Free The Gossip File by Anna Staniszewski

always planned. I had a whole bunch of stuff we were going to do, and so far we haven’t done a single one. We’ve been talking about this trip since I was six years old!”
    Everyone at the table looks at me, even Caleb. I realize how whiny I sound, but how can Dad just throw away my dream like that? How are we ever supposed to be able to talk to each other again when we can’t even spend any real time together?
    â€œI’m sorry,” he says finally. “I’m doing the best I can.” He sounds like he means it, like he really believes it. And maybe he is doing the best he can, but it doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

Chapter 13
    After we’re done cleaning up from dinner, Dad turns to me and says, “Roo, you said something about going mini-golfing tonight.”
    My heart swells with hope. Finally, Dad and I are going to have some one-on-one time!
    Then Ellie chimes in with “I think it’s a great idea! Let’s go now!” and ruins everything.
    My mouth sags open. “But, Dad—”
    â€œIt’ll be fun if we all go,” he says softly. “We’ll do something with just you and me another time, okay?”
    I don’t get it. Does Dad not want to spend time with me? Am I doing something wrong? The worst part is that I can’t even ask him these questions because what if he’s realized he doesn’t like having me here? What if I’m interfering with his new life? If that’s how he feels, all I can do is try to show him that having me come visit was worth it. So I smile and climb into the car with grumpy ol’ Caleb, and we head to a mini-golf place a few miles away.
    When we get there, Ellie insists on getting a green ball even though I try to explain to her that it’s always Dad’s color.
    â€œNo problem,” he says. “I think I’ll go with red today. Change is good for the soul.”
    As we head to the first hole, Ellie grabs the scorecard and declares that she’s going to keep score so that none of us can cheat. I don’t know why anyone would care enough to cheat in mini-golf, but she seems determined that we do everything the “right way.”
    But as we start to play, I have a sneaking suspicion that Ellie’s never even been on a mini-golf course before. Every time she goes to hit the ball, she misses or hits it in the grass. And one time, she even manages to smack it backward so that it sails all the way to the beginning of the course and then disappears in the water. Poor Dad has to spend ten minutes fishing it out, even though I try to tell Ellie that she should just go ask for another ball.
    â€œThat’s all right,” she says. “My knight will take care of it.”
    Gross.
    â€œIsn’t this fun?” she asks as we finally move on to the next hole. “The perfect family outing!”
    If she calls us a family one more time, I might actually scream. Meanwhile, Caleb measures each shot from every angle to see which one will get the best results. We take so long at each hole that we have to let three other groups of people skip ahead of us.
    I can’t help imagining what this would have been like with just Dad and me. We wouldn’t care about keeping score or about getting every shot. We’d just be laughing and chatting and acting goofy. Will we ever have a chance to do that again?
    Finally, we get to the last hole and the torture ends. Caleb ends up winning, Dad and I tie for second, and Ellie winds up with such a high score that there isn’t enough room to write it on the card.
    â€œShould we head over to my place for some dessert?” Dad asks.
    â€œTeddy, we don’t have to go squish into that tiny apartment,” Ellie says, wrinkling her nose. “We could go out for dessert or back to my place or—”
    â€œI want to see where my dad lives!” I say. I don’t care if his apartment is smaller than an airplane