The phone rings.
I run upstairs.
Chapter
Sixteen
My Dad Book. . . .
I open the top drawer of my dresser, take it out, and sit down on my bed to think about the best ways to destroy it.
I could feed it into the garbage disposal.
I could take each picture out of the book and rip it into tiny, tiny, minuscule pieces.
I could take a picture of him and add drawings to it of what I think Judith and the little dweeb look like . . . and then I can rip it into tiny, tiny, minuscule pieces.
I could blow my nose on some of the pictures. . . . put a little snot across my father’s face.
I could . . . . . . . . . . . . . . but I can’t.
I don’t want to destroy my Dad Book.
Opening it, I look at some of the pictures . . . . . . . the time my dad and I won the father-daughter race at my school. I wonder who’s going to win it this year.
Maybe they’ll have a mother’s boyfriend—daughter race this year and Max and I can win it.
Max.
I don’t know what to think about Max either.
I don’t know why everything had to become so complicated.
There’s a knock on the door.
It’s my mother.
I know.
Now’s the time for the mother-daughter talk . . . how it’s not easy for any of us . . . . . how my parents have to make new lives . . . how we all have to try to be flexible and understanding . . . . how while they don’t love each other, they’ll always love me.
I don’t say anything.
There’s another knock on the door, and then my mother walks in and sits down with me on my bed.
“I know . . . . . . you love me . . . . you have to make a new life . . . . . Max is a wonderful person . . . . . . you and Dad may hate each other’s guts but you’ll always love me.” I look at her.
“Well, I guess that’s it.” My mother stands up.
She sits down again. “No. Actually, there is more. Do you want to say it . . . or should I say the rest of things that need to be said . . . . . and need to be done?”
“I think I said everything.” I shrug.
She picks up the Dad Book and opens it.
The page she has turned to is a picture of my dad, with me sitting on Santa’s knees.
She smiles at it and then looks at me.
“Amber, your dad is very upset that you hung up on him like that.”
“What do you care? You hate his guts.” I make a face.
She thinks for a minute. “Some of his guts I hate . . . . but, Amber, I don’t hate all of his guts.”
I laugh. “Just how many of his guts do you hate?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t try to make me laugh . . . . This is serious . . . . Don’t make a joke out of this. I know you’re upset. Your father told me what’s upsetting you . . . . Amber, you have a right to your feelings . . . . but you know that you have to be open to changes.”
“They’re not my changes. They’re yours . . . . yours and Dad’s . . . .” I am not laughing.
“You’re making changes too . . . . You’re getting older . . . . . You like different things. . . . You even look different. Your dad and I have to get used to your changes too.”
“But I’m a kid. I have to grow and change and be different.”
“So do we.” My mother is trying to be calm. “Everyone in the world has to grow and change in some ways.”
“But everyone doesn’t have to like the changes.” I pout. “You don’t like everything I do.”
She pretends to pout. “And you don’t like everything I do.”
I pout more. “I’m sick of having to hear this all the time.”
“And I’m sick of having to say it all the time.” She makes a super pouting face and then she smiles. “Amber Brown, you have to get used to change.”
We both are quiet for a minute, and then she says, “And what’s this about you’re still not doing your schoolwork? Did you mean what you told your father?”
Great. I try to work really hard so that she doesn’t find out and then I tell on myself.
I tell her what’s going on.
I explain about how Mrs. Holt won’t give me extra credit.
“She’s right, you know.” My mother pats me on the head.
It makes me nuts when she pats me on the head.
“But I want extra credit . . . . . I want a gold star for all the stuff I’m going through.”
“It’s called living . . . . Everyone goes through real stuff . . . . No one gets a gold star for doing what they should be doing.”
“This is one of those great truths.” I look at her. “One of those mother-daughter moments I’m always going to remember . . . . . .”
“And cherish . . . . .” my mother says, and then she laughs. “And then someday you will be saying the same things to your daughter.”
“If I ever get married and have a kid, I’ll never get divorced.”
“I hope you never have to.” My mother looks at me and then gives me a hug.
I hug back.
Then we look at each other.
“Mom.” I hold her hand. “If I can’t have a gold star . . . . . . . can I at least have a brownie?”
She squeezes my hand and nods. “Let’s go down and get some before Max eats them all.”
“I bet he’s not eating the tuna-fish-and-jelly-bean brownie.”
“I bet he’s not,” she agrees. “And I bet you don’t either.”
We get up and go downstairs.
On the way, I think of a slogan to use on my project.
With AMBER BROWNies, You Get Your Just Desserts.
Chapter
Seventeen
Progress Report
After some initial problems, Amber is doing quite well at school in her subject areas. She is turning in good work on time. Amber still needs to work very hard in math, but I can tell that she is trying.
Her attitude is much better . . . and her AMBER BROWNie report was a delight . . . . and quite tasteful!
Amber deserves credit for doing her best.
I look forward to watching her progress for the rest of the year.
Turn the page
for a preview of
FOREVER
AMBER BROWN
Chapter
One
I, Amber Brown, am on a search, not for gold, not for silver, not for treasure.
