One-Third Nerd by Gennifer Choldenko & Églantine Ceulemans

Author:Gennifer Choldenko & Églantine Ceulemans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

“All my friends would be in a different class,” I say.

“That too.” She nods.

“Yeah, but you always say family first. Dad is family.”

“Yes, and he always will be, but I think you’re old enough to understand that relationships are complicated.”

“I guess,” I whisper.

“I’m sorry, Liam. I wish I had a different answer for you.” She pulls on Cupcake’s stick, which splits into two. Cupcake tries to fit both halves in her mouth. “So, what happened at the maker fair meeting? Were a lot of parents there?” Her voice has a little squeak.

“Yes.”

“Oh boy.” She looks up at the small yellow sliver of a moon with the big shadow of a full moon beside it.

“The teacher asked if Dakota had a parent with her. Then Mr. Gupta jumped in because Dakota was driving Mrs. Johnson crazy. But Mr. Gupta is going to help her with her project.”

“Mr. Gupta is your tennis coach, isn’t he?”

“Uh-huh, and he teaches science to fourth and fifth.”

“You like him?”

We circle back to our driveway.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Mom. He knows how to figure kids out.”

Mom drops the leash handle so Cupcake won’t pull her down the stairs. She holds the handrail and waits at the top while we finish our conversation.

“Did Dakota tell you what else she did?” I ask.

Mom picks at the splintery stairwell banister. “There’s more?”

“She sold my Bigfoot stuff and Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey on eBay.”

“How is that even possible?” Mom cries. “I curse that laptop.”

Uh-oh. She’s not going to take the laptop away, is she? She’s always saying they didn’t have laptops when she was a kid. They had to look up words in a book. “We can’t do our homework without it!” I cry.

She nods. “So you say. Does Izzy know?”

“She knows about Bigfoot, but not about Pinky, Purpley, and Bluey.”

“Dakota just can’t understand that other people see things differently than she does.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s because she’s young.”

“She’s in third grade, Mom. I wasn’t like that when I was in third grade.”

“Every child is different.” She sighs. “Look, I really appreciate how good you are with her. I know she can be challenging.”

“Mom…really…what’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Dakota. Cunning as a dunny rat, maybe. I mean, I don’t even know how she managed to start her own eBay account.” She laughs. “But she’ll grow into herself. You’ll see.”

“She did it with your PayPal account. The password comes up automatically on the laptop.”

“Oh boy.” Mom sighs again.

I follow her down the stairs to where Cupcake is waiting patiently for us. “Izzy’s the one who’s supposed to be hard.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” She smiles at me as she opens the door. “But you do well with both of them. I really appreciate you, love.”

Sometimes I like when she says things like this. Other times, I wish she wouldn’t depend on me so much.

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