What’s the worst that could have happened? She’d already thrown up four times. What was once more? Maybe that last fifth vomit was just what she needed?
I’d thought my father and Jeanine had left already, but when I got downstairs there they were, Dad sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and Jeanine standing at the front door, jacket zipped, earmuffs secured, several razor-sharp number two pencils in each mitten.
“Dad! It’s 8:03…8:03!” she shouted, pointing at the clock on the wall. “Remember what I said? No later than eight o’clock.”
Dad sipped his tea. “Jeanine, you can’t pretend you don’t hear me just because you don’t like what I’m saying.”
“Oh yeah? What makes today different from all other days?” I said.
“I’m just thinking, maybe we shouldn’t go because Mom’s sick and you were going to make the doughnuts today.”
“Really?” I said. Was Dad actually thinking about choosing my Doughnut Day over one of Jeanine’s math competitions? Was it April Fools’ or something?
“What are you saying?” Jeanine was still going with the “if I don’t hear what you’re saying, it’s not happening” strategy.
“I know Tris could make the doughnuts another day, but he had this all planned. It seems a little unfair. Plus, it’s just another Solve-a-Thon. Missing one isn’t the end of the world.”
“But it is! It is the end of the world!” Jeanine said, nodding like some creepy bobblehead.
“Honey, you’ve got to keep this stuff in perspective.”
“Perspective? You want me to keep this in perspective? You want me to miss a major math competition so Tris can shoot cream into balls of fried dough?”
“Now that’s not fair,” Dad said. “He’s put a tremendous amount of work into this project.”
“What about the work I’ve put into studying for the Solve-a-Thon? I never get credit for doing work because I like to work. I work all the time, so it doesn’t matter. You don’t even care, but Tris wants to make a few doughnuts and you throw him a party!”
The craziest thing about what Jeanine was saying was that I could tell she actually believed it.
“We’re not throwing him a party,” Dad said, chuckling.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Jeanine rushed at him with her number two pencils held out like daggers.
“Calm down. You know how proud we are of you. And we drive you all over the place for all kinds of things, the Solve-a-Thons, the spelling bees, the National Geography Bees—”
“The Math Olympics,” I added.
“But you said I could go to this Solve-a-Thon.”
“It’s one Solve-a-Thon,” Dad said. “What’s the big deal?”
“You don’t get it!”
“Come on, Jeannie.” Dad tried to wrench the pencils away from her. “Take off your jacket. Sit down. Let’s figure this out.”
“No! I need this Solve-a-Thon. I need to be doing more math.”
“So fine. Do more math. The internet’s working. I can print out as many math problems as you want. You can spend a whole week doing math problems.”
“It won’t help!” She dropped her pencils and crumpled to the floor.
Dad crouched over her. “I still don’t understand. How come?”
“Because there won’t be other people. I won’t be getting smarter.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“How will I know how good I am unless I can see how many people are worse than me?”
“Okay. Now you’re scaring me.”
“You don’t understand!” She covered her face with her mittens and curled into a ball under the kitchen table.
I’d never seen her go quiet like that in the middle of a tantrum. Louder and whinier till her opponent can’t take it anymore is her usual strategy.
“So explain it to me then,” my father said. “What makes this Solve-a-Thon so important?”
Jeanine didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure she was crying.
“Come on.” Dad stuck his head under the table. “Explain it to me.”
“Because I don’t have anything here.” Jeanine’s voice was so small it didn’t even sound like hers.
“Where?”
“Here. Petersville. I don’t have Mathletes. I don’t have G&T. I don’t have Kevin. I don’t even have normal school. I don’t have anything, and…and Tris has everything!” she blurted out.
“What is she talking about?” I said to my father.
“You know what I’m talking about!”
I stuck my head under the table now too. “No, I don’t.”
She sat up and looked at me. “You like it here!”
“What?”
“You do! You like it here.”
“I do not!” I said like she’d just accused me of picking my nose.
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you!”
“Seen me what?”
“You like Josh, and you like that crazy lady at the General Store and hockey and your doughnut business. You even like biking around. You like it here!”
I opened my mouth to tell her she was wrong, but then something made me stop.
I couldn’t believe it: she was right!
When had that happened? When had I stopped waking up in the wrong bed in the wrong room in the wrong town?
“And I know you don’t talk to Charlie, so you don’t even want to go back. You’re not even friends with him anymore!”
It was the first time anyone had said it out loud, and it hurt more because I hadn’t seen it coming.
“Jeanine!” Dad said.
I couldn’t tell if my father wanted her to stop because what she was saying about Charlie was mean or because it was true or both.
“And I don’t have one thing here. Not one friend or activity, not one anything.”
“I know,” I said. “Because you never leave the house. You won’t try.”
“That’s not it. You know that wouldn’t matter. You know it! I’m just not like you.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re smart.”
“Come on, Tris. You’re smart,” Dad said.
“Not like her. It’s okay. I’m not stupid or anything, but I’m not smart like her.”
Dad didn’t say anything.
Jeanine got on her knees so that she was facing me. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she looked sadder than I’d ever seen her. “But you’re good at this. You just made all this stuff happen here. I can’t
