Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue

by Paula Danziger

  It was almost as if I had stopped breathing for a second …. and that wasn’t because I was choking from pretend-drinking the nail polish.

  I pick up the phone.

  “Where are you?” Kelly asks, and then giggles. “Well, actually, now I know WHERE you are …. THERE ….. but why aren’t you WHERE you are supposed to be …. HERE?”

  I say, “It’s my fault. We’ll be there soon.”

  I, Amber Brown, am starting to feel guilty that I made us late for going over to Kelly’s.

  I, Amber Brown, am feeling guilty a lot lately.

  It should be a nail polish color …. Amber Brown Gilt.

  We rush downstairs.

  Since we are so late, my mom says, “I’ll drive you over to Kelly’s.”

  I know that my mom is being nice to do that.

  I also know that she likes to see where I’m going to be when she doesn’t know the people I’m going to visit.

  I think that’s a Mom kind of thing to do.

  I wonder what my dad’s going to be like when he gets back.

  I wonder if he’ll check everything out the way Mom does.

  When they were married, Mom always did those things.

  I wish I didn’t keep thinking about all of this.

  I wish I could just think of the fun that I’m having with Brandi and the fun that I think we’re going to have at Kelly Green’s, unless Kelly is going to do something to get back at me for telling everyone that she barfed.

  I, Amber Brown, am turning into a major worrier.

  I, Amber Brown, have a lot to worry about.

  I, Amber Brown, wonder if Kelly has a nail polish named Kelly Greenbarf.

  I, Amber Brown, am going to try to have fun when we get to Kelly’s.

  One of my fingernails falls off.

  I catch it before it hits the carpet.

  It’s a great save.

  Since Kelly’s house is brand new, the carpet is also brand new.

  I, Amber Brown, would hate to be the first one to get the carpet dirty.

  If we were doing our own nails, I wouldn’t have to worry. My real nails don’t fall off. The false fingernails do. But my own nails have been so bitten down that there would be no room for all the stuff that we have to put on them …… nail polish, glitter, rhinestones, decals, silver and gold strips, tiny metal stars, and diamonds. Using the false nails is good because there’s room to decorate them, and they can come off and on.

  “Look.” Brandi shows us her thumbnail.

  It’s light blue with a rose decal in the middle, and on the left are three dark blue rhinestones.

  Kelly’s sheepdog, Darth Vader, comes over.

  He looks like a gigantic hair ball.

  Putting his chin on my knee, he slobbers all over my jeans.

  Gross.

  I don’t know what to do.

  One of my hands has newly painted nails on it.

  The other hand is holding the nail polish brush.

  Darth Vader slobbers more, and then he sneezes and gunk comes out of his nose.

  My knee is not a pretty sight.

  “I think he likes you.” Kelly giggles.

  I, Amber Brown, look at the slobber and snot on my leg and wish that Darth Vader liked me less.

  I wiggle my knee to try to get him to move.

  He just stays there and starts to wag his tail, which hits my other leg.

  I wiggle.

  He wags.

  I wiggle again.

  He wags …. and then he slobbers again.

  Darth Vader and I stare at each other for a minute.

  I blink first ….. at least I think I blink first. It’s hard to tell, with all that hair in front of his eyes.

  “Let’s paint his nails,” I say.

  Kelly, Brandi, and I look at each other and laugh.

  “We could do each one a different color.”

  We look at his feet.

  There’s a lot of hair on them.

  Kelly rushes up to her bedroom, and returns with lots of little barrettes.

  We pin back the hair around his toes, and then Kelly holds him down.

  Brandi holds out the nail-polish bottle.

  I kneel down and paint one of his nails Candy Apple Red.

  For the next one I use Perfectly Peach.

  He starts to lick his nails, so Kelly holds onto his head.

  When I finish painting all ten of Darth Vader’s toenails different colors, Brandi and I lie down on the floor and blow on his toes to help them dry faster.

