Read Online How I Saved My Father's Life (and Ruined Everything Else) by Ann Hood - Free Book Online Page A

extension!” Misty Glenn said.
    It took me a minute to realize she was talking to me. She yelled everything, like a gym teacher.
    I knew I had a nice extension. I didn’t need Misty Glenn to tell me that. One thing was certain, I was suffering. Sainthood had to be right around the corner.
    The next day at school, Mai Mai Fan almost knocked me down in the hallway. She was carrying her cello case and heading for the front door.
    â€œSorry, Madeline,” she called over her shoulder. “I can see you are miserable, but I don’t want to miss my bus.”
    â€œWhat bus?” I asked her. She didn’t stop, of course. Mai Mai never stopped.
    I hurried to catch up with her. “What bus?” I said again.
    â€œMy bus to Boston. I have my advanced cello lesson there every Monday afternoon. At the Conservatory,” she added. “No one here can teach me anything anymore.”
    If some kids said these very words, they would be bragging. But not Mai Mai. Her life was a giant list of accomplishments. That’s really all she had to talk about. She was excellent at everything.
    â€œDo you take that bus alone?” I asked her.
    â€œOf course. I get off at South Station and get on the Red Line,” she said.
    She told me every step she took, but I stopped listening. If Mai Mai Fan, age eleven—she had skipped a grade—could take a bus and a subway to Boston and back by herself, then surely so could I.
    â€œNow you look happy,” Mai Mai said. “Good.”
    She ran out the door, and disappeared.
    â€œNo way,” my mother said. “No way.”
    â€œMai Mai Fan—” I started, but my mother looked at me all puzzled.
    â€œWhat?” she said.
    â€œMai Mai Fan is a who, not a what,” I told her. When your daughter has only a couple of friends, you would think a mother might remember their names.
    â€œThe chess champion?” my mother said.
    â€œShe is only eleven and she takes the bus by herself every Monday.”
    We were on our way home from school. I hadn’t wasted any time. Returning to Madame’s class was too important.
    â€œI am the king of the air,” Cody said from the backseat. He had on a stupid paper crown that all the kindergarten kids had made that day.
    â€œThen you are the king of exactly nothing,” I told him. “Air is nothing.”
    My mother had already moved on in topics of conversation. “I have to stop at Whole Foods and see if they carry pomegranate molasses. Jessica says everything is pomegranate this year.”
    â€œIf air is nothing, then why do we say good night to it in Goodnight Moon ?” Cody said. I could tell he was close to breaking down, and that made me feel slightly better.
    With this renewed strength of purpose I said, “Maybe I’ll just go and live with Daddy and go to the American Ballet Theatre school.” For some peculiar reason, when I said this I felt queasy, not elated.
    â€œShe wants me to do an entire pomegranate menu,” my mother said with disgust. “As if kids like pomegranates.”
    I looked at her. I had just threatened to leave home and all she could talk about were pomegranates?
    Cody was starting a full-fledged meltdown. “Are thosethe little orange things where we have to eat the skin?” he was saying, all panicked.
    â€œNo,” I said, my voice as sweet as pomegranate molasses, “they’re the red things where you eat just the seeds.”
    â€œWhy do you act this way?” my mother said.
    â€œThey are the ones where you eat the seeds,” I told her. Then I looked out the window. We were driving down Waterman Street and it was clogged with students from Brown University.
    â€œAnd by the way,” I said, “were you even listening to me? I said if you didn’t let me go to Boston on the bus by myself then I would go and live with Daddy.” That queasy feeling came right back, as soon as I said those