“AAAGG—” I stopped when Fisherman stopped laughing and looked at me. “Sorry,” I said.

“Just kidding,” said Fisherman. “You can laugh too.”

And the three of us cracked up harder than I have since I left home. I have no idea why.

Anyway, I hope things are good with you. Can you believe the first week of sixth grade is almost over? I can’t.

Take care,

Rodney

6

Hey, Larry,

So the big news is that we finally saw my dad. We left at six in the morning. I didn’t mind the long drive, because we still have our Range Rover. My mom says it’s worth as much as my cousin’s house and that she should sell it because it’s not practical, but I bet she’s probably not going to sell it, since it’s one of the only things we have left from our old life. Not as cool as when my dad had the Bentley. Remember when he used to drive us up and down the Strip in that? And how sometimes we got to throw packs of Get Lucky playing cards into the crowd? Those were good times.

On the trip to see my dad, Kate rode up front with my mom, and I got in the back so I could have my own seatback screen. Plus, Kate didn’t give me a choice.

I went to sleep as soon as we left, and I woke up when Kate and my mom started arguing in the front seat. “Why would you pack carrots?” said Kate, who was looking through the snacks. “If you’re going to make me eat, you should at least be considerate. I notice you aren’t eating a whole bunch of carrots.”

“Kate,” said my mom. “Just eat something. Anything. You don’t need to eat the carrots. There are radishes. There’s hummus. Cherries. How about an egg?”

“Oh my god!” shrieked Kate. “Hummus? An egg? Ugh.”

“I can’t win,” muttered my mom.

I put my headphones on and started watching Dakota Roche videos. He’s this hardcore rider. He shows his wipeouts and radical tricks that would definitely kill me if I tried them. I forgot to mention before that on Friday Ben asked if I wanted to go for a ride on Sunday. I said sure, even though I don’t have a bike. If you’re going to make friends, you have to extend yourself. You know, Rule #5: Put Together a Winning Team.

When we got into city traffic near Las Vegas after about four hours, I started to pay more attention. We turned into a new subdivision and stopped behind a building surrounded with a lot of cacti. There was a fountain near the front door.

Mom shut off the ignition and turned to us.

“I have no idea how this is going to go,” she said. “Let’s just do our best, okay?”