Free Amber Brown Goes Fourth by Paula Danziger Page B

ask.
    “MAX is picking me up any minute.” She gives me a look.
    “What time will you be home?” I take a strand of hair and start to chew on it.
    “I’m not sure, but, honey, you don’t have to worry. Joanie said that she’ll spend the night. And I’ll be home long before you wake up in the morning.”
    I continue to chew on my hair. “Maybe I won’t go to sleep until you come back.”
    My mother sighs. “It’s going to be very late.”
    “I’ll wait up.”
    She tries to change the subject. “Honey, please don’t chew on your hair. You know how Aunt Pam’s cat, Cheshire, is always coughing up hair balls and leaving them all over the place. I’m afraid that you’re going to start doing that.”
    She points to a corner and teases, “You know, little Amber hair balls everywhere.”
    Even though I think it’s funny, I don’t smile. “I’ll stay awake until you get home. So don’t stay out too late.”
    She looks like she’s going to give me a lecture, but then all she says is, “Okay.”
    I know that she’s sure that I’ll fall asleep, but I won’t.
    I know I won’t.

Chapter
Three

    I’m not going to get out of bed.
    Not today.
    Not tomorrow.
    Not for the entire school year, which starts today.
    It was hard getting out of bed yesterday and listening to Mom after her big date with Max.
    She likes him, really likes him.
    She says that she’s sure that I’m really going to like him, too.
    I’m sure that I really won’t.
    I don’t ever want to meet him.
    I don’t ever want to like him.
    I’m very sure that I won’t.
    And I’m also sure that I don’t want to get out of bed and go to school.
    My alarm clock oinks at me.
    Actually, it’s a combination piggy bank and alarm clock.
    It’s a pig taking a bubble bath, a present from Aunt Pam.

    When I put money in, it snorts and thanks me.
    When the alarm goes off, it oinks.
    I push down the button, stop the alarm, and put a pillow over my head.
    In about four minutes, the Mom Alarm pulls the pillow off my head to wake me up.
    This alarm is a real person who rumples my hair and says different things depending on the day.
    After her date with Max, she woke me up saying, “I told you that you would fall asleep.”
    Today, Mom Alarm pulls the pillow off my head and says, “Wake up, darling. . . . It’s the first day of school.”
    There’s no button to turn the Mom Alarm off.
    Opening my eyes just enough to sort of see her, I say, “Fourth grade’s not so important. Wake me up this time next year and I’ll think about fifth grade.”
    My mother tickles me. “Get showered. Get dressed. Be downstairs in half an hour to get a nutritious, yummy breakfast. Then I’ll drive you to school.”
    “I can walk to school. You haven’t had to drive me there for two years.”
    I think about how I used to walk to andfrom school with Justin. Then after school, I used to stay at his house until my mom came home.
    Now everything has changed.
    I repeat, “Mom, I can walk to school.”
    My mother sighs. “We’ve already had this discussion. I don’t want you to walk there alone, so I’ll drive you to school, and at the end of the day I’ll pick you up after Elementary Extension.”
    I put the pillow over my head.
    Elementary Extension. It’s this special program for kids who can’t go home right after school.
    It’s all Justin’s father’s fault. If he hadn’t gotten that stupid new job, all our lives wouldn’t have had to change.
    I wonder if Justin’s mom is waking him up right now too.
    And I wonder if he’s thinking about how different it’s going to be for him . . . . and if he’s missing me, too.
    “Rise and shine, my darling daughter.” My mom pulls the pillow off my head and uses her voice that says “Now get out of bed if you wish to remain my darling daughter.”
    She also starts tickling my feet.
    I, Amber Brown, do not like to have my feet tickled.
    In fact, I hate it.
    So I get out of bed, tripping over my new school