Notes From a Liar and Her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko Page A

would rather see Elizabeth’s four hundredth dress rehearsal than my first Math-a-thon?So what? She isn’t my real mother, anyway. It doesn’t matter. “Don’t worry. You’re not invited to the Math-a-thon, Mom,” I say, my voice calm, even, unemotional.
    Frown lines cut across my mom’s forehead. “But I thought that postcard said …”
    I shake my head. “They decided there isn’t enough room for the parents. They were going to hold it in the gym, but then they couldn’t get the gym. And there isn’t enough space in the library for a big audience. But they didn’t know this when the postcard went out. They told us to tell our parents.” I make my face all sincere and I look straight into my mom’s eyes.
Please don’t believe me
, a voice deep inside me begs.
Please come. I want you to come.
But I stuff the voice down.
    “Oh.” She shrugs. “Well, I guess that solves my problem, doesn’t it?” Her face lights up. She smiles her wide-toothed smile.
    I feel as if somebody has taken pliers to my insides.
    The fake-music doorbell chimes. It sounds like somebody died.
    “Who is that?” my mother asks.
    Kate races to the door and presses her nose against the Coke-bottle-glass window that runs alongside the door. “It’s Harrison’s dad,” she reports.
    “Well, I guess you’re going, then,” my mother says to me. “But I look like a train wreck, so don’t you dare ask him in.”
    “Okay,” I say, and I’m out the door, whisking Mr. Emerson back down the front path. I want out ofthere. I don’t want to give my mom the chance to change her mind. It was only last month she said I was not allowed to set foot in the Emersons’ house “until hell freezes over,” and now here I am planning to spend the day there with her complete permission. I should be happy about this, but I’m not.

13
T HE E MERSONS
    T he Emersons have a funny house. On the outside it looks like a farmhouse and a big old barn, only there isn’t any cropland. Just a yard with a palm tree. On the inside, it’s filled with carpet pieces from Harrison’s Aunt Sue’s carpet store. There isn’t much in the way of furniture, though, unless you count the beanbag chairs. They are everywhere. At the Emersons they either don’t have something or they have it in quantity, like there’s never any scissors, but Harrison and I counted eleven vegetable peelers one day.
    Still, I like the Emerson house. For one thing, it’s one of the only places in Sarah’s Road that is far enough from Sarah’s Road so you don’t hear the road noises. But the best thing is Mr. Emerson doesn’t mind if you make a mess. In fact, he acts like you couldn’t possibly be having fun unless you have a chicken living in your kitchen and three or four projects going on in the living room. Whenever I start cleaning up, Mr. Emerson says, “Leave it, Ant. You and Harrison might want to get back to that tomorrow.”
    At my house the only place you’re allowed to makea mess is the backyard, and even then my mom will kill you if you don’t clean up the second you’re done. Harrison’s house is a much better place to do projects, which is clearly what Harrison has in mind today.
    “Okay, here’s what we need to do …,” Harrison says when we are sitting cross-legged on his brown corduroy bedspread. “We’ve got to write her a note saying we’re sorry—”
    “I’m not sorry, though.”
    “Yes, you are.” He gets Pistachio, who has made a spot for himself between us.
    “I am?”
    He nods so hard, I can hear his hair move.
    I sigh. He’s right. I am sorry. I didn’t want to mess up Zoo Teens, that’s for sure. It was so much fun taking care of the animals with Just Carol. But now everything is all screwed up. There seems no point in trying so hard about this. “She’s never going to let me come back to the zoo, Harrison.”
    “Yes, she is. All you have to do is promise never to bring Tashi again. You can leave him over here if you’re worried