  He slobbers on my head, so when I’m blowing on his nails, I spit on one to get even.

  He licks the top of my head.

  I, Amber Brown, will definitely have to take a shower when I get home.

  We spray his toenails with quick-dry liquid and then start working on our own nails. Darth Vader sits down beside me, chewing on the barrettes that are still on his feet.

  Darth Vader is a little weird, but if I ever got a dog, I think one like Darth Vader would be terrific, only smaller and less drooly. I know that there are big poodles and there are tiny poodles (which are called toy poodles). I wonder if there are such animals as toy sheepdogs. With my mom allergic to dogs, though, the only kind of dog that I’ve ever been able to get is one that is a toy. I wonder if my dad will let me get a dog when he moves back. I wonder who would take care of it while I’m at my mom’s. I wonder if he would take care of it, feed it, and walk it … and I, Amber Brown, could just play with it.

  Thinking about this reminds me of my worries, but right now I’m having a good time. I’m glad that Brandi made me come. I’m glad that Kelly is so nice.

  “Ooops.” Kelly’s nail falls off her thumb and lands on the floor.

  She picks it up.

  There’s carpet lint on it ….. and on the carpet is a spot of Shimmer Glitter Mauve.

  “Ooops,” Kelly says again.

  We all look down at the carpet and then at each other.

  “Ooops,” we all say.

  Kelly’s mother walks into the room and puts a plate of cookies on the table. “What is all this ‘ooopsing’ about?”

  Kelly swallows hard and then says, “Mom, it was an accident.”

  “You know that is one of my least favorite sentences,” Mrs. Green says. “What’s the accident?”

  Kelly points with one of her Shimmer Glitter Mauve fingernails. “Polish on the rug.”

  Mrs. Green does not look happy.

  She looks at the spot, saying nothing for a minute, then she sighs and reaches for the bottle of nail-polish remover and a cotton pad.

  We all sit quietly and watch as she tries to clean up the spot.

  I think …… Please, oh please ….. Out, darn spot….

  Kelly, Brandi, and I look at one another.

  I cross my fingers, getting nail polish on my hand.

  The polish comes off the rug.

  I, Amber Brown, am so relieved. I hate it when kids are having fun and something happens that ruins everything and makes a grown-up angry.

  “Be careful, now,” Mrs. Green says.

  We promise to be careful.

  Mrs. Green leaves, and then returns with trash bags to spread out on floor under us.

  When Darth Vader moves so that she can put the bags down, the barrettes clink against each other.

  Mrs. Green looks at him.

  Then she looks at us.

  Kelly shrugs. “We decided it would be quite a feat to do his nails.”

  I, Amber Brown, wonder if she means “feat” or “feet.”

  Mrs. Green laughs. “Your father refers to that dog as his first son. I’m not sure what he’s going to say when he sees his dog. I’ll just tell him that it’s the paws that refreshes.”

  She laughs again.

  I, Amber Brown, don’t get what she means by the paws refreshing…. But there are a lot of things grown-ups say that I don’t get.

  Mrs. Green keeps smiling, and says, “Just wait ’til your father gets home
.”

  That is something that I, Amber Brown, do understand.

  Just wait ’til your father gets home……. Kelly doesn’t look too upset about her father’s return.

  Now I, Amber Brown, just have to wait ’til my father comes home.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  It’s so weird.

  It feels like everything in my life is changing, but some things don’t.

  I still have to go to school.

  And I still have to sit through reports as if everything is normal.

  Jimmy Russell and Bobby Clifford get up to give their reports.

  I, Amber Brown, can’t believe that Mrs. Holt let them be a team. They goof around so much.

  “We are the Billington brothers,” Jimmy Russell and Bobby Clifford say at exactly the same time.

  “I am John, and I was seven when the Mayflower came over to America,” Jimmy says. “And I almost blew up the Mayflower with gunpowder when it got to Plymouth.”

  It’s obvious that Jimmy likes the character he is playing.

