Amber Brown Is Green with Envy (3 page)

I, Amber Brown, am now one unhappy Amber Brown. How dare they go to Disneyland without me?

I don’t think that’s fair.

I don’t think it’s fair that Mom told me that they were going without me.

If I weren’t a shared-custody kid, I would be there right now with them.

I’d be going to Disneyland.

Dylan comes into the room, playing the accordion that his uncle Hugo sent him.

The Marshalls’ uncle Hugo is always sending Dylan very loud instruments as presents.

Steve says that his brother does that for all of the years of teasing that Steve did to Hugo when they were kids.

I think about how Mom and Aunt Pam are in California and will be going to Disneyland and hanging out with Mickey Mouse and Goofy….. and how I’m here in New Jersey and hanging out with Dylan, who is acting very Mickey Mouse and Goofy…. with an accordion.

I, Amber Brown, am green with envy.

That’s what my parents say means “very jealous.”

Well, I, Amber Brown, am green with envy.

I am not only green….. I am feeling blue….. I am seeing red….. I am purple with anger….. I am not feeling like a rainbow. I am feeling plaid. All of these colors mix together to make a not very pretty pattern.

I, Amber Brown, do not like plaid.

And I don’t think my mom should have called and made me feel so bad.

I look at Dylan, who is now playing the accordion while balancing a can of soda on his head.

I want to cry.

My dad and Steve walk into the room, carrying bags of groceries.

Steve looks at Dylan, takes the can of soda off his head and says, “Dylan, my son, let’s call Uncle Hugo, and you can play a song for him on that fine accordion. And if he is not in, you can play every song you know onto his answering machine. I won’t mind paying for that phone bill.”

“Amber,” my dad says, coming over and
giving me a kiss on the top of my head. “We’re going to have dinner up here with Steve and the kids tonight.”

“Mom and Aunt Pam are going to Disneyland tomorrow,” I tell him.

My dad says nothing for a minute and then he sighs. “Did your mom send you a postcard and tell you that?”

“No,” I say. “She called. She misses me.”

My dad sounds a little angry. “And she doesn’t think that I miss you when you are with her? But I don’t call you up and tell you that.”

I look at him. “Yes, you do.”

He starts to say something, but doesn’t.

Then he says, “Amber in the Middle.”

I look at him again. “That makes it sound like a game….. but it’s not a fun one.”

“I know,” he says.

Polly comes back into the kitchen. “I just heard the accordion recital that Dylan is
leaving for Uncle Hugo on his answering machine. Our uncle is going to be very happy that the delete button was invented.”

That makes me laugh, but I kind of wish that Polly hadn’t come in just now. I wish that Dad and I could have talked more about “Amber in the Middle” and how I feel about that. It’s kind of hard, though, to ask her to leave since this is really her kitchen. And it’s kind of hard for Dad and me to leave because it would seem rude.

Steve and Dylan come back into the room.

Dylan is still playing the accordion.

I wish that someone had given him lessons for Christmas.

I wish that his uncle had given him a CD with good accordion music on it.

I’m not sure that I would like accordion music even if it was played well.

My dad takes out his wallet. “Dylan. Five bucks, just this one time, if you play far, far away every time I ask you to.”

“I don’t know that song.” Dylan stops squeezing on the accordion.

“It’s not a song that I’m talking about,” my dad teases. “It’s distance.…I don’t want you to PLAY a song called ‘Far, Far Away’ I want you to GO far, far away to play.”

I, Amber Brown, know that my dad is kidding around…but I hope that doesn’t make Dylan feel bad.

Dylan doesn’t, because he turns to everyone and says, “Anyone else willing to make the same deal? Five bucks so that I don’t play the accordion around you.”

His dad gives him five. I give him one. (Dylan said that I get a junior citizen discount.) Savannah gives him fifty cents. Polly gives him a dollar and fifty cents.

Dylan counts it up. “Thirteen bucks. My first gig. Maybe I can organize a concert that I promise not to play at……I could make a lot of money that way.”

Dylan leaves with his accordion.

