He continued to dance them around the board. I had no choice.
“Okay, Thomas. That’s it. If you don’t stop, I’m going to make the hand come out of the closet and kill you.”
Thomas isn’t as worried about the hand as he used to be. He put his mouth on his arm and started making bathroom noises. He seemed to think this was really hilarious. He was still laughing when I dragged him into the hall and locked him out of the room.
Martin was very impressed. He said as soon as we get a little more violent, we’ll be practically normal.
I don’t want to make everything sound okay, because it’s not. This isn’t one of those “they lived happily ever after” endings. I don’t believe in those anymore.
Lydia still hogs the phone like crazy. She sits there for hours saying absolutely nothing of interest. I’m serious. I’ve had better conversations with a Mattel SEE ’N SAY.
Also, she still locks herself in the bathroom. These days I’m not as nice about it as I used to be. If I want to get in there, I just pound on the door and start screaming, “I gotta go! I gotta go!” When it comes to going to the bathroom, I have no pride.
The two of us don’t fight exactly. Mostly we just make fun of each other. Like the other night when I took off my tennis shoes, she held her nose.
“P.U.! What died?”
“Whoops, sorry,” I apologized. “I almost forgot. Big noses are more sensitive than normal ones.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my nose,” she snapped defensively.
“I didn’t say there was, Lydia. Noses like yours come in very handy. If we ever have a fire, you can spray it out.”
“Daaa-aad!” she screamed.
When Lydia tattles, she makes dad into two syllables.
Speaking of dads, mine took me to the zoo for the hundredth time last weekend. We don’t look at the animals anymore. Mostly we just have a picnic lunch and talk and stuff.
My father told me that he’d noticed a difference in me lately.
“You don’t seem to be as angry as you used to be,” he commented. “What d’you think? You think that maybe you’re finally starting to adjust to your new situation?”
“No!” I retorted quickly. “I’m not adjusting. Just because I’m not sulking all the time doesn’t mean I’m adjusting.”
I hate it when parents think you’re adjusting. It takes the guilt off of them or something.
I’ll tell you one person who’s finally started to change, though, and that’s my mother. I’m serious. She’s finally beginning to treat Thomas the way she should have treated him all along. The other day he called her a “giant poopy” and she marched him right up to our room and made him stay there all day.
Thomas still wasn’t speaking to her at dinner. Even though we were having hamburgers, he refused to eat.
I could hardly keep from laughing. It was great seeing someone else in trouble for a change. Just to be annoying, I stuffed a giant bite of cheeseburger into my mouth and grinned at Thomas with my mouth opened. Ben said for me to get down from the table until I could eat like a human being.
Speaking of Thomas, he turned six last week. I gave him my globe. No big deal. I just slapped on a bow and handed it to him during the ice cream and cake.
His eyes lit up like you wouldn’t believe. “Mine? Is this for me? I get to have your world?”
I just shrugged. It’s not like it cost me anything. And besides, I already know what the world looks like. It’s round and it’s bumpy and it spins.
But mostly it changes. Volcanoes blow up and the seasons go from winter to summer and every day turns into night. And people get divorced and then they get married again and the next thing you know, you’re sharing your bedroom. And sometimes you’re angry and sometimes you’re sad, and sometimes you’re so confused, you don’t know what you are.
And they say that time fixes everything, but it doesn’t. Not everything. Time can’t change what’s already happened. It can only help you accept it a little easier, that’s all.
And even if some of the anger starts to go away after a while, you don’t have to run around telling your parents how much better you’re feeling.
And you don’t have to eat fiber cereal either.
Oh, yeah, and you don’t have to keep your memories in a box in the attic. You can bring them down and put them on your dresser if you want to.
You can.
Ben helped.
Don’t Make Me Smile
by Barbara Park
The way Charlie Hickle sees it, there’s no reason to smile. His parents are getting a divorce, and there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do about it. Not that Charlie doesn’t try. He does everything he can think of to convince his parents that he’ll go nuts if they get a divorce. He threatens to spend the rest of his life in a tree. He refuses to eat his mother’s cooking. He causes trouble in school and makes rude comments about his father’s new apartment. With a little help from a new friend, though, Charlie finally starts to accept the inevitable changes in his life—but not until he makes a hilarious last-ditch effort to get his parents back together.
“Funny and touching—a good read.”
—Children’s Book Review Service
“The author does make you smile, proving that there is still room for one more middle-grade problem novel on divorce.”
—Booklist
BARBARA PARK is one of today’s funniest, most popular authors. Her middle-grade novels have won more than forty children’s book awards. She is also the creator of the hilarious Junie B. Jones series. Barbara holds a BS in education from the University of Alabama. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband, Richard, in Arizona.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
(one)
(two)
(three)
(four)
(five)
(six)
(seven)
(eight)
(nine)
(ten)
(eleven)
(twelve)
About the Author
Barbara Park, My Mother Got Married
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