Dad paused for effect. I popped a mouthful of Cocoa Puffs. Mom lifted her coffee cup. Liam flipped a page. “The blind guy says, ‘Nah, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.’”

Liam laughed. I sprayed the table with cereal. Even Mom smiled.

“Good one, eh?” Dad winked at us.

“Good one,” Liam said.

While I wiped up my mess with a napkin, Dad added, “I was down in the dungeon yesterday. Regan tell you?”

Uh-oh. Brain warp. Bracing for Liam’s reaction, I hid my head behind the cereal box. When I peeked over, he was still reading his book. At least Dad hadn’t found anything. He hadn’t even seen the purse.

“The place is a dump,” Dad said. “The stuffing’s coming out of that sofa and the carpet looks like a herd of buffalo tramped through. It stinks down there, too. Like moldy pizza. I don’t know how you two can stand to live in such squalor.”

“We’ll clean it up,” Liam murmured.

“That’s not my point. I was thinking we should give the place an overhaul. You know, paint and recarpet. I could use my store discount. We’ll get some shelving units for all your computer parts and get them up off the floor. Once we clear out the room, we can set up a pool table or an entertainment center. Something we could all use.”

Liam smiled wanly at Dad. “That’s okay. I like it the way it is. We both do. Don’t we, Re?”

Dad’s fist hit the table. “No, it’s not okay. We’re going to make this a family project. All three of us. We start this weekend.” Dad rose to stomp into the kitchen. He yanked open the dishwasher and noisily stacked his coffee cup in the rack.

Liam called to him, “I’ve got a project to finish at the library on Saturday. And Sunday I promised Aly I’d take her to the movies. It’s sort of a date.”

Dad reappeared in the doorway, eyebrows arched. “Yeah?”

The thud of my jaw hitting the table almost betrayed Liam. I put in, “Yeah, and I have to work Saturday night. Plus, I have this paper due on Monday for English that I haven’t even started.” Which was true. I’d neglected all my other subjects to concentrate on chemistry. “Unless you want me to flunk out of school, I was planning to spend all day Saturday surfing the Internet for an essay to download.”

Liam got the joke, but the parental units were a little slow. Mom said, “We don’t have the money right now, Jack. Not for carpet. And especially not for a pool table or an entertainment center.” She continued to work on invoices for her clients, the way she’d been doing all morning. Then her cell rang.

That was our cue. Liam and I stood to go.

Dad charged through the dining room. “Hold it, you two.”

We slumped in unison.

“Liam, the walls in your room are a mess. What are all those holes?”

The holes. I’d forgotten about the holes. Every year Mom would buy a complete set of school pictures to send to relatives and friends. She’d frame and display our 8 x 10’s on the buffet in the dining room. By the end of the week, Liam’s picture would be turned face down and the extra pictures in the pack — the smaller ones and the wallet-sized — would mysteriously go missing. Only I knew where they went: to his room. He tacked them on his wall as a dartboard collage.

Every day Mom used to right Liam’s picture on the buffet, but I guess after a while she gave up the battle. She stopped buying school pictures when we got to middle school.

“Termites,” Liam mumbled, heading for the foyer.

Dad said, “And Regan, your room is a pig sty.”

He’d been in my room, too? How dare he! If he touched anything ...I had my crap arranged just the way I liked it. “Stay out of my room, Dad,” I ordered him. “Stay out of both our rooms.” I riddled Dad with eye bullets before barreling out the door after Liam. I had to sprint to catch up. “Don’t ask me how he got in there,” I wheezed at Liam’s back. “You need a better lock.”

He didn’t respond. He punched his secret code into the car’s keypad and unlocked the door.

“Can I get a ride?”

The door lock on the passenger side popped open and I circled around.

As Liam turned on the ignition, he said, “Did he even see the purse? Did he open the treasure chest?”

“No, thank God. I got there in time.” I fastened my seat belt.

Liam expelled a short breath. Like he was annoyed with me.

“What? Did you want me to let him try on your wigs?”

Liam’s jaw clenched.