Something tells me that this is the best dollar that I have ever spent.

Soon we are all together again and ready to make soap.

When the liquid soap comes out of the microwave, we pour it into molds, pick out the dyes that we want to add to it, color the wax, and then put things in it.

I make mine light red and put the cockroach in it.

It looks really gross.

I, Amber Brown, really love it.

My dad makes one and puts a tiny tennis racket in it.

I make one for him. It’s got a make-believe cell phone in it. That’s to remind him to stay off the cell phone when we do things.

It used to make my mom really mad that he was on the cell phone all the time.

My mom….. I remember….. this time tomorrow she will be in Disneyland.

Sad.

I’m not sure what kind of soap I should make her.

I decide to use the heart mold, put pink soap in it and then add red glitter.

I decide on that because I love my mom, but also because sometimes I feel like a heart soap that gets goopy/melty after it’s used.

Polly yells, “Dylan! I hate you.”

I look over at Dylan and Polly. Polly looks really angry, really angry….. and almost ready to cry. She is staring at the table in front of them.

I look down.

She has a lot of Polly Pocket toys, old ones and new ones, little ones and big ones. She doesn’t play with them now that she’s a big kid. She collects them because of her name.

Dylan’s taken Ice Castle Polly, Vet Polly, Slumber Party Polly and Mermaid Polly and put them into the hardening soap. The
heart, circle, shell and star cases are sitting there without their Pollys.

Steve goes up and looks closely at what Dylan has done.

Dylan gets sent to his room.

We try to rescue the Pollys, putting them under hot water to melt the soap.

The Pollys are freed, a little cleaner…all except for Ice Castle Polly, who has gone down the drain.

The Pollys are no longer in hot water.

Dylan still is.

He has to give Polly the thirteen dollars that he just got….. and seven dollars more.

We continue to make soap.

I make one for Max. I put some miniature bowling pins and a tiny bowling ball in his soap cake. Max is the coach of my bowling team.

My dad looks at it and I can hear him mumble, “I hope that guy strikes out.”

I, Amber Brown, am a little confused. People get strikes in bowling and that’s a good thing. People strike out in baseball and that’s a bad thing.

My dad knows sports, and I don’t think he’s confused about strikes in baseball and bowling.

I think that he’s talking about splits, how Max and Mom should break up.

It’s a bad thing when my dad does that.

And I don’t like it when my mom says bad things about my dad either. She does that sometimes, especially after she has talked to him on the phone.

Sometimes it feels like a sports game and that I, Amber Brown, HAVE to choose one team over the other.

Packing.

I, Amber Brown, am packing to go back to the house where I live with my mom.

Into my suitcase go the clothes that I brought over.

Into my knapsack go my schoolbooks with the homework that I did over the holiday.

It will be great to see Mom.

I will miss being with Dad and with the Marshalls, but it will be so wonderful to see her and to have some quiet time again…time
where Dylan won’t be around, driving me crazy!

I wonder if Max will be there when I get back. I wonder if he missed Mom almost as much as I did.

I look around the room.

Dad and I went shopping for things to decorate, and I got some great stuff.

On my wall is a large neon clock. It not only keeps time, but if I don’t turn it off, it’s like a giant night-light.

I also got a purple Lava lamp, which Dad and I named Lana the Lovely Lava Lamp.

In my closet are a whole bunch of new clothes, ones that will stay here. Dad says that I won’t have to cart a lot of stuff back and forth. But I know that he really wants my new stuff to stay at this house. I wrote little D’s (for Dad’s house) on the labels so that I remember what stays in this house.

When I get to Mom’s and my house, I’ll write M on the clothes that stay there.

I look at my clothes once more before I go.

It was so much fun to shop for them.

Polly and Brenda went with me to choose things at the stores where I had gift certificates, the stores that already had after-the-holiday sales.

Dylan said that to do as much shopping as we did, for so many hours, would have been the worst torture for him.

I loved shopping with Polly and Brenda.

After it was all finished, we went to the
food court and looked at boys’ rear ends and decided which were the cutest.