out in the middle of the show. On the plus side, I threw myself into classes and studying, and easily pulled Karl from his newspaper every night at dinner with deep discussions about U.S. history, physics, and what could have possibly driven the otherwise brilliant T. S. Eliot to write Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. I had been a great student all year, but now I was Super Scholar, more knowledgeable than a speeding megacomputer, able to read tall textbooks in a single sitting.
With so much on my plate, time flew, and soon it was Thanksgiving break. It started out perfectly. My report card came in the mail, and it whisked me into Chrysella's honor roll stratosphere. Karl practically had a party for me when he saw it. He faxed the report card right to Stevenson Jaffe. If I got really lucky, I figured Dean Jaffe would be so blown away that he'd suggest I skip the rest of junior and senior years and get my butt to Northwestern immediately.
I spent Thanksgiving morning with my parents—or technically with Mom, since Karl's Thanksgiving was all about the NFL. Mom made the bird, the stuffing, and the pumpkin pie and set the table. I handled the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, and the rolls. I was also the official cranberry sauce musher. I took great pride in crushing away every last vestige of metal can lines. My aunt and uncle came in from Connecticut with my two little cousins and their super-mellow corgi mix, Lulu, and I forgot everything in the happy flurry of family chaos.
That night Karl fell asleep in front of the TV while Mom and I cleaned up. It took forever, but then we settled in at the kitchen table for late-night coffee and pie.
"Did you have fun today?" Mom asked.
I nodded, my mouth full. "I'm totally getting a dog like Lulu when I have my own place."
"She's a sweetie." Mom took her last bite of pie and a swig of coffee, then said, "So I spoke to Bina the other day..."
I froze. I looked at Mom, but she was concentrating on running her finger over her plate to sweep up scrapes of pumpkin. She wasn't giving me her Face of Ultimate Sympathy. That meant she might not know.
"Really?" I asked. "How is she?"
"She's good. She mentioned she hadn't seen you in a while, and I said I'd noticed the same thing, that you and Archer didn't seem to be spending time together. Is everything okay?"
"Everything's great," I said. "We just both got busy, that's all. But if you talk to Bina again, tell her I say hi. I really like her."
Mom smiled, satisfied. "I will. I like her, too."
"Want to play backgammon?"
"We haven't played in ages. I don't even know where the board is."
"I do. I'll get it."
I raced upstairs, pausing for just a moment in the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and shock back the giant lump of emotion threatening to push its way out. I stared at myself in the mirror and took two deep breaths. I was strong. I was fine.
I smiled at my reflection and trotted off to grab the backgammon board.
Friday morning I drove out to Claudia's for the weekend. As always, it made me wish I'd never moved away or that she could go with me to Chrysella. It was just so easy with Claudia. There was no pressure of wondering if this person or that person liked me and wanted me around. There was no second-guessing everything I said and worrying that I was messing up a potential friendship. There was no new-school/new-friends angst. I could just be myself.
I'd promised my parents I'd be home by dinner Sunday so I could "get a good night's sleep" before school, but as I knelt on Claude's bedroom floor rolling up my sleeping bag, something huge and heavy slammed down in front of me. It was the giant yellow binder with THE LADDER written on the front.
"It's time," Claudia said. She sat cross-legged on her bed like a guru.
"Seriously? Haven't we had this discussion? Didn't we determine I was done with the Ladder forever?"
"In a fit of pique, you made a grandiose statement you didn't really mean. I shan't hold it against you."
"Oh, shan't you?"
"You fail to realize it, but you have already had tremendous success with the Ladder," she said.
There was no clever retort to that; it was so beyond the realm of sanity, I couldn't do anything