I, Amber Brown, am on a search for the perfect bowling ball. One that will help me beat my mom and Max, her friend.
I search.
Some holes are too far apart. Some are too close. Some balls weigh a ton. Some are an ugly color.
It is not an easy search, especially since my hair keeps falling in front of my eyes.
It’s not easy to give up wearing two ponytails and try to let my hair grow to be the same length.
I blow up at my hair. It goes up, and then falls down in front of my eyes again.
Finally, I find a bowling ball. My fingers don’t get caught. It’s not too heavy. It matches what I’m wearing.
I just wish that they made glitter bowling balls.
I rush back to our lane and begin.
I aim the ball down the middle, but it goes into the gutter.
Personally, I think that there’s a magnet in my bowling ball, and one in each gutter.
“Better luck next time,” Max says.
I sit down on the bench and sigh.
My mother picks up her bowling ball, aims, and throws.
There’s no magnet in her ball.
It goes right down the center and hits the pin in the middle.
The bowling pins on each side are left standing.
“Split,” Max says.
“Are you offering us a banana split?” I ask.
He crosses his eyes at me.
I know what a split is . . . that’s what my mother has just gotten . . . . pins separated, with a hole in between th
em.
Max has also taught me other bowling words:
Strike—when all the pins go down with the first ball
I want to know why I, Amber Brown, get strikes only in baseball . . . not in bowling.
Spare—when you get all ten pins down with two balls
Turkey—three strikes in a row
I want to know why I, Amber Brown, bowl three times in a row, get low scores, and feel like a real turkey.
300—a perfect score
I, Amber Brown, got a 42 in our first game—an imperfect score.
Max bowls.
He gets a strike.
When he sits down on the bench, my mother gives him a kiss.
I think that’s why he’s been getting so many strikes, so that he gets kisses from my mother.
It’s weird for me to see my mother kiss Max. I know she’s divorced. I know that she and Max are going out . . . but it’s still a little strange to see my mother and Max kissing.
I look away from them and watch the people in the next lane.
The little girl in that lane has forgotten to take her fingers out of the ball and she’s now lying on the floor, crying, with the ball still on her hand.
When it’s my turn, Max joins me on the lane and shows me, again, how to hold the ball, how to “approach,” and how to throw.
This time my bowling ball doesn’t bounce down the lane . . . . and six pins fall.
Max and I give each other high fives.
I get one more pin on my second ball, which touches the pin just before it drops into the gutter.
My mother gets four pins down.
Max only gets a spare next time he’s up.
My mother gives him a kiss anyway because she says she has kisses to spare.
I don’t remember my parents kissing each other very much at the end of the time they were married.
I actually like Max. I tried not to, but I do.
It’s very confusing.
Half the time, I’m really glad that Max is in our lives, and the other half, I keep hoping that my mom and dad will get back together again.
The chance of my parents getting back together again is about as likely as my bowling a 300.
Part of me keeps hoping, though.
While I wait for my turn to bowl again, I look at people and try to guess their shoe sizes.
Then I look at the backs of their shoes, and if they’re wearing rentals, I can see what sizes the shoes are.
I, Amber Brown, have no trouble making up games.
Some of the people have their own shoes, so there are no numbers on the backs.
Next, I start to think about what kinds of bowling shoes some of my favorite book characters would wear.
Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, would definitely wear red glitter bowling shoes.
I think about my favorite character when I was little, the Little Engine That Could. I wonder if engines wear shoes. Maybe if they’re little, they wear training shoes.
My aunt Pam told me that in England, they call sneakers “trainers,” so maybe that’s what he would wear.
“Amber, it’s your turn,” my mother reminds me.
Gutter balls again.
“It’s only a game,” Max says.
When Max says that, I think of my father.
When I was little and my dad and I used to play Chutes and Ladders and I’d lose and get upset, that’s what he used to say: “It’s only a game.”
I used to wonder why he wouldn’t just let me win if it was only a game.
My father . . . . . . I hardly ever see him now that he’s living in Paris, France.
We talk every week, but that’s not the same as seeing him.
I’m not even sure that I can see him in my brain anymore. I have to look at pictures of my dad to remember what he looks like.
I saw him during summer vacation, when my aunt Pam took me to London. My dad came to visit.
That was in August.
In September, I met Max.
Now it’s October, and it’s kind of weird.
I feel like I’m beginning to know Max better than my own father.
Next time my father calls, I’m going to beg him to move back.
Amber can’t wait to be Best Child when her mom and Max get married, but planning a wedding comes with lots of headaches. Amber can’t find the right dress, her dad keeps making mean cracks about Max, and everyone is going crazy over how much things cost. Her mother even suggests they go to city hall and skip the party altogether!
Justin and his family are supposed to come for the wedding, and Amber has been looking forward to that for months. Adults sure can be a lot of work, but if Amber can make this wedding work, it will all be worth it.
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Read all the Amber Brown books!
Amber Brown Goes Fourth
Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue
Amber Brown Is Green with Envy
Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon
Amber Brown Is Tickled Pink
Amber Brown Sees Red
Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit
Forever Amber Brown
I, Amber Brown
You Can’t Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown
Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit Page 5