Even the fact that Theresa was in the kitchen baking when I got home didn’t cheer me up. It was just pumpkin pies (blech) for tomorrow. And they weren’t even for us. They were for Theresa’s own kids, and grandkids too. What with being with us all week, the only chance Theresa had to get ready for Thanksgiving was when she was at our house. My mom didn’t mind. We always had Thanksgiving at my grandma’s in Baltimore, anyway, so it wasn’t like she needed the oven, or anything.

“What’s the matter with you?” Theresa wanted to know when I came into the kitchen, dropped my coat and backpack and started right in on the Graham Crackers without even complaining about how come we only got the good stuff when Jack came over.

“Nothing,” I said. I sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the back of the novel Rebecca was reading. She’d apparently abandoned romance for sci-fi once again, since she held the latest installment in the Jedi Academy saga. I felt, all things considered, that she had made a wise decision.

“Then stop with the sighing already.” Theresa was tense. Theresa was always tense before the holidays. She said it was because she never knew which one of his ex-wives Tito was going to show up with ... or if he’d show up with an entirely new one. Theresa said it was more than any mother should be forced to bear.

I sighed again and Rebecca looked up from her book.

“If you’re upset because Jack’s not here,” she said in a bored voice, “don’t be. He and Lucy’ll probably be rolling in in a few minutes. They just walked down to the video store to get a copy of Die Hard. You know that’s Dad’s favourite holiday movie.”

I sniffed. “Why would I be upset about Jack not being here?” I demanded. When Rebecca just rolled her eyes, I went, in maybe a louder voice than I ought to have, “I don’t like Jack, you know, Rebecca. In that way, I mean.”

“Sure, you don’t,” Rebecca said—but not like she believed it—and went back to her book.

“I don’t,” I said. “God. As if. I mean, he’s Lucy’s boyfriend.”

“So?” Rebecca turned a page.

“So I don’t like him like that, OK?” God, was I going to have to spend the rest of my life denying my true feelings to everyone I knew? I mean, at school everyone was all, Sam and David, Sam and David. Even the press, since our big ‘date’ had been all, Sam and David, Sam and David. There’d been something about it on the news. The national news. Not like the lead story, or anything, but like one of those little human interest things five minutes before the news hour was up. It was totally humiliating. The reporters were all, “And Christmas isn’t the only thing in the air here in the Capital. No, young love seems to be in the air, as well.”

It was totally revolting. I mean, it was no wonder David hadn’t shown up to Susan Boone’s. The place had been crawling with reporters, a bunch of whom had yelled, as I’d darted past them, “Did you and David have a nice time at the party, Sam?”

Which reminded me of something. I looked at Rebecca and went, in the snottiest voice I could, “Besides, if I supposedly like Jack so much, what’s with this frisson thing you said you sensed between me and David? Huh? How can I have frisson with one guy if I’m supposedly in love with someone else?”

Rebecca just looked at me and went, “Because you are completely blind to what’s right in front of you,” then went back to her book.

Blind? What was she talking about, blind? Thanks to Susan Boone, I had never seen better in my life, thank you very much. Wasn’t I drawing the best eggs in the studio? And what about those gourds I’d done yesterday? My gourds had been better than anyone’s. My gourds had blown everyone else’s gourds out of the water. Even Susan Boone had been impressed. During critique at the end of class, she’d even said, “Sam, you are making enormous strides.”

Enormous strides. How could a blind person be making enormous strides in ART class?

I mentioned this to Rebecca, but she just went, “Yeah? Well, maybe you can see eggs and gourds, but you sure can’t see anything else.”

I said the only thing then that an older sister can say to a younger one who is acting like she thinks she is all that. Lord knows, Lucy has said it to me often enough.

After I said it, Theresa sent me to my room.

But I didn’t care. I liked it better in my room anyway. In fact, if I had my way, I’d never come out of my room again, except maybe for meals and, of course, for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that’s it. Because every time I leave my room, it seems like I just get into trouble. I’m either saving people from getting assassinated or getting into arguments about Picasso or being told I’m blind.

Well, that’s it. I’m staying in my room for ever. And nobody can stop me.

They fully made me come out of my room to go to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving dinner.