  “And I am Francis, and I was nine. During our first winter in Massachusetts, I climbed a tree and saw a lot of water. I thought it was the Pacific, but it was a large pond.”

  “Duh,” Hal Henry calls out.

  “Quiet,” Mrs. Holt says.

  Bobby says, “Yeah, quiet…. They named the pond ‘Billington Sea.’”

  “Double duh,” Hal says quietly.

  Then Bobby and Jimmy tell how the Billingtons were TROUBLE…. How John got lost in the woods for days, and how the Indians found him and helped him return. How their father was so bad that he was one of the few people arrested during the Pilgrims’ first year in America because he wouldn’t stand watch … and how he was hanged nine years later because he killed someone.

  Now this is interesting Thanksgiving information, I think. How come no one ever told us all of this before?

  I look at Bobby and Jimmy.

  This is such a great report they are giving that I wonder if they are telling the truth.

  I look at Mrs. Holt to see if she’s going to yell at them for making this all up, but she doesn’t. In fact, when they are finished, she tells them what a good job they did.

  Then she tells us how the Pilgrims who were going to the “New World” for religious reasons called themselves the “Saints” and all the others the “Strangers.” She says the Billingtons were part of the “Strangers” group.

  That explains why Bobby and Jimmy did such a good job…. They are a little strange themselves.

  I’m not sure I like the way the Pilgrims labeled the people who weren’t them.

  Next, Hannah Burton and Hal Henry get up.

  “I am a Pilgrim mother,” she says.

  “I am a Pilgrim father,” Hal says.

  I, Amber Brown, think that these two Pilgrims are definitely not “Saints” …… that both of them are “Strangers.”

  Pilgrim mothers ……

  Pilgrim fathers …….

  I start thinking about my own mother and father.

  I feel more like a Pilgrim turkey than a Pilgrim child…. And if I can’t decide what I am going to do this Thanksgiving, my goose is cooked.

  I think about it…. How can a turkey think about having a goose that is cooked? What does it really mean to have a goose cooked? Max is always saying that when we are watching television and someone gets into trouble. “His goose is cooked” is what he always says. And why do people call other people “turkeys”? I also wonder if someone could goose a turkey. These are a few of the things that I think about while I should be listening to the report.

  I kind of giggle when I think about someone goosing a turkey. Maybe that’s what it’s called when my mother goes into the turkey and pulls out one of those plastic bags filled with turkey parts, like the gizzard and liver and heart and whatever. She says that the first Thanksgiving dinner she cooked, she didn’t know that it was in there, so she cooked the bird with the bag still inside, mixed in with the stuffing.

  I wonder what the real first Thanksgiving would have been like if a Pilgrim mother had done something like that. Probably they didn’t have plastic bags then, though.

  I wonder what’s going to happen if Mrs. Holt realizes that I’m not paying attention to the report.

  Maybe if I paid attention to the report, I would find out more about geese and turkeys, but I, Amber Brown, have a lot on my mind.

  Tonight’s the night that my father gets back to America.

  I look over at the clock on the wall to see how many hours until his plane arrives.

  Five more hours …. and then he has to go through customs, rent a car, leave the airport, and go to the Donaldsons’ house, where he is going to stay until he finds an apartment.

  The Donaldsons used to be friends of my parents, until my parents got a divorce…. But after the divorce they were just friends of my dad’s. Mom says that in the divorce settlement, he got custody of the Donaldsons. She’s kidding, I think.

  I look at the clock again. Four hours and fifty-three minutes until he is in America…. And then, as soon as he can, he’ll come over to our house. He and I get to go out to dinner. Then we’ll come back home, and he and Mom and I will talk.

  I can’t wait.

  I look at the clock again.

  This time, Mrs. Holt is standing under the clock and looking at me.

  Quickly, I look back at the Pilgrim father and mother, Hal and Hannah.

  I use the Amber Brown technique of looking interested even when I’m not.

