Made You Up

Made You Up by Francesca Zappia Read Free Book Online

Book: Made You Up by Francesca Zappia Read Free Book Online
Authors: Francesca Zappia
GPS. You’d pass right through without realizing you were anywhere different. It’s just like the rest of centralIndiana: hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and the only way to know the weather other times of the year is to walk outside. You drive west to get to Hillpark and east to get to East Shoal, but nobody from either school can tell you the name of a single person who goes to the other, and they all hate one another.
    My parents didn’t grow up here or anything. They chose to live in this nowhere town. Why? Because it was named after Hannibal of Carthage. Their basic train of thought was this: Hannibal’s Rest? And we’re naming our child after Alexander the Great? MARVELOUS. Ah, the history, it tickles.
    Sometimes I wanted to beat my parents over the head with a frying pan.
    If you could say one thing about them, it was that they loved history. Literally, both of them were in love with history. Sure, they were in love with each other, but history was like the be-all, end-all of intellectual stimulation to them. They were married to each other and to history.
    So, naturally, they weren’t going to give their kids any old normal names.
    I was the lucky one. Alexander to Alexandra wasn’t a huge leap. Charlie, on the other hand, got the entire blunt force of the namesake sledgehammer: Charlemagne. So from the day she was born, I called her Charlie.
    I turned down my street and aimed for the one-story, dirt-colored house lit up like a Christmas tree. My mother had this thing about leaving all the lights on until I got home, as if I would forget which house was ours. The sounds of a furious violin poured from the living-room window. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture , as usual.
    I leaned Erwin up against the garage door and did a perimeter check. Street. Driveway. Garage. Front yard. Porch. House. The porch swing creaked and swayed like someone had just gotten out of it, but that could’ve been the wind. I did another check when I stepped in through the front door, but the house looked like it always did, cramped and barren at the same time. Charlie stood in the living room with her violin, playing her musical prodigy stuff. When my mother wasn’t teaching online college classes, she homeschooled Charlie like she had me, so Charlie was always practicing.
    My mother was in the kitchen. I braced myself, remembered not to do another perimeter check—my mother hated them—and went to find her. She stood at the sink, dishrag in hand.
    “I’m home,” I said.
    She turned. “I left out a bowl of soup for you. It’s mushroom, your favorite.”
    Minestrone was my favorite soup. Mushroom was Dad’s. She always got them mixed up. “Thanks, but I’m notreally hungry. I’m gonna go do my homework.”
    “Alexandra, you need to eat.”
    I hated that voice. Alexandra, you need to eat. Alexandra, you need to take your pills. Alexandra, you need to put your shirt on right side out.
    I sat down at the table, dropping my bag next to me. My books made a pitiful shunk sound, reminding me that I couldn’t let my mother look in my bag. She’d think I’d destroyed them, and that would definitely warrant a therapist call.
    “So, how was it?”
    “All right,” I replied, swirling the cold soup in the bowl, checking for poison. I didn’t really think my mother would poison me. Most of the time.
    “That’s it?”
    I shrugged. “It was all right. It was a day of school.”
    “Meet anyone interesting?”
    “Everyone’s interesting if you stare at them long enough.”
    She put her hands on her hips. Tally one for Things Alex Shouldn’t Say at the Dinner Table.
    “How did it go with that club?”
    “I really didn’t have to do that much. I like them, though. They’re nice.” Most of them. Mom hmm’d in her very passive-aggressive way.
    “What?” I shot.
    “Nothing.”
    I sipped a bit of soup. “I’m on speaking terms with the valedictorian and the salutatorian, if that makes you feel any better,” I

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