On Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Friday, Mom picked me up at school. Mom cleans our apartment herself because she doesn’t believe in paying someone else to pick up your mess. Or your dog’s.

Dad doesn’t believe in ten-year-olds going to PG-13 movies, and Mom doesn’t believe in cereal with more than three grams of sugar per serving. Dad doesn’t believe in curse words, and Mom doesn’t believe in going to school with a temperature above 98.6.

Dad thinks anything below 100 is fine.

Mom doesn’t believe in wasting money, but Dad says it’s fine to splurge once in a while. When he bought me a puffy purple swivel chair for my room at his apartment, Mom muttered about it, and I went online and found out it cost almost 200 dollars, and after that I felt weird.

Dad believes in allowance for chores. Mom believes in free allowance and doing chores for nothing. But Dad’s allowance is a dollar higher. Confused? Welcome to my life.

Sometimes when I’m dancing at Dad’s with the door locked tight, I slam myself into that puffy purple swivel chair and just spin. Everything is a blur, and my feet kick off the floor, shooting me around, and around, and around.

At Mom’s, I do my spinning on my feet, with my arms stretched out.

—

The doorbell rang, and I heard Mom let Sheila in. My temperature was only 99.3. Even after a lot of dancing, I couldn’t get it up to Dad-sick, so I knew I was going to school the next day. Thursday. Spelling-test day. I looked on my desk for my word sheet.

I picked up my backpack and started throwing stuff in: word sheet, math workbook, planner, colonial-breakfast folder (with butter recipe), and the only barrette I had that actually stayed in my hair. Most of them fall straight down.

Sheila knocked on my bedroom door, and I yelled “Come!” which is what Captain Picard always says on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Sheila and I used to watch that show together at Dad’s. (Eventually, we streamed all seven seasons. That’s a lot of Star Trek.)

Anyone would like Sheila—she has pink glasses and big hair, and she wears a lot of bracelets. And cowboy boots, even in summertime.

“You’re sick?” Sheila said.

“Mom-sick.”

She nodded. Sheila got it, even though her parents were never divorced. They stayed married until they died.

“Got your medicine?” Sheila said.

“Yep.” I patted my bag.

“Shall I set a course for Ninety-Ninth Street, Captain?”

I tugged down the front of my shirt with both hands. “Make it so!”

Sheila was the one who noticed that Captain Picard was always tugging on his uniform, pulling it down in front like he was trying to cover his stomach. She heard the actor being interviewed on TV, and he said it was because they made the costumes a little too short.