Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue by Paula Danziger

Author:Paula Danziger [Danziger, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101657188
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1998-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

It’s not a great poem, but it’s better than the one Bobby said in class the other day … “I’m a poet, but my toes don’t show it.”

There’s a knock on the door.

This time it’s my mom.

She gives me a kiss and then looks at my homework.

“Mom,” I say, “I have something to tell you.”

Then before I can tell her, I start to cry.

“Dad …..” I sniffle.

“Is he all right?” She sounds worried.

“Dad called.” I sniffle again.

“And?” she asks, holding my hand.

“And he wants to spend Thanksgiving with me.” I look at her.

“Oh.” She takes a deep breath. “For a minute, I thought it was something terrible.”

I look at her.

She’s being much calmer than I thought she would be.

I wonder if she still cares about my dad.

She thinks for about a minute, and then I can tell she realizes what it will mean to us …. and Walla Walla.

Trouble. Trouble.

I watch my mother’s face. First she looks surprised, then angry, and then she bites her lip.

When my mother doesn’t want to say something, she bites her lip.

She keeps her teeth on her lower lip for a long time.

Then she sighs. “Well, it isn’t good, but at least no one is hurt … or sick or anything. It is terrible, though, for our plans.”

“Mommy, what are we going to do? What am I going to do?” When I get upset, I call my mom “Mommy,” even though it seems a little babyish.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, honey. I have to think about this before I say something that I’m going to regret later.”

I just sit there.

She sighs.

Sometimes our family sighs a lot.

She gets up, gives me a kiss on the forehead, and says, “Give me a few minutes to think about this. I’ll tell Brenda that she can leave now, and then I’ll do some thinking and then come up here and talk to you.”

She leaves.

I know that her “thinking” is going to have something to do with phone calls …. to my dad, to Max.

She goes downstairs.

I look at my homework, not able to work on it anymore.

“Amber, see you soon,” Brenda yells up the stairs.

“’Bye for now,” I yell back.

I just sit there and wait for my mother to come back.

She does.

I can tell that she’s been crying from the mascara on her face and how puffy her eyes are.

Mom sits down on my bed. “Amber, I’ve talked to your father. He really does want to see you. He thought we’d all be here and you could spend part of the vacation with each of us. I’ve tried to explain to him that we didn’t do it intentionally … to take you away just when he was returning … it’s just that we’ve gotten used to his not being around. It may have been a mistake to plan this right now … but we didn’t do it intentionally.”

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