Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit (2 page)

“But Mom. . . .”

“No ‘But Mom’s,’ ” she says. “CLEAN YOUR ROOM . . . . NOW.”

She starts talking on the phone. “Brandi, she can call you back as soon as her room is clean . . . . . Yes, I’ll remind her to bring her
new game cartridge when she goes to your house tonight . . . if she gets her room organized by then, you will see her and the game. Otherwise, I’m not sure you’ll see either.”

I stomp into my room.

This isn’t fair.

My room is a little messy, but I, Amber Brown, don’t think she’s really angry about my messy room.

I think that my mom is really angry because I don’t want to meet her dumb boyfriend.

That’s one of the big reasons why she’s in such a bad mood.

Just because she wanted to use one of her Certificates to have me finally meet Max and go out to dinner with them . . . and just because I said, “No, I’m not ready yet, and you promised I don’t have to until I’m ready. You promised that a long time ago . . . . so the Certificate can’t make me go.”

If I meet Max, I’ll have to actually know that he’s a real person . . . . a real person who is going out with my mom . . . . and if my mom is going out with him . . . . . that really means that there’s less chance that she and my dad will get back together.

And what if I meet Max and actually like him? That wouldn’t be fair to my dad, who’s in Paris, France, which is so far away.

So, I’m not ready to meet Max, and I may never be ready.

I stomp some more and then I start throwing things into garbage bags . . . . . . my dirty clothes, my clean clothes, the book report I’ve been working on for the last week.

And then I put the garbage bags in my closet.

Next, I put in all of the important things from the top shelf of my bookcase . . . the Dad Book that I keep so that I can look at pictures of my dad and talk to him sometimes . . . . the ball that Justin and I made from our used chewing gum . . . . the scrapbook that my aunt Pam and I made up of our trip to London. (It even has a chickenpox scab in it to remind me of how I got sick there.)

I open the top drawer of my dresser and shove everything on top into it.

I get into bed, and from under the covers, I start to make my bed, pulling up the sheets and then the blanket and then the bedspread . . . . then I get out and kind of smooth everything down . . . . the Amber Brown Way to Make a Bed.

Then I throw my stuffed animals on my bed.

I guess there’s not only a madwoman in the house but a mad kid.

There’s no madman in the house, though, because he, my father, and my mother got so mad that they got divorced, and now he’s in France because of his dumb job.

I, Amber Brown, wish things would go back to the way they were before . . . . before my dad left . . . . . before Justin, my first best friend, moved away . . . . . before my mother changed her last name back to the name she had before she got married so that we don’t even have the same last name anymore . . . . before Max, the dumbhead boyfriend, met my mother . . . . before it was so important to get me to keep my room neat.

I wish.

I’m escaping.

I’m out of the house.

My room passed inspection.

I’m really lucky that my mother didn’t look in the closet or dresser drawers, or I would still be in my room instead of getting a ride to Brandi’s sleepover.

My mother and I are in the car, not saying much of anything.

What she did say is that she is “really not happy with the way I’ve been acting.”

Well, I’m really not happy with the way she’s been acting.

I keep staring straight ahead.

Then I look over at my mother.

There are tears rolling down her face.

She hardly ever cries.

I’ve only seen her cry big time four times . . . . . . Once was when she got a call that my grandfather, her father, had died . . . . . and once was right after my father left. Even though she’d said she wanted him to leave, she still cried. And once I saw her cry when I was about five and I ran out into traffic and almost got hit by a car, but it stopped in time. She yelled at me and then picked me up, hugged me, and told me never to do that again. Then she told me how much she loved me and then she cried.

And now she’s crying.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I touch her arm.

She pulls the car over by the sidewalk and looks at me. “Amber, it’s so hard. I want to be a good mother.”

“You are.” I tell her that to make her stop crying and because even though I get mad at her, I know it’s true.

She wipes her eyes. “And I want to be good to myself, too.”

I sit quietly.

“You are making it very hard for me,” she says.

I continue to say nothing.

“It’s not all your fault,” she says. “I’ve read all the books. Sometimes I’m even afraid that I’m beginning to sound like one of them . . . . . I understand that sometimes, many times, it’s very hard for a child to accept the fact that parents divorce and then start dating other people. I understand . . . . . but I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it either,” I tell her. “This isn’t a book. This is my life. I can’t help it if I want you and Daddy to stay together and for both of you to not go out with other people.”

She sighs. “Your father is in France, doing whatever he wants to do, without your knowing, without your making it difficult for him.”

I think about what she said.

Even though I don’t want to admit it, she’s right.

I say, “If I knew that he had a girlfriend, I’d tell him that I wouldn’t want to meet her any more than I want to meet Max.”

“But you don’t even know, do you?” my mother says softly. “But you do know what I do because you live with me . . . . and, Amber, you know that I want you to live with me . . . . I’m not complaining or upset about that . . . I just want you to listen, to try to understand and to try to make things easier for me.”

There are more tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’ll listen. I’ll try.” I hate to see her cry.

She continues. “We live with each other full-time. In some divorce families, children spend some time with each parent, and that allows the parents some time to themselves.
We’re not, at present, a family that can do that. So you know a lot about what I do and who I spend my time with.”

“So . . . . . . . .” I ask, “what do you want me to do?”

She takes a deep breath. “I want you to understand that I need to get on with my own life, to meet new people and include these new people in my life . . . . in our lives.”

“New people . . . . . . . . you mean Max.” I look at her.

She nods. “Especially Max. You know, Amber, it’s not as if I’m asking you to meet an ax murderer. Max Turner is one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He’s a good man, funny and gentle and kind.”

“Are you going to marry him? Are you going to expect me to call him Dad?” Now I feel like crying.

She shrugs. “I don’t know if I’m going to marry him, but I do know that I like him a
lot . . . and, no, I don’t expect you to call him Dad. You already have a father. You can call him Max.”

“Max,” I say softly, thinking about how I once knew a Max, but he was a dog.

I wonder if I said, “Roll over and play dead” to Max the person, if he would do it.

I smile, thinking about making Max the person roll over and play dead.

My mother smiles back. “See, it’s not so bad thinking about meeting him. You just smiled.”

“I was thinking about the Hawkinses’ dog, Max,” I say in a mean voice, “and how they used to have him roll over and play dead.”

My mother stops smiling and starts to cry again, just a little.

I really do hate it when she cries.

“Oh, okay,” I sigh, and give in.

“Then you’ll meet him? Promise?” She sounds happier.

“I promise to meet him. I don’t promise to like him,” I say, and think . . . . .
Okay, Max . . . . . roll over. Play dead
.

“It’s a beginning.” She smiles.

“I’m going to kill my brother.” Tiffani Shroeder pretends to wring an invisible neck.

“There are laws against that.” Brandi laughs.

“What did he do this time?” I ask, dipping my potato chip into the onion dip.