“It’s a big night,” Dad says. “First night in the new house.” He throws his arms up, gesturing to the house behind him. “Not too shabby, huh, Sweet Pea? And I’ve got some curry chicken pot pie in the oven.” Dad pushes his fingers through his hair. Mom used to call it one of his nervous tics—fidgeting with his hair. I’m white, like both my parents, but like Dad I’ve got an olive-y undertone and have the same black hair as he does. It’s wiry and thick, like his bushy eyebrows, which it looks like he passed on to me too.

I give the tiny porch one good look, trying my best to give this place a chance. The only thing that makes this house feel more like home than Mom’s place is Dad’s beat-up work truck out front—a black pickup with a bed full of scaffolding and painting supplies. “Same street. New house.”

“I even painted the door to match,” he points out. And sure as heck, he did. “I was thinking we’d get a porch swing just like—”

“Mom’s,” I say flatly. I shake my head and point to the door. “You got the wrong shade of blue.” I feel immediately bad as I turn to Oscar and say, “Let’s go.”

Sometimes Oscar says the wrong things at the wrong times, but right now he’s got my back and follows me into my room in my new second home. And because he’s a true best friend, he even slams my bedroom door for me because my hands are full.

Chapter Two

The Most Important Meal of the Day

“Sweet Pea?” asks my dad as he knocks on my bedroom door the next morning. “First breakfast in the new house! How do you want your bacon?”

“You can come in,” I tell him, the covers pulled up over my face. In the last year, Dad has gotten a little weird around me. He’s careful about giving me plenty of time to answer him before he comes into my bedroom, and the last time I had to dress up for Easter Sunday, he said my dress was flattering. Flattering! What kind of word is that?

It started two years ago when he was pulling the laundry out of the dryer and held up my training bra for both me and my mom to see. He laughed and told my mom he must have accidentally shrunken one of her sports bras. The laughter stopped immediately when he noticed the color draining from my face. I yanked it out of his hands and marched to my room, slamming the door behind me. (I guess you could say I’ve got a thing for slamming doors.) It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know. But the whole suddenly-having-to-wear-a-bra thing is bad enough without making it Dad’s business too.

I moan from beneath the covers. Spending the night without Cheese felt just plain wrong. After Oscar and I shared a pizza with Dad, I tried bringing Cheese over here to stay with me, but he kept pawing at the screen door. Mom even bought him an identical litter box for Dad’s house and went through the effort of sifting out clumps from his old litter box to mix in with his new litter so he’d recognize his scent. That’s real dedication. But it’s like Cheese is staging his own one-cat revolution and he’s the only one who’s not playing along with this “mirror living” nonsense.