Weird. He was sending out some signal I wasn’t picking up.

At the corner, slowing for the stop sign, he punched the button to retract the convertible top. It was a hundred below today, easy.

He dropped me off at school and peeled out of the lot. The signal arrived as I was trudging into the building, teeth chattering. He left his bedroom door unlocked on purpose. He meant for Dad to find his secret stash.

Was Liam crazy? Dad would never get it. He’d never understand. Liam was playing with fire, and he was going to get burned.

My lunch money was still sitting on the kitchen counter, which I figured out at noon as I approached my locker, plunging my hand into my purse and not connecting with a billfold. Crap. It was bad enough I had to slink into the cafeteria to buy a sandwich and chips from the vending machines so it wouldn’t be obvious I was standing alone in the hot lunch line. The machines were closer to my table — the smallest, darkest one in the forbidden corner of the cafeteria. Next to the nerds.

Maybe I could sit at Shannon Eiber’s table and share her lunch. She and her Chosen Ones crammed into the center table every day to compare sex lives. What else could be that funny? They laughed maniacally for the whole freaking hour.

The edge of a headache sawed at my eye socket and I wished I’d stayed home sick. I liked it better when mom made my lunch. Bologna roll-ups.

Wow, I hadn’t thought of bologna roll-ups in ages. I hated bologna roll-ups. At the moment, though, I’d sell my soul for a bologna roll-up.

In front of my locker I sank to the floor and buried my head in my knees. When did Mom stop making our lunches? In middle school? Same time she stopped buying our pictures? No, before that. Right after Christmas. I’d just turned ten.

“I have a lunch meeting today with sales and marketing,” Dad says, coming out of the hall buttoning his cuffs. “No need to pack me a lunch, Pat.”

A crash sounds in the kitchen and Liam and I both jump. We’re in the living room, where Liam is fixing my new CD player. Dad tried to program it last night and now it’s all screwed up.

Mom shrieks, “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I’ve been in here for the last hour making lunches. I’m always in here at the same time every day making lunches. That’s all I ever do. Cook for you, clean for you, take care of the kids...”

Dad blanches. “I’m sorry, hon. I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Mom shrills.

At times like this Liam and I play a game: Invisible shrinking dolls.

Dad quips, “It takes an hour to make bologna roll-ups? What do you have to do, slaughter the bologna?” He winks at us.

Liam sniggers. There’s another crash in the kitchen and Mom snipes, “Make jokes, Jack. That’s all you know how to do. Everything’s a joke to you.”

I sense Dad opening his mouth to make a joke, but he squelches it fast.

Mom goes on, “In the future, will you please have consideration enough to let me know in advance when you won’t be needing my services?” She storms out of the kitchen carting Liam’s and my thermal lunch bags. She practically throws them at us. “Get ready for school,” she snaps. “You’re going to be late.”

As Dad slips on his suit jacket, looking peevish, Mom stomps down the hall and slams the bedroom door.

I say, more to myself than anyone, “I don’t have school today. It’s teacher inservice.” I forgot to tell Mom. She should know, though. Why does she make me remind her? She’s always spacing important stuff like that.

Mom returns from the back hallway, shoving Dad’s wallet at him. “I suppose you’ll be late for dinner again.” She continues through the dining room and into the kitchen.

Dad pockets his wallet. “I might. I try to get out of there on time, but the big boss is in this week and nobody dares leave before he does. You know how that goes.”

I hear the refrigerator door open. Liam’s the one who is brave enough to do it. He takes my lunch from me, gets up, and pads into the kitchen. “Re doesn’t have school today, Mom,” he says nicely. “But I’ll take her lunch. I’ll take Dad’s, too. I get pretty hungry during the day.”

“So, what? I don’t pack you enough to eat?” There’s a clunk in the sink, like a frozen turkey just fell from the sky. “I don’t know why I even bother,” Mom says. “If I did go to work, none of you would even notice I was gone.”

