We Are All Made of Molecules Read Free Page B

first meal as a family.”
    We will never be a family!
I shouted, but only in my head because I really wanted that H&M skirt.
    Mom served the pasta and Leonard passed around the salad. No one spoke because it was all so incredibly weird. I was about to pick up my fork when the freakazoid spoke.
    “Before we begin,” he said, “there’s a little something my mom used to do at mealtimes.”
    His mom. I knew what had happened to her, of course. I’ll admit I felt a twinge of sympathy for him when he said that.
    “What was that?” Mom asked.
    “Hold hands with the people on either side of you,” he said. I gave my mom a look like,
You have got to be kidding me
. But she held her hand out toward me, and so did Leonard.
    Think of the skirt
, I told myself. I took their hands, and so did Spewart. Then he and his dad took a deep breath and said, “Truly thankful.”
    That was it. Talk about corny, no offense to his dead mother. But get this, Mom looked like she had tears in her eyes! “That was beautiful, Stewart. If it’s all right with you, I think we should carry on your mom’s tradition.”
    “Thank you, Caroline,” he replied. “I’d like that very much.”
    Barf!
    The three of them chatted throughout the meal. I ate in silence, chewing each mouthful carefully because I’d read in one of my magazines that it’s a good way to avoid overeating. Stewart, on the other hand, wolfed down his food and filled his plate again. For a midget, he has a huge appetite. “This is delicious,” he said, which was a total butt-kiss because the pasta was just so-so.
    “Ashley, how do you like your high school?” Leonard asked me in a lame attempt to bring me into the conversation.
    I shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s a school.” At least I could be thankful that the egghead wouldn’t be going there.
    “Stewart’s feeling a little nervous, that’s all,” Leonard said.
    “Why? He goes to that school for nerds on the North Shore.”
    “It’s not for nerds,” the freakazoid said. “It’s for gifteds.”
    Same diff
.
    “Actually,” Leonard said, “Stewart’s decided to transfer.”
    I dropped my fork with a clatter.
    “I feel it would be better for me for a plethora of reasons,” Stewart said. Yes, he really said
plethora
. What kid says
plethora
? And what does
plethora
even mean? “I don’t want to spend hours every day traveling to and from school. And I thought it would help nurture our new brother-sister relationship if I went to the same—”
    That’s when I screamed. I’m a good screamer; it’s so piercing that my friends tell me I could star in a horror movie. Spewart clapped his hands over his ears.
    I ran out of the dining room and into the family room, hoping my mom would follow me. I was going to hurl myself from a running position onto the couch and sob into the cushions. But there was this
super-gross
purple-and-green chair in the way. I had to squeeze past it, which slowed me down, which meant I couldn’t hurl myself from a running position anymore.
    And there was more. I suddenly became aware that I was surrounded by dozens of hideous ceramic creatures, gazing at me from every corner of the room. They were on the mantelpiece, on the windowsills, on our end tables. Gnomes, fairies, bunnies, dragons, unicorns…It was
so not us
!
    It was like being in my own private horror movie. It was my house, yet it wasn’t my house. It was my life, yet it wasn’t my life.
    I screamed again. Then I ran upstairs and threw myself on the bed instead, slamming my door behind me.

I USED TO WATCH reruns after school of an old seventies sitcom called
The Brady Bunch
. It was about a blended family. The mom had three girls and the dad had three boys, and they had a cheerful housekeeper named Alice. Sure, they had their ups and downs, but overall, practically from the very beginning, everyone got along.
    After the whole screaming episode at dinner, I have had to admit that things might not go as smoothly for me