Free Ain't She Sweet? by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

global warming. Two weeks ago when she’d decided to become a vegetarian, she’d tried to explain it at lunch, but Chels told her to stop talking like a geek. But that weird Gwen Lu had overheard and wanted to strike up this big intellectual conversation about it. As if Gigi’s reputation could stand being seen talking to Gwen Lu.
    “Wine tonight or not?” her dad asked.
    “Definitely.” Her mom took some disgusting frozen french fries from the oven and dumped them in a bowl.
    Her dad pulled a bottle from the wine rack.
    In seventh grade, when Gigi had still been friends with Kelli and everybody, Kelli had said Gigi’s dad looked like Brad Pitt, which was a total lie. For one thing, Brad Pitt was short and old, and his eyes were squished too close together. Also, could anybody honestly imagine her dad going around with his hair messed up all the time and looking like he never shaved? It grossed her out when some of the girls said they thought her dad was hot.
    Gigi mainly looked like him, her mouth and the shape of her face. But her hair was dark brown instead of blond, and she didn’t have his goldy-colored eyes. Hers were like her mom’s, light blue and sort of creepy. She wished they were goldy brown like his. No matter what Nana Sabrina said, Gigi was a lot more like her dad than her mom.
    She wished he didn’t work so much. Then her mom might not have opened the store.
    They sure didn’t need the money. Her mom said with Gigi in school and Ryan working such long hours, there wasn’t enough for her to do, even with all her committees. In Gigi’s opinion, she could stay home and make some decent salads.
    He carried the wineglasses to the table, and they all sat down. Her mom said grace, then her dad passed the steak platter. “So, Gi, how’s it goin’ at school?”
    “Boring.”
    Her parents exchanged a look that made Gigi wish she’d kept her big fat mouth shut.
    They thought one of the reasons her grades were going down was because she wasn’t getting enough intellectual stimulation from her classes, which was true, but that didn’t have anything to do with her grades. Lately she’d started to get scared they might send her away to some boarding school for the gifted like Colby Sneed’s parents had done, and Colby hadn’t been half as smart as her.
    “Mainly because of the kids, though,” she said quickly. “Classes this week were very stimulating, and my teachers are excellent.”
    Her mom lifted an eyebrow, and her father shook his head. One thing about her parents . . . they weren’t stupid.
    He salted his french fries. “Funny that with all that stimulation, you couldn’t do better than a C on your history test.”
    Gigi knew she was walking a delicate line. Being the class brain—except for that dorky Gwen Lu—and being the richest girl in town, too, had made everybody hate her, but if she let her grades drop too far, she might find herself in boarding school, and then she’d have to kill herself. “I had a stomachache. I’m sure I’ll do better next time.”
    He got that worried look in his eyes she’d been seeing a lot lately. “Why don’t you come to the factory with me on Saturday morning? I won’t be there long, and you can mess around with the computers.”
    She rolled her eyes. When she was a kid, she’d loved to go to work with him, but now she thought it was boring. “No, thank you. Me and Chelsea are going over to Shannon’s house.”
    “Chelsea and I,” her mother said.
    “Are you going to Shannon’s, too?”
    “That’s enough, Gi,” her father snapped. “Stop being a smart-ass.”
    She scowled, but she didn’t have the nerve to talk back to him like she did her mom because it made him crazy, and she’d only just gotten her telephone privileges back.
    Her mom didn’t say much for the rest of the dinner, which was unusual, because usually when her dad showed up to eat, she tried extra hard to be entertaining, being all chirpy and offering stimulating