“Hi, Stanford!” Emily squeals.

It’s so good to talk to her. The minutes fly by. Before we have to hang up, I remember there was something I wanted to ask her. “Hey, Emmie, why do you put money in parking meters?”

“You know about that?”

“I saw you.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“It’s okay, never mind.”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll tell you. My dad used to get lots of parking tickets. So every now and then I put money in parking meters to help people out. I know it sounds so weird. Please don’t tell anyone.”

It doesn’t sound weird. It sounds Emily. The next time I see her I will give her a bag of quarters.

“I won’t tell,” I promise.

“Emily, it’s been way past ten minutes!” I hear her mother say.

“Good night, Stanford.”

“Good night, Emily. See you tomorrow.”

I wait up until I hear the garage door open and close. I can hear my parents talking. No one is yelling, but voices are raised and lowered.

There is a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” I say, expecting my mom.

It is my dad. “Stanford,” he says, standing in the doorway so I can only see his silhouette. “Your mom and I have a few things to say to you. Would you mind coming into the living room?”

I jump out of bed. Mom’s waiting for us. Her eyes are all red and she is clutching a tissue. My heart stops. This is it. It’s divorce after all. I brace myself for the bad news.

“I got the promotion,” my father informs me. Hey, this is not so bad. “More money, more prestige —”

“More work,” I joke. I am sooooo relieved.

He nods and is silent for a moment. “It also includes a paid relocation to New York.”

All of a sudden I can’t breathe. New York? We can’t move to New York. I just made the A-Team. Mom loves her job. New York? What about Emily? What about Yin-Yin?

“Stanford,” my father says. He looks sad. “I turned down the promotion.”

What?

“It’s career suicide, of course. But your mother and I have been having a lot of talks lately. I had no idea how far away I was getting from the two of you. But when you ran away I realized it didn’t matter how well I was doing at work when I was doing a lousy job at home. I also had a nice long talk with Mr. Glick.”

Mr. Glick?

“I assured him that I was always telling you to do better in school. And do you know what he told me?” I shake my head. “Mr. Glick said that sometimes the best way to communicate is to listen. Stanford, I’m going to try my best to do less talking and more listening.”

I’m speechless.

“Since I won’t be working every weekend, maybe we can spend more time together and get to know each other, talk more. And since I turned down the promotion, I’ll probably be on the fast track to nowhere, so I’ll have a lot of free time and —”

“Rick,” my mother stops him.

I’m still trying to sort everything out. “Okay, so then what you are saying is that you turned down the promotion and you’re not getting a divorce, right?”

Dad looks at Mom and says, “A divorce is the last thing I’d want.”

My mother bursts out crying.

Dad looks helpless. I go up to him and whisper in his ear.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Trust me,” I tell him.

I turn on the stereo. As I walk to my room, I hear my father ask, “Kristen, may I have this dance?”

11:59 P.M.

I am alone. I can hear my parents in the living room laughing, a sound that I am not used to. I lie in bed and stick my legs in the air so I can admire my BK620s. My brain is on total overload.

I reach for the radio. Lavender is on. I catch her just as she coos, “This one is for Mrs. Wong at Vacation Village from a Mr. Thistlewaite. He wants me to tell her, ‘Madame, you have won my heart.’”

Then Lavender plays a song called “Fly Me to the Moon.”

I sit up, not believing what I have just heard. I hope my grandmother is listening to Lavender.

As Lavender talks into the night, I slide the blue box out from beneath my bed. I have finally figured out what to do. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, I begin to unravel my Stress Mess. There’s the red section from when I first got my F, there’s the green when Millicent started tutoring me, and there’s the yellow when Digger found out …

By the time I am done there is a huge mountain of yarn in the middle of my room. It looks like a disaster, but I can untangle it. Instead of throwing the yarn away, I plan to reuse it. Only this time I’ll make something other than a Stress Mess. I’ll ask Yin-Yin to show me how to make something I will be proud of.

As I wind the yarn into a ball, I think about my summer and how Dad was so busy working, he probably doesn’t know half the stuff that went on. But I’ll fill him in. We have a lot to talk about, my father and me.

I will tell him that he was right about Digger, that Digger’s not a true friend. I will tell him that Stretch found his voice. I will tell him that Yin-Yin found a boyfriend and that I have a girlfriend and her name is Emily. I will tell him that Millicent Min is not a total geek and that Mr. Glick says I am a smart kid. And then I will tell my father that I love him.

“Dad,” I will say. “I know you’re bummed out about your job, but you’ve got me on your team, and Mom and Sarah and Yin-Yin too. Coach says that teammates never let each other down. I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

I have so much to tell my dad.