FLIPPED by Van Draanen Wendelin

Author:Van Draanen, Wendelin [Wendelin, Van Draanen,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published: 2008-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Looming Large and Smelly

Sunday I woke up feeling like I'd been sick with the flu. Like I'd had one of those bad, convoluted, unexplainable fever dreams.

And what I've figured out about bad, convoluted, unexplainable dreams of any kind is that you've just got to shake them off. Try to forget that they ever happened.

I shook it off, all right, and got out of bed early 'cause I had eaten almost nothing the night before and I was starving! But as I was trucking into the kitchen, I glanced into the family room and noticed that my dad was sacked out on the couch.

This was not good. This was a sign of battles still in progress, and it made me feel like an invader in my own territory.

He rolled over and kind of groaned, then curled up tighter under his skinny little quilt and muttered some pretty unfriendly-sounding stuff into his pillow.

I beat it into the kitchen and poured myself a killer bowl of corn flakes. And I was about to drown it in milk when my mother comes waltzing in and snags it away from me. “You are going to wait, young man,” she says. “This family is going to have Sunday breakfast together.”

“But I'm starving!”

“So are the rest of us. Now go! I'm making pancakes, and you're taking a shower. Go!”

Like a shower's going to prevent imminent starvation.

But I headed down to the bathroom, and on my way I noticed that the family room was empty. The quilt was folded and back on the armrest, the pillow was gone…it was like I'd imagined the whole thing.

At breakfast my father didn't look like he'd spent the night on the couch. No bags under his eyes, no whiskers on his chin. He was decked out in tennis shorts and a lavender polo shirt, and his hair was all blown dry like it was a workday. Personally I thought the shirt looked kind of girly, but my mom said, “You look very nice this morning, Rick.”

My father just eyed her suspiciously.

Then my grandfather came in, saying, “Patsy, the house smells wonderful! Good morning, Rick. Hi there, Bryce,” and winked at me as he sat down and put his napkin in his lap.

“Lyn-et-ta!” my mother sang out. “Break-fast!”

My sister appeared in a triple-X miniskirt and platform shoes, with eyes that were definitely of the raccoon variety. My mother gasped, but then took a deep breath and said, “Good morning, honey. You're… you're …I thought you were going to church this morning with your friends.”

“I am.” Lynetta scowled and sat down.

Mom brought pancakes, fried eggs, and hash browns to the table. My father just sat there stiff as a board for a minute, but finally he shook out his napkin and tucked it into his collar.

“Well,” my mother said as she sat down, “I have come up with a solution to our situation.”

“Here it comes …,” my father muttered, but my mother gave him a glare that shut him down cold.

“The solution is …,”

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