Rolling Dice Read Free Page B

usual kind of junk you keep in attics—out of the spare room for
days
.
    They sit down, and I realize just how fast and hard my heart is beating. They haven’t noticed the nose piercing yet. Maybe they won’t—at least for a couple of days. Or maybe they’ve noticed and miraculously just don’t care about it. I don’t know, but I’m not going to question it.
    After a couple of minutes Mom says, “You were out a long time.”
    “I went to the café. To try and set up my cell phone. There was this guy who works there, though, and he had to help me work it.”
    “There was a guy?” Mom’s ears perk up at that. I knew they would.
    “Yeah. He said he’s—well, he’s
going
to be a junior at the high school, same as me.”
    “Really? What’s he like? Was he cute?”
    Yes
, I think,
he’s very cute
.
    But I shrug and say, “Sure. I guess. He was really nice, anyway. He said there’s a party at the beach tomorrow night. Like, a back-to-school thing …”
    “Did he ask you to go?”
    I nod, but hastily add, “He just meant as friends, though. So I can meet people before school starts.” I have to specify it’s not a date; Mom would go crazy if she thought her daughter, who was finally breaking out of her shell and becoming a normal sixteen-year-old, actually had a date.
    “Oh.” She sounds a little disappointed, but then adds, “But that’s nice! He sounds lovely. What’s his name?”
    “Dwight.”
    “Dwight …?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Where does he live?”
    “Around here somewhere, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t ask for his autobiography.”
    “More to the point,” Dad says, pointing his fork at me, “what about this party?”
    “It’s on the beach. It sounds like it’s a bunch of the kids who go to the high school. Dwight said it starts around eight.”
    My parents exchange a brief look, and then my dad tells me sternly, “No drinking, Madison, you hear me? We don’t want you going out and being stupid. You don’t know these people, and I don’t care if they’re all drinking, you’re not.”
    I’m of half a mind to argue, just because. But the truth is, I’m too excited about this party—
an actual party!
—to argue. I just nod and smile and say, “Yes, of course. Got it.”
    Dad nods and gives me a stern warning look. “Good. And you can be home by eleven-thirty.”
    “What if nobody else leaves then? What if it finishes at twelve, or one?”
I don’t want to give anyone cause to think I’m a loser
, I add silently.
    “You can be home by eleven-thirty, Madison,” Mom tells me. “Like your father said, you don’t know these people, and we don’t want you staying out till tomorrow morning with them.”
    “Fine,” I grumble, but I don’t make too much fuss. An eleven-thirty curfew is better than them telling me I can’t go.
    We eat in silence for another minute or so, and then Mom says, “Madison, look at me a moment.”
    So I do.
    And her cutlery clatters to the plate, almost flicking pasta over the table. “What the hell have you done to your face?”
    It takes me a moment to realize what she’s talking about.
    I bite my lip, and I can feel my stomach fall away.
    “We trust you to go out and buy a cell phone and you come home with—with that?” she cries. She’s turning red in the face with anger now. Mom rarely gets mad. She’s that loveable kindergarten teacher who adores children. Jenna and I always knew that when our mom was mad, we were not going to get off lightly.
    Once, Jenna smashed an antique vase Mom had inherited when her grandma died. It was completely by accident—Jenna had tripped and smacked into the table. Mom got so angry about it, though, Jenna was grounded for a week.
    So right now, I want to turn to dust and I wish I’d never gotten the piercing.
    “It’s only a piercing,” I mumble defensively. “It’s not like I got a tattoo—”
    “You got a
what
?” Dad shouts, more shocked than angry.
“Why?”
    “Yes,