Chapter 17

Unccy was sitting on the bureau, watching me brush my hair. “Unccy says, being friends with your friends is always better than being enemies with your friends.”

“It’s not so bad to fight if, underneath, you love each other.”

“True, my little sweetheart. But fights are fights and making up is making uppp … ooof!” Unccy flopped over.

I picked him up. “I’m not mad at Mia anymore.”

“That’s my little sweetheart.” Unccy patted my face.

I nodded. I knew just what I was going to say when I saw Mia in school. Sorry, Mia, sorry I was such a beast.

You sure were, Ami! A dog!

A snake.

A rat!

Why are we insulting all these animals?

Then we’d laugh and squeeze hands and everything would be just the way it always was. But when I saw her just before homeroom, she walked past me and didn’t say anything. So I didn’t say anything, either. That was Thursday. Friday was even worse. I saw Mia in the cafeteria, sitting with Bunny Larrabee. They were talking and laughing. Bunny waved, but Mia didn’t even look my way.

That night, Dad was making supper. He always cooks spaghetti on Friday nights; he did it even when Mom was home. “Who’s washing the dishes?” he said, while he stirred the sauce. “Ami?” Nobody had done them for a couple of days. The sink was loaded and there were dishes all over the cupboard.

“Why me, Dad?”

“Best reason in the world. You’re here.”

“We need a dishwasher.”

“Can’t afford it.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Ami, take my word for it, child power is cheaper.”

“I have to be in a really good mood to wash dishes.”

“That’s a new, improved excuse. Get thee to the sink, Cinderella.”

I did about half of the dishes, and all the time I was thinking about Mia and me and feeling worse and worse. Finally I stopped. “Dad? I don’t really want to do this.”

“What’s the matter, Ami? You think it’s child abuse?”

I flung down the scrubber. “Do you think everything’s a joke?”

Dad looked at me. There was a little tomato sauce on his lips. He likes to taste as he cooks. “I didn’t realize we were being serious.”

“Now you do! Why can’t I leave the rest of the dishes for Fred? I never see him do dishes. Why is it always my job?” I didn’t know I was going to say all that. I really surprised myself.

Dad sighed. “Gimme a break, will you, Ami? It’s Friday, end of a long week. Does it matter who does the dishes? We’re supposed to all be pulling together here.”

Suddenly I thought of something else. “Did you tell Mom she couldn’t take me with her?”

“Take you where? Is she going on a trip?”

“No, I mean when she left—” I was going to say home, then I remembered Mom saying, That’s not my home anymore. “— when she went to live in New Castle. Did you say you wouldn’t let me go?”

“Oh, that. Yes.”

“Are you sorry now?”

“In general, no. At this very moment, yes!”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Ami. Another joke.” He hugged me.

After that, I took the phone into the dining room, closed the kitchen door, and called Mia.

“Hello?” she said.

“This is Ami.”

“Oh. Hello.”

“Hello. What are you doing?”

“Taking care of Sara.”

“She’s cute.”

“What are you doing?”

“Not much. Fighting with my father. And I just finished washing a truckload of dishes.”

“Well, Sara’s crying. I better go.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I put the phone down carefully and stood there staring at it. I tried to make up with Mia, and what did she do? Nothing. Got off the phone as quick as she could. Sara’s crying. What a lie. She just didn’t want to talk to me. I better go. Bye. Nothing else to say to me. Bye. Well, that was all right with me. Now I knew the truth, anyway. She didn’t care about me at all.

Fred came in from outside and dumped his books on the couch. He looked at me. “What are you doing, praying over that phone?”

“Fred, did you ever have a fight with Jan and then try to make up and she didn’t want to?”

“Yeah, I’ve made her really mad sometimes.”

“What’d you do?”

“To make her mad? I don’t know. Stuff. She says sometimes I don’t hear her talking, things like that.”

“You don’t listen to her? Why not?”

“Did I say that? I listen to her. Just, sometimes, maybe I’m thinking of something else. Then she starts steaming, and when Jan steams, you can about see the algebraic signs coming out of her ears. Is Dad working on supper?” He went into the kitchen.

The phone rang. Maybe it was Jan, calling Fred. I let it ring. Maybe it was Bill, saying he wanted to come over and play his guitar. Another ring. Or Robert. He’d decided he was madly in love with me. “Ami,” Dad called, “get the phone, will you?” I let it ring two more times, then I picked it up. “Pelter residence.”

“Ami? Hi. I’m not taking care of Sara anymore.”

“Excellent.”

“When you called before, I thought you wanted to make up.”

I started to say something sarcastic. What a brilliant deduction! How did you ever figure that out! I began to feel really bad. I couldn’t even speak.

“Ami? Ami, do you want to make up?”

“Do you want to?”

“I want to, Ami, if you want to. Do you want to?”

“Not if you’re going to hang up on me.”

“Ami, I couldn’t help it. Sara was bawling her head off.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes! Word of honor! I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“Your mother isn’t dead.”

“Well, if she was, I’d swear on her grave. You want me to kill her, so I can prove it to you?”

“Oh, ugh, that’s terrible.”

“I know, it’s awful! It’s sick.”

“And your mother is so nice.”

“No, she isn’t. She’s only nice to you. She’s bizarre! She nags me all the time. She never leaves me alone. I always have to take care of Sara. Which is her work.”

“I want to see you,” I said.

“Can I come over now?”

“Come for supper. You want to come for supper?”

Mia came over about twenty minutes later. We hugged each other and kissed. I said our fight was my fault and Mia said, “Who cares! I missed you.” Then we hugged again and danced around the room until Fred yelled for us to come into the kitchen for supper.

Dad makes great spaghetti; that and pancakes are his two best dishes. “This is fabulous, Mr. Pelter,” Mia said, and Dad tried to look modest.

After supper, Mia said she and I would wash the dishes. “Won’t we, Ami?” I should have said no and made Fred do them, but I was so happy we’d made up, I would have washed ten times as many dishes. We went a little crazy after Dad and Fred left. First, too much detergent. Then we knocked into each other and splashed water over everything.

“We’ll have to wash the floor,” I said.

“And hang ourselves out to dry!”

Every dumb little thing we said made us laugh.

“You know what?” Mia said. “We should do something special to celebrate.”

I dried a plate and tried to think what it could be. We’d had ice cream for dessert. “We could make taffy,” I said.

“Not food,” Mia said. “Something better.” She dipped a glass into the sudsy water. “I know. Let’s call Robert.” And she got a great big smile on her face.