“You think I’m proud to have my son caught cheating? Do you think I’m pleased that you got your mother dragged into school to hang her head in front of your principal?”

I shook my head, still hoping to get some of the punishment lifted.

“No is right,” he said. “I am not proud. Not one bit.”

Mom was nodding her head off, like, “Go get ’em!” She said, “I told him no more Nintendo, TV, or music, and he’s grounded. And from now on he has to help with—”

Dad raised his hands as if to protect himself from her bullets and said, “Whoa, honey! Let’s not get carried away! He’s just a kid. And it’s not like he killed anyone.” He chuckled, and I knew everything was cool.

I wanted to chuckle myself, but I didn’t.

Dad said, “He just made a bad judgment call. Right, son?”

“Right, Pop!” I answered.

Mom tried to object, but when she started to sputter, Dad put his arms around her. “Aw, honey, I know you’re upset,” he said, winking at me behind her back. “But boys will be boys.”

Ruby

Okay, so Mom calls me to the phone. “It’s Dan!” she says, like I should be all thrilled to, like, death.

I glare at her to say I’m not, like, home. But she totally ignores me and just clunks the phone down on the table.

I glare again, but what’s the point? So okay, I lift it like it’s a dead rat, and totally bored I’m all, “Yeah?”

And Danny goes, “Ruby? That you? What’s the matter?” All Mr. Sweet.

And I’m like, “Don’t give me that.” And go, “Maybe Sarah Collier likes cheats, but not everyone does.”

And he starts to, I don’t know, tell me he’s sorry? And says he doesn’t like Sarah that way or whatever.

So I go, “Yeah, sure.”

And he goes, “I’ll be right there and we’ll talk about it face-to-face.”

And I’m all, “What makes you think I’d want to talk to you face-to-face?”

Then he, like, has the nerve to say something about it being my fault that he cheated!

That blows me away. And I’m, like, totally, “Excuse me?”

So he says that I kept him so busy helping set up my sister’s party that he never got a chance to study.

Yeah. Right.

Okay, so that’s when I, like, say something that I can’t repeat, and I, like, hang up. On him.

Meanwhile, my mom and my sister are, like, shrieking at each other for a change. They’ve been at it pretty much nonstop for weeks, and it’s like, Okay, I get it. When it’s my turn, I’ll elope.

But elope with who?