Carole by Bonnie Bryant Page A

is that we give her extra-special care. It hasn’t been that long since she lost her father, and it’s sure to be tough on her to have her mother so far away for such a long time.”
    “I understand,” I said. “I’m being nice to Marie. And I’ve got a lot of special things planned for her, especially on her birthday.”
    “That’s good, honey,” Dad said. “But it’s important to remember to be nice and consider Marie’s feelings in little ways as well as big ones. For instance, I noticed you took the last of the rice at dinner without asking Marie if she wanted more.”
    I frowned. “I guess so, but she already had lots on her plate.”
    “Even so, you should have asked,” Dad said.
    I didn’t think that was really fair. But I promised Dad I’d be more careful, and that was that.
    Until today. There were five minutes left in my English class this morning when a student I didn’t recognize came into the room and handed a piece of paper to my teacher.
    Ms. Blackburn read the note. “Carole, could you come up here, please?”
    Surprised, I went up to the desk. “What is it?”
    “Your father is on the phone for you,” Ms. Blackburn said. “You’re excused to go to the principal’s office to take the call.”
    My heart started pounding and my head started spinning. Why would Dad be calling me at school? As I walked down the hall toward the principal’s office, I tried to tell myself that this wasn’t like the last time he’d called me to the office phone. It couldn’t possibly be anything like that at all.
    I tried to put the memory of that terrible day out of my mind. Still, I couldn’t help being nervous as I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I squeaked.
    “Carole? Is that you?” Dad sounded as cheerful as ever.
    “It’s me, Dad,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
    “Listen, honey,” he said. “I thought I’d better remind you about the juice. I know you were pretty sleepy this morning, and I was afraid you’d forget.”
    “The juice?” I repeated blankly. I didn’t have the foggiestidea what he was talking about. I
was
pretty sleepy this morning. Marie kept the radio on until almost midnight last night. It was just loud enough to keep me awake, but I didn’t want to ask her to turn it down. After all, she was a guest.
    “That’s what I was afraid of,” Dad said. “Remember, I told you and Marie that we only had one insulated cooler bag, so I put both your juice boxes in with your lunch. You’ll need to give Marie her juice box before lunch. I know you two have different lunch periods, so I thought I’d better remind you.”
    “Thanks, Dad,” I said mechanically, finally remembering the conversation he was talking about. Still, I couldn’t quite believe that was the whole reason he had dragged me out of class. “Are you sure that’s all?”
    “That’s it, sweetie,” he said. “Now don’t forget, okay?”
    I left the office feeling a little confused. But when my head started to clear, my confusion turned to relief, then annoyance. By now I’m on to anger.
    Having Marie stay with us was supposed to be fun. And I guess in some ways it sort of is. But it’s also causing a lot more problems than I expected. Dad’s ragging on me for eating too much rice and scaring me half to death with emergency phone calls about juice. I had to stay up extra late working on my English paper after Marie finally finished hogging the computer for her extra-credit report, and then when I finally could go to bed I couldn’t sleep because her music was so loud. Plus when I went to give her that stupid juice box before her lunch period, it made me late for my next class and my teacher chewed me out in front of everyone!
    It’s hard to believe Marie is already upsetting our life somuch when she hasn’t even been staying with us for twenty-four hours yet. How am I supposed to survive two whole weeks with my new “sister”????
    (later)
    I’m starting to think that everyone around me has