Amber Brown Is Green with Envy by Paula Danziger Read Free Book Online Page A

so he is dictating it.
    I say, “Mom, please promise me that you will try to find a house in town.”
    She nods. “We will
try
.”
    She said that so quickly.
    I wish that I hadn’t used the word TRY and asked her to promise that they WOULD find a house in town.
    Somehow, I don’t think that she would have made that promise.
    I guess that I’m just going to have to wait to find out.

Chapter
Eleven

    My dad has a date.
    He’s going out with some lady he met today at the grocery store.
    Most parents leave grocery stores with bags filled with food and toilet paper.
    My dad leaves with the telephone number of the woman he met in the freezer section while deciding which flavor of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to buy.
    She suggested Chubby Hubby.
    Then she said that, as a single person, it was the only hubby in her home.
    I should have gone with him when heasked me to go instead of taking a bath.
    I would have told him to buy the chocolate chip cookie dough.
    But I wasn’t there, so he got Chubby Hubby ice cream and a date for tonight.
    He promised to take me to the movies tonight.
    Now he is taking a stranger to the movies instead.
    He promised to take me.
    I think about it.
    When he was looking for apartments, he promised me that I could help him choose one….. and then he found this place without me.
    After that, he said that he would NEVER break a promise to me again…. and NOW he has.
    I’m sitting in this house, very mad.
    I’d call Mom and go home, but I know that she and Max have gone to New York City to a play.
    My dad keeps saying that he really wants to spend some time with me, especially now that there is a chance that I will be moving to another town.
    So here I am at his place, and there he is, out on a date with someone who he just met today at the Grand Union.
    I am not very happy about it.
    In fact, I am VERY NOT HAPPY about that. My dad keeps saying how upset he will be if I move away. He keeps saying that he is going to get a lawyer to make sure that I don’t move out of town…. that he will spend as much time and money legally as it takes to spend time with me.
    And then he leaves.
    On a date with someone he doesn’t even know.
    I am not only not happy. I am very sad. I am very angry.
    I’m here at his house, without him.
    Steve is also not here.
    He’s gone to a party.
    Savannah is also not here.
    She’s gone to a friend’s pajama party.
    I could have gone to Kelly’s house. Brandi’s there tonight. We could have had a pajama party too.
    Dylan is here, in his room playing computer games.
    I am not alone, though.
    Brenda, Polly and I are giving each other facials.
    I’m hanging out with the teenagers.
    If I weren’t so angry with my dad, I would be having a totally great time.
    Now it’s only a sort of great time because I’m feeling sad and mad.
    “Leave it on for twenty minutes and be careful not to get any of it in our eyes.” Polly looks up from reading the instructions. “Also, maybe we shouldn’t put it on our lips. We don’t want to swallow it.”
    Soon our faces are totally green.
    We’ve got scarves so that the gunk does not get into our hair.
    It’s really nice of Polly to share the Christmas present that she got from Brenda.
    The green gunk hardens on our faces.
    We can’t really talk.
    We can’t even smile.

    Dylan walks into the kitchen and looks at us.
    He pretends to be terrified. “Oh, no. It’s the creatures from the Green Latrine.”
    Dylan starts talking to himself. “Okay. I won’t let them get me. I know there is a way to save myself. Let me think. With vampires, it’s garlic. With the creatures from the Green Latrine, it’s….. !”
    He goes to the freezer, pulls out an ice cream sandwich, goes back and takes two more. “Now I’m safe.”
    Polly makes a face. The gunk cracks and flakes. “That boy will find any excuse to eat as many ice cream sandwiches as he can.”
    We go to the sink and wash the mess off our faces. Then we put this clear smelly