Enthusiasm Read Free

out of date, ameth I?” she said agreeably. “How canst thou tell—the grammar? I pray thee, forgive thine old, antiquated mommeth. Keeping up with the latest in teendom beeth too difficult for me. Dinnertime, honey. Ashleigh, you’re welcome to join us.”
    “I thank you, Madam, but I knew not how far the day had advanced. My parents await me. Farewell.” Curtsying to my mother, the Enthusiast tripped lightly down the stairs and took her leave.

Chapter 2
    I seek Counsel ~ a Domestic scene ~ Dancing Lessons.
    T he next day was Tuesday, known in the Lefkowitz and Gould households as the Day of the Dad. I was glad. Not from any eagerness to spend time with my father, of course; relations between us have been strained ever since he left my mother and me for the Irresistible Accountant (or “Amy,” as he prefers me to call her). Rather, I needed the advice of his next-door neighbor, the savviest person I know: Samantha Liu.
    A visit to Dad and “Amy” often includes Samantha. Our fathers, both pediatricians, share a practice and a backyard hedge; Samantha’s mother, an allergist, also shares the hedge, of course, but she has a separate medical practice. The long bicycle ride over gave me plenty of time to consider Ashleigh’s wild plan. Though my father and stepmother didn’t expect me until dinnertime, I started early, hoping to find Samantha free for a chat. Some subjects are best discussed in person—particularly those subjects that live a mere tree’s breadth away from me. From time to time, Ashleigh and I overhear each other’s phone conversations.
    I was in luck: Samantha was home. Once we had installed ourselves comfortably in the Lius’ hammock with a pair of ginger ales, I opened my heart.
    “Okay, Sam, warm up the advice generator,” I entreated.
    “What’s up? Stepmother trouble again?”
    “No—at least, not yet. I haven’t seen ‘Amy’ for a week. Right now it’s Ashleigh.”
    At that name, Samantha gave an affectionate, twinkly grimace. It always surprises me that the two of them like each other as much as they do. Samantha is more than a year older and at least a millennium more mature. Ashleigh’s reputation for eccentricity prevents her from rising to the upper circles of our high school world, even if she wanted to. Samantha, on the other hand, enjoys the status of a gymnast, a beauty, last year’s president of the sophomore class, and the sister of the famously hot Zach Liu, still an object of near-universal fantasy even though he graduated last year. In fact, it’s a measure of Samantha’s social standing that she can afford to be gracious to someone as odd as Ashleigh (or, I often think, me). Yet Sam is loyal and, though skilled at manipulation, essentially kind.
    “What is it this time?” she asked. “Let me guess: Ashleigh’s taken over your bathtub for her starfish collection? She’s excavating an emerald mine under your basement and you’re afraid your house will collapse? No, wait, I know—she’s decided to go to school every day dressed as Martha Washington.”
    With such intuition, is it any wonder Sam is so successful?
    “You got the first problem right on the nose,” I said. “Well, the left nostril. Not Martha Washington, Jane Austen—close enough, though. Jane Austen doesn’t involve a white wig, which makes her a bit better, I guess. Ash is refusing to wear anything but a long skirt. No jeans, no pants—she doesn’t want her ‘lower limbs’ to show.”
    “Oh, dear. I take it you’ve tried reasoning with her? Told her no one will sit next to her in homeroom and so on?”
    “When did Ashleigh ever listen to reason? Besides, she knows I’ll sit next to her.”
    “Well, you might not be in her homeroom this year, but I see your point. And begging didn’t work either, right?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Could you move her on to a new fad—get her interested in rooting for the football team or something?”
    I paused to smile at the thought of