Please, Please, Please by Rachel Vail Page A

agree?”
    “Definitely,” Dad said, nodding and turning to look at her. When he saw the look on her face, he knew he was caught. “What?” he asked innocently.
    Mom slammed down her silverware, grabbed the bowl of peas, and marched off into the house.
    “Did she say something about a pig?” Dad asked me and Paul.
    We nodded.
    “Oh, no.” Dad slapped himself on the forehead. “I just, the vegetables, the sprinklers were . . .” His mustache bounced up and down as he talked, so only his bottom teeth showed.
    “Mmm-hmm,” I said.
    “Don’t you start, too.”
    Mom stomped back out to the deck and grabbed our plates. Paul, the slowest eater in America, hadn’t finished his rice or chicken, but he didn’t say anything. He just grabbed his drumstick as his plate was moving away from him and scrunched down in his chair to nibble on it.
    “As if I . . . forget it,” Mom grumbled and stormed back inside.
    “Dad?” I asked, picking up his plate gently. “It’s just one dance class, and this is the only trip . . .”
    “Oh, no,” Dad said, taking his plate away from me. “I’m already in enough trouble. You talk to your mother.”
    Dad followed Mom in and closed the sliding door. I looked glumly at Paul, about to explain to him about soccer and dance and the apple-picking trip, because, well, Zoe gets help with her problems from her four older sisters. Even though he’s only eight, I was thinking maybe he could be a friend to me. “I really want to go on this trip,” I told him. “I hate ballet.”
    “So do I.”
    “You do?”
    “Nobody pays any attention to me. Except Zoe. I wish you’d quit.”
    “I’m trying,” I whispered. “Don’t say anything.”
    “I don’t even know what’s going on,” he said. “Want to have a catch?”
    “No,” I said, picking up the glasses. It’s stupid to think a younger brother could understand.
    I closed the sliding door with my foot while Paul complained, “Won’t anybody have a catch with me? I’ve been waiting all day! I wish Zoe were my sister.”
    “Everything is not about you, Paul,” I yelled back. He didn’t answer, so then I felt bad. He had been waiting all day. “I’ll play with you later, OK?”
    By the time I got to the kitchen door, Mom was slamming plates into the sink. “Wait around all day for you,” she was saying, narrowing her eyes at my father. I pressed myself against the living room wall so she wouldn’t see me. “And what do you do, golf? All day? How important is that? Paul’s been holding that football since ten this morning. So we can’t go apple picking, even though it’s so important to her, so I tell them I can fill in for work, and then when I try to tell you the biggest deal this month is falling apart, you, what were you staring at anyway?”
    “The sprinkler,” Dad muttered.
    “The sprinkler?” Mom was even more furious. “The sprinkler?”
    “It looked stuck,” Dad said.
    “The sprinkler. Unbelievable. At least have the intelligence to lie!”
    “You want me to lie?” Dad asked. I waited to hear the answer.
    “Some huge thing at work?” Mom suggested. “Or how about, you were feeling guilty about ruining your whole family’s weekend? The sprinkler?”
    “I didn’t want to overwater,” Dad said. I peeked around the corner. He was standing behind Mom, putting his arms around her waist while she squeezed soap into the sink. She elbowed him. “Ow!” he said, and she cracked a little smile.
    When he pushed her out of the way to take over washing the dishes, I knew it was safe to go in. I placed the glasses carefully on the counter next to Mom, who was sitting up there like we’re not allowed to.
    “Mom?”
    She looked at me like, Now what? I started thinking, Well, maybe just forget it . My throat was a little scratchy anyway, maybe I should just stay home sick tomorrow, miss the trip, miss dance class, miss everything in my whole life. But no—you have to be practically dying in my