He might be right. I don’t know why I worry about things so much. I wish I could turn off my worrying.
“If you’re worried,” Nico says, “you can come and watch.”
I might do that, but really, I would rather be spending time with kids my own age. I didn’t make any friends today. Well, except for Gabe, and I really, really don’t want to spend any time with him outside school. It’s bad enough I have to see himatschool.
“Did you sleep better having your own room last night?” I ask Nico.
He thinks about it for a minute and shakes his head. “No, I was scared. I missed you.”
I’m glad he said that. I had so much trouble sleeping last night all alone in my room. “I miss you too.”
“Maybe we can have a sleepover sometime?” he suggests. “I can bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor in your room.”
“Or I can sleep in your room?”
“We can take turns,” he says happily.
The bus arrives on Locust Street, which is the dead-end street where we live. Nico and I climb out, along with that kid Spencer who lives across the way. Spencer’s mom is already waiting for him and immediately takes him home, but our mom is waiting in the house. I’ve got the keys to the house in my bag, and Mom says if she’s not home from work yet when we get home, I’m in charge until she gets back.
As we pass the house next door to ours, I notice somebody at the window. It must be our neighbor. It’s a man about the same age as Dad, and when he sees us, he waves. Nico waves back, and so do I, but I feel weird about it. I don’t know why that man is standing at the window, watching the school bus arrive.
It’s just a strange thing to do.
SIXTY-FOUR
Step 3: Learn to Live in Your New Home
Nico is acting weird.
He’s been going over to the Lowells’ house after school because he broke their window playing baseball in the backyard so he has to work it off doing chores. Anyway, it seems like he goes there every day, and then he doesn’t get home until just before Mom gets back. I asked him what kind of chores they have him doing and he said just cleaning. But then when I asked him what he was cleaning, he got quiet about it.
Whatever they’re making him do, it’s making him grumpy. They don’t even have an animal to clean up after. Are they making him take out the garbage? Wash dishes? Are they making him push a boulder up a hill and as soon as he gets to the top, the boulder rolls back down to the bottom again?
If this were back in the old days, when we shared a room, I would have just waited until bedtime and then asked him about it. But now, Nico shuts himself in his room at night and doesn’t talk to me much.
Tonight, during dinner, he was hardly eating at all. Mom made mashed potatoes with lots of butter and salt, just how he likes it, but he just kept making it into a big pile and then sculpting it into different things. So after dinner is over, I go to his room. I knock on the door, which still feels weird after sharing a room for so long.
“I’m busy!” he calls out.
“It’s Ada!” I call through the door.
“Still busy!”
Then I try the doorknob, and it’s locked. Why does a nine-year-old even have a lock on their door? It doesn’t feel like that’s safe.
Oh no, I really do sound like Mom. Great, I take after the boring parent. Just my luck.
I decide the best thing to do is ask him about it while we’re walking to the bus stop the next morning. The few minutes when we walk to the stop and then later back home are the only times of the day when the two of us are alone together. But then we get to the stop and mean Mrs. Archer is standing there, glowering at the two of us—especially Nico. But lately, Nico hasn’t even been waiting for me to walk to the bus stop. He just dashes out the door in the morning and barely looks at me while we wait for the bus to arrive.
So this morning, I wake up extra early to make sure he doesn’t leave before I do. When I get downstairs, there’s no sign of Nico. I figure I have just enough time for a quick bowl of cereal for breakfast, although when I get in the kitchen, Martha is cleaning, and I don’t want to get in her way. It’s so weird having a woman who comes to our house to clean. Back in the Bronx, only our rich friends had cleaning people, and I’m pretty sure we’re not rich.
“Do you want breakfast?” Martha asks me.
I nod. “Can you pass me the box of corn flakes?”
Martha’s eyes widen. “Corn flakes for breakfast?”
I don’t understand why she looks so horrified by that. What’s so wrong with having cereal for breakfast? I mean, isn’t that what cereal isfor?
