Free The Black Sheep by Sandy Rideout Yvonne Collins Page A

other.
    It’s good to hear some profanity, even if it isn’t my own.
    The swing set in the backyard turns out to be a good refuge from the mayhem inside. Nothing in my past prepared me for this sort of behavior. In my home, people don’t go out of their way to embarrass me. Yes, my parents are an embarrassment simply by virtue of being the dullest people on the planet. And yes, it kills me when they expose their weirdness to the public. Why two intelligent people can only make small talk about two subjects—the stock market and healthy living—is beyond me. But one thing I can say for them is that they don’t deliberately embarrass me.
    Another thing I can say for my parents is that they only slipped up on the birth control once. Obviously, I wasted too much of my youth wishing for brothers and sisters. Had our family been larger, my parents would have had breakdowns trying to draft enough BLAH legislation, yet it wouldn’t have prevented sibling abuse.
    I’ve never had the opportunity to develop a thick skin. Even at school I’ve mostly escaped ridicule by flying below the radar—far enough below that hardly anyone notices me, yet not so far that people single me out to bully me. It’s a balancing act that’s harder than it sounds.
    With Bob’s lens still trained on me from the deck, I push off on the swing. The movement seems to clear my mind, and it occurs to me that my mediocrity was genetically inevitable. When I was conceived, two sets of completely bland chromosomes combined not with a bang, but a whimper. It’s not my fault that I am average. Ordinary. Unexceptional. Predictable. I find a synonym with every arc of the swing.
    Then, as I soar up into the late afternoon sky, I realize that there is still hope. I took introductory biology, and I know that genes do not control everything. Environment plays a huge role in what we become. I didn’t stand much of a chance of escaping the Banker Duplication Program in Manhattan, but now that I’m in Monterey, I might be able to work against my genes to become someone completely different from my parents. Someone with a personality. Someone outgoing. Someone interesting.
    The Black Sheep could be my lucky break after all. Not because I want to be on television and expose my fight against mediocrity to a national audience, but because it gives me the chance to prove to myself that I am not a chip off the old block.
    It won’t be easy. I’ve got a long way to go and only a few weeks to get there.
    Today I’m the type of person who retires to the swing set at the first sign of trouble. By the time I leave Monterey, I want to be a true Black Sheep. A Black Sheep doesn’t crumble. A Black Sheep claims the padded bras as her own and laughs as the tampons fly. A Black Sheep tosses out her parents’ rule book and invents her own.
    The first rule of my new Black Sheep code arrives in my head fully formed: A Black Sheep stands her ground .
    I leap off the swing at its highest point, psyched to face the enemy.
    When my feet hit the ground, however, it is friend, not foe, that I face. “Judy sent me to get you,” Carrie says. “She’s cued up the show.”
    â€œLet’s go to the mall instead,” I suggest. It’s not running away: a Black Sheep can stand her ground wherever she likes.
    Carrie shakes her head. “Don’t worry, Mona read everyone the riot act. Nobody is allowed to mention the tampon.”
    â€œBarbarians,” I grumble, following her to the house. “They have no respect for privacy.”
    â€œThat’s what it’s like in a big family,” Carrie agrees.
    â€œAt least your brothers acknowledge you exist. Mitch has barely spoken to me since Judy secretly taped our conversation.”
    â€œShe’s hard not to hate, isn’t she?”
    I nod, pondering for a moment. “Do you think Judy put the twins up to that stunt? She