We All Looked Up by Wallach Tommy

Author:Wallach, Tommy
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

Peter

PETER HADN’T BEEN PLANNING TO go to the rally. both Bobo and that creep golden had been responsible for organizing the event, which was two strikes against it right there. And when Peter’s parents expressly forbade him and his sister from attending, that seemed to settle it for good. But everything changed when he woke up on Saturday morning.

Misery’s room was already empty, the wrinkles in the sheets of her unmade bed like a scrawled fuck you to the very idea of imprisonment.

His mom and dad were waiting for him at the kitchen table, fully dressed and looking solemn. His breakfast had already been arranged on a plate—scrambled eggs, bacon, whole-grain toast glistening with butter. So he was literally getting “buttered up” here—but why? Were they going to ask him to take their side in the next episode of “Misery gets reprimanded and still doesn’t give a shit”? Or maybe they were sending him out to the rally to drag her back home.

“We’re worried about your sister,” his mom said.

“What else is new?”

His parents didn’t so much as smile.

“She’s barely ever at home anymore.”

“She’s in love.”

Peter’s mom actually gave a little yelp of a laugh. “Love? At her age? Please. And now I can only assume she’s gone to this rally, even though we told her not to.”

Peter had heard this all before. “Yeah, but you know what she’s—”

“We can’t go on like this!” his dad shouted. “It’s totally unsustainable!”

Peter sensed now that he’d underestimated the scale of this intervention. It was an easy mistake to make, if you allowed yourself to forget about Ardor, which turned all existence into a soap opera. “You want to leave Seattle,” he guessed.

His mother took hold of his hand. “We can always come back, if we regret it.”

“We’re thinking we’d go camping first,” his dad said, “to really bond as a family. Then we can stay with your grandparents in Mendocino and see how it feels.”

“What about school?”

“I think school is the least of our worries now.”

Peter felt gripped with a sudden sense of panic. They couldn’t be serious, could they? Seattle was their home. Why would they want to let go of it, to let go of everything safe and familiar, at the most terrifying moment in any of their lives?

Then again, most of the people who mattered to Peter had already jumped ship—Cartier had gone to Oregon for some epic family reunion just a few days after the announcement, and Peter hadn’t heard a word from Stacy since her family moved to their lake house. Really, what was left for him here?

Only a fantasy. Only a shred of a hope.

“I need to think about this.”

“It’s not up to you—” Peter’s dad started to say.

“Of course,” Peter’s mom interrupted. “Take the day to process. We’re going to need your help in making Samantha understand why it’s the right decision.”

And that was where Peter found his angle. “Actually, I think I should go find her now, at the rally. It’ll give us a chance to talk one-on-one.

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