  I pick out something on their faces that I can stare at.

  Hal has a little scar above his left eyebrow.

  Hannah has a milk mustache.

  I am so glad that Hannah has a milk mustache and that no one told her before her report.

  I stare first at the scar and then at the mustache.

  That way I look very interested.

  Sometimes I make a little nod so that it looks like I’m thinking about what has been said.

  I only hope that Mrs. Holt doesn’t give us a quiz on this as soon as the report is over.

  She doesn’t.

  Hannah hands out a list of the real Thanksgiving Day menu, reminding us that it was cooked by four women.

  Hal hands out a list of all the known people at the first Thanksgiving Day dinner.

  It’s kind of weird.

  Mrs. Holt says that it wasn’t even called Thanksgiving Day when it first happened … and she gives us a lot of the real facts.

  This would be very interesting if I didn’t have so much on my mind.

  The only fact that I really want to know is which parent I spend Thanksgiving Day with this year.

  And no one else in the world has the answer to that but me.

  And I, Amber Brown, don’t have that answer yet.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  My dad is late.

  My dad is very late.

  I, Amber Brown, am going nuts because it’s almost eight o’clock and he’s still not here.

  My mom and I sit at the kitchen table, waiting for him and doing my “Book Report in a Bag.”

  Actually, I’m doing the report and she’s supervising, but I’m having trouble concentrating.

  Now it’s eight twenty-two, and my dad’s still not here.

  I’m all ready. I’ve got on my basic black leggings and one of the sweatshirts that he sent me, the one that says “I love Paris” in French. I’m also wearing a scrunchie that my Aunt Pam sent me. Some people might say it’s a little babyish, but I still love it. There are two round globes, and in each of them are all different colored jacks. It’s so “fun,” and I love the way they move when I turn my head.

  I hate that he’s late.

  It’s not his fault that he’s not here yet.

  It’s really not anyone’s fault.

  I, Amber Brown, don’t care that it’s not anyone’s fault.

  I just want him to be here.


  He called the second that he could, once he got off the plane and to a phone.

  The plane in Paris didn’t take off on time because of equipment trouble, and then there was a backup at Newark airport.

  Mom says that I should just be happy that Dad got back safely. She’s right, but I’m very disappointed that he’s not here and that the plans have changed.

  I really wanted to go out to dinner, just me and my dad. We were going to talk about everything and then come back to the house, and then Mom and Dad and I would talk. Now it’s just going to be THE TALK, and I’m not sure how much fun that’s going to be.

  I just wanted my dad to get back safely ….. and on time.

  He and Mom and I have to make THE BIG DECISION, because there are only a few days until Thanksgiving and plans have to be made.

  I, Amber Brown, still don’t know which parent I’m going to be with for the Thanksgiving vacation.

  “Let’s practice your book report,” my mom says. “Amber, I don’t want what’s happening to affect your schoolwork.”

  “I got an A on my Middle Ages report,” I remind her.

  She smiles. “I know. I’m very proud of you.”

  I like it …. I like it a lot …. when Mom says that she’s very proud of me.

  I think about all of the times she’s helped me with my homework.

  My dad used to help me, too, before the divorce and before he moved to Paris.

  I bet he’ll help me now that he’s back.

  I hope that he’ll be proud of me, too.

  I wonder if they’ll both be proud of me when I make my decision.

  I, Amber Brown, am getting so tired of thinking about all of this over and over again.

  Starting my report, I turn my head, and the balls with the jacks in them make a clinky sound. I like that sound. My “Book Report in a Bag” is on The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis.

  I hold up the brown paper bag that groceries came in. On the front, I’ve drawn a picture from the book. It’s of the Watsons, the mom and dad and the two brothers and the sister, in the car. The two brothers are in the backseat fighting with each other, and the parents are in the front seat being driven crazy by the brothers while they are driving from Detroit, Michigan, to Birmingham, Alabama.