At home I line Jason’s blank cards on my desk, ready to draw. But choosing words is harder than I thought.

Seven white squares, full of possibility. I look around my bedroom for ideas: from the checkered rug on my floor to the calendar of Georgia O’Keeffe flower paintings Dad bought me at the art museum he took me to last summer. That’s my dream — to be an artist and have people gasp when they see my paintings, like I do on the first day of each new month. I have a tiny clothespin at the bottom of the calendar pages, so I don’t cheat and peek ahead — I want each month’s flower to be a surprise.

On my door is a long mirror surrounded with colored sticky-note reminders: my library books are due (Bring fine money!), August 8th is Melissa’s birthday (Remember it takes seven to nine business days for mail to get to California! Plan ahead!), and even a few reminders left over from school (Find lunch card!) (Project due Tuesday!). I kept those up because it’s nice to see them and know they don’t matter anymore.

On my desk is the little bamboo plant in the blue-swirly dish Melissa gave me for my last birthday, and my computer with the longest, hardest-to-spell password I could think of: “anthropological.” That’s so David won’t figure it out. Across one bookshelf is a row of art supplies in cans: pencils, markers, and paint-brushes. On the next shelf are paint bottles and stacks of paper, everything from thick watercolor paper to filmy sheets of jewel-colored tissue paper. And lots of things I’ve collected: shells, rocks, a tiny glass elephant, a blackened old skeleton key my grandmother found in a chest but which unlocks nothing. I kept it because I like how it feels in my hand, the heart shape of the top and the jagged teeth at the bottom, and because —

Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.

Between my desk and my bed is a long window with gauzy purple curtains that let daylight through, even when the curtains are closed, and on the windowsill is a row of tiny colored bottles I bought one day at Elliot’s Antiques: sunlit purple, green, and gold.

On the other side of my desk hangs my bulletin board, covered with drawings and little paintings: a pencil-gray castle I started but never finished, a monkey painted on an emerald tissue-paper rain forest, a colored-pencil cartoon from three years ago of my guinea pigs dancing — I still like it, even if it’s old and I can do better now.

Well, there’s something. I pick up my pencil and write on the first cards:

Drawing.

Guinea pig.

Under my window, Nutmeg and Cinnamon purr happily, shuffling through the shavings in their cage. Nutmeg lifts her head, and I look away quick.

Anytime they catch me watching them, my guinea pigs think I should feed them.

Picking up the next card, I decide I shouldn’t do just “me” words. That day with the guitar, Jason could’ve used something fiery to say. Something juicier than “sad” or “mad.” A string of words pop to mind, but I don’t want to get in trouble with his mother. So I choose:

Gross!

Awesome!

Stinks a big one!!!

I’m not going to show these to Mom — especially the last one. I don’t remember seeing exclamation points on any of Jason’s other cards, but “awesome” with a period doesn’t seem right. And if “gross” has one exclamation point, “stinks a big one” needs at least three.

My pen hovers over the sixth card. I could do another favorite: “raspberry sherbet” or “ice-skating” or “goldfish.” I look past my messy closet —

Open closet doors carefully. Sometimes things fall out.

— to the CDs, cassettes, and books lining the shelves near my bed. But Jason already has “book” and “music,” and who knows if he even likes raspberry sherbet.

I could pick words about the clinic: “hallway” or “bookshelf” or “magazine.” Or I could do funny words like “hoity-toity” or angry ones like “Oh, YEAH?” or hurt words like “I didn’t mean to.”

There’s a gazillion words and phrases I could choose, and none of them seem worth one of my two last cards.

So I push the blank cards aside and draw pictures for the others. Drawing a guinea pig is easy. I sketch an oval, fat and compact, add black eyes, tiny rounded ears, tucked-under feet, and a mess of every-which-way hair. A furry baked potato.

The other words are harder. What does “awesome” look like? A smiley face? A sunrise? A double hot-fudge sundae?

My door creaks open a couple inches. A brown eye peeks through the crack.

David never remembers to knock. It irritates me so much I taped this rule right above my doorknob.

This is Catherine’s room. David must knock!

“No toys in the fish tank,” he says.

I pull forward one of my two blank cards and write in big block letters an unbendable, sharp-cornered David-word:

RULE.

By the time I get to the living room, David’s already crouched in front of the fish tank, his smiling face reflected in the glass. Out the window behind the aquarium, I see Mom in the yard talking to the mailman.

And in the fish tank, one of my old Barbie dolls sits on the gravel, her arm raised in a friendly wave, as though she’s spotted Ken across the living room and is inviting him to join her.

And don’t forget the scuba equipment, darling!

Barbie’s pink-lipstick smile beams through the water, her long hair floating around her like a tangle of white-blond kelp. The goldfish nibble at it, and Barbie, Queen of the Fishes, waves cheerfully.

The goldfish are used to David dropping strange beings into their tank. They always swim over to check out the newest arrival and try to eat it. When that doesn’t work, they accept it, along with their usual plastic plants and little castle.

“Remember the rule.” I flip open the top of the aquarium. “No toys in the fish tank.”

David nods, but I’m not fooled. He may not buy into the fish tank rule, but he’s got this one down pat:

If you want someone to leave you alone, agree with her.

“You can only put things in here that belong,” I explain. “Like stuff you buy at a pet store. That’s all that goes in the fish tank.”

David leans in for a closer view as I pull Barbie up through the water. “‘“Will power is trying hard not to do something that you really want to do,” said Frog.’” He glances to me, hopeful.

Mom says David’ll never learn to talk right if we keep letting him borrow words, but his face is so full of please? I say, “‘“You mean like trying not to eat all of these cookies?” asked Toad.’”

Water from Barbie’s hair trickles down my arm as I hold her over the fish tank, waiting for the dripping to stop.

Through the window, I notice Mom’s gone and the girl next door is in her yard with Ryan Deschaine. He points at my house, and the girl spins around.

She waves.

I drop Barbie to wave back.

“No toys in the fish tank!” David cries. “It’s wet!”

“It’s okay,” I say out of the corner of my smile. “It was an accident. I’ll get her back out.”

Ryan keeps talking, his hands moving like he’s explaining something. I hope he isn’t saying things about me — especially not how I yelled at him when he called David a retard on the bus.

But her wave didn’t seem like a making-fun wave, it seemed more of a “hi.”

“Wet!”

Glancing to David, I see his pants wadded at his feet. I jump in front of the window to pull the curtains closed. “David, go find Mom. Now!”

I have a pants rule, too.

Pantless brothers are not my problem.