My So-Called Family Read Free Page A

hear the faint but steady sound of cars. Mom said the noise is because Riverdale is actually a part of New York City. It’s not as noisy as Manhattan, which is the part of New York City that Simon’s office is in, but it’s still more crowded than the town in Maryland where the pink house is.
    â€œIt’s hard to fall asleep,” I complained to Mom the first morning. She was kneeling on top of the kitchen counter, lining our new cabinets with checkered paper.
    â€œI know,” she said from inside the cabinet. She turned around to look at me, and I rubbed my eyes to show her just how tired I was. “You’ll get used to it, Leah. I promise.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I asked her.
    â€œI just do,” she said.
    The noise isn’t the only thing about the new house that’s different. It’s bigger, too. We got rid of my old twin bed because my room was big enough for a double bed. Charlie’s room isn’t as big as mine, but at least it’s bigger than a closet, which was about the size of his old room. Before we moved in, Simon and Mom had everything painted and put in new carpeting. When we got there, the whole house smelled new, not at all like the pink house, where everything was worn in and very cozy. The first morning that I woke up in the new house and walked downstairs for breakfast, I made a left turn instead of a right toward the kitchen. In the pink house the kitchen was to the left of the stairs. But in the new house I ended up headed toward the front door instead.
    But by the time we finally finished unpacking everything and had gotten rid of all the boxes, the fresh-paint smell had started to fade. Mom was right about the noises; I got used to them and started being able to fall asleep. I was almost completely used to living there and I even started to forget things about the pink house. Like, I couldn’t remember anymore what shape the doorknobs were, or whether the light switch in my bedroom was on the left-or right-hand side of the door. I also slept differently, with my arms and legs stretched out as wide as possible on my double bed. It’s strange how when you get used to new things, you forget all the old things that you took for granted before.
    School started a couple weeks after we finished unpacking. It was good because we didn’t know anyone, so after we finished setting up the house, there really wasn’t much for us to do. I was bored, and Mom was acting sort of crazy because she was writing a new book, How to Talk So Your Parents Will Listen . She had to get it to her editor by the end of October, and it’s hard for her to work when we’re home, especially when Charlie’s home. But Charlie started kindergarten the same day I started eighth grade, and Mom got back to work on her book.
    My homeroom teacher’s name is Mrs. Levitt. You know how teachers never admit to having first names? Well, Mrs. Levitt pretends her students don’t have first names either. When she calls roll in the morning, she calls us by our last names. The first day she called my name she said, “Ms. Hoffman hyphen Ross.”
    â€œHere,” I said. “And it’s just Hoffman-Ross. You don’t have to say the hyphen.” A few kids snickered. I felt myself start to blush. I hadn’t meant it to sound rude. I’d just wanted to correct her pronunciation. I wondered if I should apologize, but I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut and not say anything more. So much for starting out as someone normal. I sank down in my seat and waited for homeroom to be over.
    I had four classes in the morning—algebra, English, French, and biology, and they all went much more smoothly than homeroom, mostly because I didn’t have to say anything. At the beginning of each class I would pull out a brand-new notebook. I love the first day of school for things like that—before notebooks are filled up and messy, when