“You know that’s not true,” Dad says sharply. Liam hurries back to the living room. “What is it with you lately?” Dad snipes at Mom. “Nothing we do around here is ever enough.”

“You don’t do anything!” Mom yells. “I do it all. You don’t even know what I do all day. You can’t even appreciate the drudgery of cooking and cleaning and catering to you and the kids. It’s mindless. It’s stifling.”

Dad’s barks, “Well, I’m sorry if we bore you. You keep talking about going to work, so go.” Dad throws up his hands. “We’re not forcing you to stay. Heaven forbid me and the kids should hold you down for one minute.” Dad’s mad. Madder than I’ve ever seen him.

Liam and I cower together in the living room. Be over, I think. Just be over.

Dad says, “Did you take a Valium today? Maybe you need to increase your dosage again.”

Mom charges out of the kitchen. I think she’s going to hit Dad, but instead, she stops and grabs the nearest object to her hand. It’s Liam’s picture off the buffet. She smashes it to the floor and the glass shatters.

Dad grips her wrist. “That’s enough. I’ve had it with you.” The way he’d say to us, to a child.

“No, Jack,” Mom shoots back. “I’ve had it with you. I’ve had it with you and these kids and my life. It isn’t enough. I keep telling you that, but you won’t listen. I’m dying inside. I just want out!” She wrenches free of him and storms to the bedroom.

I lifted my head, the argument still ringing in my ears. Dying inside. She felt trapped, just like Liam. But opposite of him. She found her escape by looking outside herself, while Liam escaped within.

“Re, hi.” A presence loomed over me. “Are you okay?”

I scrambled to my feet. How long had Aly been standing there? “Yeah. I ... forgot my lunch money.”

“Here, I’ll give you some,” she said. Aly dug in her shoulder bag for her billfold and handed me a five.

“Thanks.” My brain was on delayed reaction. “I’ll pay you back.”

“You don’t have to.” Aly dropped her billfold back into her bag and pulled out something else. “If you see Liam, would you give him this?” She thrust a book at me, another graphic novel of Liam’s. Love Hina. “Tell him not to forget about Saturday, my art project, going to that sculptor’s studio. He should come by and get me around one.”

I nodded, making a mental note. All the mental reminders and memories were jamming up in my brain.

Aly bit her lip and added, “Has Liam said anything to you about prom?”

Prom. A switch tripped in my head. Luna. The flapper dress.

“Because I’d really like to go this year. I know he thinks it’s phony and pretentious, but it’s our senior year, you know? I even have a dress picked out.”

Will it fit Liam? I almost asked. Liam wasn’t anti-prom; he just wanted to be Queen. “He hasn’t said anything to me.”

Aly didn’t look convinced. Or satisfied.

Change of subject. “Could I borrow a couple Tylenol?” I said. My headache was carving a canyon in my skull.

“Sure.” She clawed through her bag again. “Is Excedrin okay?”

Excedrin. Ecstasy. Anything to dull the pain, blunt the memories.

She emptied two caplets into my palm.

“I’ll walk you to the cafeteria,” Aly said.

She waited at the drinking fountain while I knocked back the pills. As we started down the hall, Aly continued, “Maybe you could mention it to him. Drop a hint. Plant a subliminal suggestion in that thick skull of his.”

“Like it would penetrate,” I muttered.

“I know. Tie it to a brick.”

At the turnoff to the cafeteria Aly slowed and stopped. She hesitated a long moment. “He isn’t taking someone else, is he?”

“What?”

“Hel-loo.” Aly angled her head, like, tune in, Re. “He seems distracted lately, even more than usual. Like he’s withdrawing from me, from everyone. Keeping his distance. I don’t know. He’s done this before, but now it’s ... it’s different.” She trailed off, her gaze drifting over my shoulder. “Like he’s involved with someone else?”

Yeah, himself, I didn’t say. “There isn’t anyone else.”

Aly bit her lip again.

“Aly, I swear.”

“You’d tell me if there was, wouldn’t you, Re? You wouldn’t keep something like that from me. I mean, I’d want to know. Even if it hurt.”