Chapter Three
I got my books out of my room and brought them to the table. I like to sit at the table and be with Mom instead of in my room, even if she is mad. The padded wooden chairs are comfy. The nook is surrounded by windows that are covered with short yellow curtains. I saw that Mom had put a small vase of daffodils in the center of the table. They were beginning to wilt a little bit. I was thinking maybe she wouldn’t be so mad at me if I went out to the garden and picked some more. But they’d probably been battered by the rain.
There is a wood floor that runs from the kitchen through the separate dining room. There are brown and yellow braided throw rugs scattered along the way. I love to run and jump on a rug and slide the length of the two rooms. I feel like I’m surfing, which is something I haven’t tried yet. I wished I could rug surf now, but I’d been told to sit.
I worked on homework for a while, keeping my head down. I wanted to escape her angry gaze. Sometimes I can see a faraway look in her eyes when she thinks no one is looking. I thought she wasn’t happy when she had that look. And that worried me. Maybe it was something to do with me. But what? Was I that bad of a kid? I did what I was told, usually. I did my chores. Sometimes I needed to be reminded, though. Maybe if I didn’t pick on Sean so much, she would be happier.
After a while, Mom finished putting lunch together and called us to the table. The burned burgers were nasty. I looked at Sean and crossed my eyes as I chewed a bite. He returned the look.
“Do we have to eat every bite, Mom?” I asked.
“Could we have some 7-Up today with our lunch?” Sean asked.
“I guess so. It doesn’t have any caffeine.”
We are never allowed to have caffeine. Mom says caffeine is for adults, not kids.
I noticed Mom kept looking away, pretending not to see us as we stuffed ourselves with French fries. At least the fries had not burned. Then she let us have brownies. Yum.
After the burned burger lunch, Mom told me to finish my homework in my room. I picked up my books and went down the hall toward my room, which is painted shades of blue, my favorite color. Along the way, I gazed at family portraits on both sides of the hall. On the left are pictures of my dad’s ancestors. All look blond. For some reason, people always look grim in pictures from a hundred years ago. Like they were never happy. On the right side of the hall are pictures of my mom’s ancestors. All of them are blond, too, except one, a great-grandmother named Martha. In a group picture of her family, all the people are blond except for her. She looks dark. Once, I asked my mom about her. She said she didn’t know about the Native blood.
“She told me her mother’s name was Dove and that she was a Ute, but I never learned any more about Dove,” she explained.
I always want to know more. I touched the picture and it crashed to the floor, breaking the frame and glass. Uh oh. I heard the crash of a plate from the kitchen.
“What have you done now?” Mom screeched.
“I, uh, I uh, I just touched the picture and it fell,” I stuttered. “I’ll clean it up.”
“You will not clean it up. That’s all I need today, for you to cut yourself. We’d probably have to go to the doctor to get stitches. Get in your room and stay there!” she shouted.
I kind of stared at her, my mouth open. Mom was really pissed at me now.
“Go!” she demanded, pointing a finger toward my room. I went.
I have collections of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars on my dark blue bookshelves. On my floor is a rug with a picture from the first Transformers movie. I sat at my desk and played Police Procedures, my favorite game. I want to be a policeman someday and I have a lot of cop stuff. Once, my class took a field trip to the nearby police station. I was amazed to learn all that cops do and how the place looked all serious-like and how it smelled like burnt coffee and stuff. At least, that’s how it seemed. I wasn’t allowed to drink coffee at home. Mom says there’s enough jittering going on in the house already. But I liked the smell. If I had it my way, I’d go to the police station every day. I loved it there, and I felt like I never wanted to leave. But the field trip ended, and we went back to school.