Free Amber Brown Is Green with Envy by Paula Danziger

Chapter
One

    I, Amber Brown, have had enough. “Dylan Marshall, you are driving me crazy.”
    Dylan looks at me and smiles. Then he pretends to be guiding a steering wheel. “Vrroooooom. Vrooooooooom. Zoom.”
    His older sister, Polly, looks up from the book she is reading. “Dylan, you are so immature.”
    “Thank you.” He bows to her.
    She sighs and goes back to her book.
    Before my dad rented the downstairs half of their house, I used to think that Dylan was one of the BIG kids, a sixth grader.

    Now I think that he’s just a BIG doofus.
    Dylan pretends to drive into his younger sister, Savannah.
    She ignores him.
    “Road pizza,” he yells, pretending to run over their cat, Mewkiss Membrain.
    “I’m going downstairs,” I announce.
    “You’re supposed to stay up here until THE DADS come back from getting the groceries,” Polly reminds me.
    I sit down and look at a magazine, thinking about how my life has changed in the last few months.
    THE DADS…my dad and their dad…if grown-ups can be best friends, I think that’s what they are becoming.
    My dad was not happy when he moved back from France.
    I, Amber Brown, think that he wanted to get back with my mom, but it’s too late…she’s going to marry Max.
    Dylan comes over and makes an armpit noise at me. “I’m bored.”
    “You’re boring.” I smile at him.
    “Thank you.” He makes a bow.
    Actually, I, Amber Brown, think that Dylan can be fun. But not today.
    Today he is driving me crazy.
    I’m staying at my father’s house for Christmas vacation. So my mom went to California to visit her sister, my aunt Pam. Dad wants me to call his house “our house,” but sometimes I forget because it doesn’t feel like our house yet. Actually, I spent Christmas Day and one day after that with Mom at her house, which I do think of as my house because I’ve lived there all my life.
    I, Amber’ Brown, have two houses because I, Amber Brown, am a shared-custody kid.
    It’s a little weird to live in two houses, especially since they are very different from each other.
    In the house where I live with my mom, it’s just me and Mom. Max visits a lot. It’s going to be a little weird when they get married, but since it’s only December and they’re not getting married until June, I’m not going to think much about it now.
    In this house, my dad rents the basementand first floor of the Marshalls’ house. There are four Marshalls who live upstairs….. The dad, Steve….. Polly, who is in high school….. Dylan and Savannah. Inside the house, we don’t keep the doors locked between the two places, so it’s almost like we are all living together. In fact, the dads got a sign for the front door that reads:

    I hope that Dad stays here. He’s made so many changes…. when he left our house, when he left the country, when he came back.
    He promised me that he’s not going to leave again.
    He didn’t promise me, though, that he would stay here forever.
    It’s not always easy being a shared-custody kid.
    Dylan looks under the Christmas tree. “Where did I put my new computer game?”
    He keeps searching, picks up a package and throws it to Savannah. “Catch.”
    It hits her on the foot.
    “Ow.” She glares at him.
    It’s the present that I gave her, a soap-making kit called Gross Soap.
    “Amber,” she says, “let’s make soap today.”
    I was hoping that she would make the soap soon, but my dad said that I should wait to see what she wanted to do, because it was her present….. not mine.
    I really wanted it for me, but my dad said that I had enough presents already. I gave it to Savannah so that maybe I could make the gross soap anyway.
    “There’s nothing else to do. So this is your lucky day. I’m going to make soaptoo,” Dylan says. “But first, I am going to get a snack.”
    He leaves the room.
    Polly looks up from her book. “Does anyone in this room want to play a joke on Dylan?”
    Savannah and I raise our hands.

Chapter
Two

    Savannah