Free Rocky Road by Rose Kent Page A

mom’s shop will be a gold mine, Tess. No wonder she’s in a hurry to buy it on Wednesday.”
    Wednesday?
    “Attention, all hands,” Chief shouted from the lobby. “Last call to turn in your survey. And Delilah says don’t hold back with your opinions. Good, bad, or ugly.”
    “No need to worry about that with me, Chief,” Winnie said, reaching for a pencil.
    I could tell which people were from the Assisted Living building. Their hands shook more than the other seniors’, and a few aides in white smocks stayed nearby.
    Ma came over as Winnie and her friends finished writing and handed me a bowl of ice cream. “Here you go, Tess. Rocky Road, your favorite,” she said.
    I stared over at the tasty toppings spread out on the end tables. I felt torn about eating ice cream right now. For one, the lobby was downright chilly, and my ribbed-jersey henley wasn’t keeping me warm enough under my jacket, even if I did like thelook. More importantly, I wasn’t sold on Ma’s new business. Last year she’d tried to butter me up when she bought the cat kennel too, saying in no time we’d make enough money to go to Disneyland. Within two months we took a trip, all right—out the door of our apartment to a fleabag motel, where we had to stay for a month until Ma scraped up enough money to cover the next apartment’s security deposit. The carpet smelled like pee, and the women who lived downstairs hardly wore any clothes.
    Eating this ice cream could send the wrong message. But … I
was
hungry, Ma sure had this lobby looking festive, and Rocky Road was hard to resist, what with all the chocolate ice cream, marshmallow bits, fudge, and nuts swirled together and staring up at me.
    “Thanks,” I said, and I dug in. And while Ma continued peppering seniors with questions on their ice cream preferences, I moseyed on over to the toppings table and loaded up with extra nuts and fudge sauce.
    Tug
. Jordan yanked at my jeans. “Me too. More!” he signed.
    I shook my head and moved my fingers. “You’ll get sick.” Too many times I’ve seen Jordan overeat and end up driving the porcelain bus, as Ma calls vomiting.
    He stomped his foot. “More now!”
    My head shook again. “No!” I signed firmly.
    So he ran over to Ma and signed that I was no fair, but Ma didn’t understand, and she was too busy talking to seniors to concentrate. That made Jordan even madder, and he charged back to me at the toppings table, grabbed the fudge jar from my hands, and stuck his tongue in.
    “Ugh!” One of the ladies seated nearby groaned.
    I grabbed the jar from him, shaped my hand like a claw, and circled it on my stomach. “Disgusting!”
    “Tess meanie!” he signed back. Then he swiped the whipped cream can and took off.
    “Get back here!” I yelled, no matter that he couldn’t hear me.
    Round and round the lobby Jordan galloped, all the while grinning and aiming the can at seniors he passed, who looked horrified, like he was pointing a machine gun.
    I kept trying to grab him, but he was speedy—probably on a high from all that sugar. Then he ran past me with the whipped cream can pressed between his lips like a baby bottle.
    I reached out and caught the tail of his shirt. “Gotcha!”
    Psssst
. Whipped cream sprayed everywhere. On the carpet. In my hair, on my jacket, in my face, even up my nose.
    “Brat!” I roared—I didn’t know that sign. I wiped cream from my eyes. I could feel the heat on my face from the seniors’ disapproving stares. Jordan sat on the floor beside me, covering his eyes with messy hands, looking embarrassed.
    Chief hobbled over with paper towels and started wiping the mess. “This behavior is unsat. Somebody’s going to fall and break a hip,” he growled.
    Ma appeared, her arms full of papers. “Take him upstairs, Tess,” she pleaded. “Jordan’s going to run customers off before I even own the shop.”
    “Okay, okay,” I said. Then I grabbed Jordan’s hand in a huff and headed over to the