True to Your Selfie by Megan McCafferty

Author:Megan McCafferty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Sundays are for cleaning the apartment. It used to be the only day of the week I was grateful not to live in a mansion as massive as Morgan’s, until I realized no one with a mansion as massive as Morgan’s actually cleans it themselves. My main responsibilities have always been decluttering (aka putting everything back in its place) and dusting. Since Lauren left for school, Mom and I split up her duties, so now I have to vacuum too. Mom has taken on mopping.

When Lauren, Mom, and I work together, we can get the whole place done in about an hour. I’m terrible with numbers, but since Mom and I split her jobs in half, mathematically it should only take Mom and I, like, thirty minutes more to clean the whole apartment without Lauren, right? But it hasn’t worked out that way. Mom and I are learning that like everything else, Lauren was an overachiever cleaner.

Mom bends down to inspect a scuff mark on the kitchen tile.

“Your sister got this floor cleaner in five minutes than I can in twenty!”

I turn the vacuum back on to avoid hearing another word about Lauren’s efficiency. My first-day-of-school peace-sign tee has been shedding bling all over the apartment since its last run through the washing machine. No matter how aggressively I push the vacuum over the carpet, the same stubborn sequins refuse to get unstuck.

This would make the worst Day in the Life video ever.

Hey, OMGs! So … this is me in my Dragonologist Chronicles T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms because it’s laundry day and I’m all out of cuteness! Vacuuming sucks. Ha ha! Get it? Stick around, and you’ll get to see me use a toilet brush! Jealous much?

Mom taps me on the shoulder. I can’t hear her over the roar of the vacuum. But I don’t have to hear her to understand.

Just pick them up, she pantomimes. If you keep running the vacuum over the same spot we will have nothing to show for our efforts except a hole in the carpet.

Mom is very expressive even without words.

I shut off the vacuum and get down on my hands and knees to pinch the sequins from the carpet fibers. An oldies pop song from Mom’s youth is blasting from the speakers.

“Roam if you want to,” Mom sings along to the stereo. “Roam around the world.”

It’s a bouncy pop song, sung by two women in lively unison that splits into harmony. Mom is smiling as she sings it, which is weird to me because this song makes me think of my Secret Map and how maybe our father might have taken those lyrics a little too much to heart.

I turn the vacuum back on so I don’t have to hear the rest of the song.

My mother is a terrible singer. Her voice lands in this tuneless space between alto and soprano, and if I didn’t already dislike this song, her version isn’t turning it into a fave. On Sundays, Mom always plays

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