though, I thought the test was a breeze. It was an interesting challenge, and I enjoyed it. Daniel finished before I did, though not by much, and as we drove back home I asked him how he thought he did.
"Okay, I guess. I understood everything and I think I answered the way I was supposed to."
I told him how much better I felt about this testing than the one I'd done in the spring. "They send your scores direct to the colleges?" he asked.
"Uh-huh. Which did you put on your form?"
"I haven't applied anywhere."
"Daniel. At least you should apply to the community college. You can take a class or two while you work at ComputerCo."
He shrugged. "We'll see."
As we drove back toward Levittown, I asked, "Did you talk to your mother about that article we read--about the shots?"
"She shut me down completely. Just like I expected."
"Really? Not a word?"
"Nothing. She won't talk about anything from back then."
Well, that was irritating. Parents. They're always after you to talk, but when you want to quiz them, they shut up.
During the next week, we studied together when we could, sat next to each other in class and at lunch. I sat with Brie on the morning bus and texted her every night. She was still obsessed with Military Boy, and I had to struggle to get a few characters in about Daniel. The only thing I didn't tell her was about the changes in my brain. That was just between Daniel and me.
The next Saturday was my Aunt Rita's birthday, and the whole family had to leave that morning to trek up to Scranton to celebrate with her. We stayed in a motel and didn't get home until late Sunday afternoon, so I didn't get to talk to Daniel all weekend. Since he didn't have a cell phone we couldn't even text each other.
It made me irritable all weekend--either that, or just the fact of having to be in Harrisburg, or having to share a motel room with the Big Mistake. Scranton isn't exactly a tourist capital, you know. There is absolutely nothing to do there besides a couple of lame museums and a couple of coal mines. Not that I could escape my aunt's house anyway.
Robbie had a boy cousin his age who was also mad for video games, and the two of them took over the den, playing loud games, shouting, and elbowing each other all the time. My mom and my aunt had the kitchen staked out, cooking and gossiping, while my father and my uncle sat in the living room. That left me like a girl without a country, wandering from room to room trying to find a place where I could just be left alone.
I finally settled on this little corner of the upstairs hallway that my aunt used as an office, where she had a computer with a dial-up modem. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me, and I was able to steal a Wi-Fi signal from a neighbor with an open connection. I tried to do some more brain research but my heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to be sitting with Daniel at the library, ready to turn to him any time I found anything interesting.
My father is only half-Italian, and so is his sister, but she married a man whose family came from Puglia, which I preferred to call Uglia. It's the heel of the boot, which my uncle insists means that Puglia supports the whole country. Their kitchen was decorated with grape vines and fake stone like it was some kind of cellar in the old country. A big red, white, and green Italian flag hung in the den, along with a relief map of Italy, with Brindisi, the town where he's from, marked with a series of silver stars. Between him and my mom they've got the Common Market covered.
The only good thing about going to my aunt's house is that they drink wine like my mom drinks coffee, and they insist that Robbie and I drink some too. They try to water it down, but Robbie and I always manage to keep them topping up our glasses, so by the end of the night on Saturday we both had a pretty good buzz on.
It was after eleven by the time our parents dragged us back to the motel. When we were little, my parents used to make Robbie
"Okay, I guess. I understood everything and I think I answered the way I was supposed to."
I told him how much better I felt about this testing than the one I'd done in the spring. "They send your scores direct to the colleges?" he asked.
"Uh-huh. Which did you put on your form?"
"I haven't applied anywhere."
"Daniel. At least you should apply to the community college. You can take a class or two while you work at ComputerCo."
He shrugged. "We'll see."
As we drove back toward Levittown, I asked, "Did you talk to your mother about that article we read--about the shots?"
"She shut me down completely. Just like I expected."
"Really? Not a word?"
"Nothing. She won't talk about anything from back then."
Well, that was irritating. Parents. They're always after you to talk, but when you want to quiz them, they shut up.
During the next week, we studied together when we could, sat next to each other in class and at lunch. I sat with Brie on the morning bus and texted her every night. She was still obsessed with Military Boy, and I had to struggle to get a few characters in about Daniel. The only thing I didn't tell her was about the changes in my brain. That was just between Daniel and me.
The next Saturday was my Aunt Rita's birthday, and the whole family had to leave that morning to trek up to Scranton to celebrate with her. We stayed in a motel and didn't get home until late Sunday afternoon, so I didn't get to talk to Daniel all weekend. Since he didn't have a cell phone we couldn't even text each other.
It made me irritable all weekend--either that, or just the fact of having to be in Harrisburg, or having to share a motel room with the Big Mistake. Scranton isn't exactly a tourist capital, you know. There is absolutely nothing to do there besides a couple of lame museums and a couple of coal mines. Not that I could escape my aunt's house anyway.
Robbie had a boy cousin his age who was also mad for video games, and the two of them took over the den, playing loud games, shouting, and elbowing each other all the time. My mom and my aunt had the kitchen staked out, cooking and gossiping, while my father and my uncle sat in the living room. That left me like a girl without a country, wandering from room to room trying to find a place where I could just be left alone.
I finally settled on this little corner of the upstairs hallway that my aunt used as an office, where she had a computer with a dial-up modem. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me, and I was able to steal a Wi-Fi signal from a neighbor with an open connection. I tried to do some more brain research but my heart just wasn't in it. I wanted to be sitting with Daniel at the library, ready to turn to him any time I found anything interesting.
My father is only half-Italian, and so is his sister, but she married a man whose family came from Puglia, which I preferred to call Uglia. It's the heel of the boot, which my uncle insists means that Puglia supports the whole country. Their kitchen was decorated with grape vines and fake stone like it was some kind of cellar in the old country. A big red, white, and green Italian flag hung in the den, along with a relief map of Italy, with Brindisi, the town where he's from, marked with a series of silver stars. Between him and my mom they've got the Common Market covered.
The only good thing about going to my aunt's house is that they drink wine like my mom drinks coffee, and they insist that Robbie and I drink some too. They try to water it down, but Robbie and I always manage to keep them topping up our glasses, so by the end of the night on Saturday we both had a pretty good buzz on.
It was after eleven by the time our parents dragged us back to the motel. When we were little, my parents used to make Robbie
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