His sisters walked to the bus stop at seven-forty every morning. Sometimes his mom went with them and he got to push Sheila’s stroller. But not today because it was cold and had started to snow.

His dad was working from home today because the roads would be crap coming home tonight. His dad said crap, which made PJ giggle, which made his mom frown, which made PJ laugh even more. And the best thing was that his mom said that school would probably be canceled by noon because the storm was coming in faster than the stupid weatherman predicted. His mom said stupid, and that made him giggle more, and then his dad laughed.

Noon couldn’t come fast enough for PJ because his sisters would be home and play with him. Maybe even in the snow. Their mom made them play with him and they pretended to not like it. Jilly pretended—sometimes she would play with him even when Mom didn’t tell her to. Ashley said she was getting too old for playing kids’ games. She was almost twelve, which meant that she was almost a teenager, which meant she didn’t need a little brother and sister following her around.

He was only allowed to watch one hour of cartoons in the morning and he’d already had his hour. He got to go to school three days a week for the whole morning—but not Tuesday and Thursday. And it was Tuesday; his calendar said so. He marked off each day before he went to bed, and yesterday was Monday, March 8.

He wandered through the house because he was bored. His mom was on the phone and sounded upset.

“Is he okay? Debbie must be frantic! What hospital? Good—I’ll come over as soon as the girls get home. Did they catch the driver? What was he thinking? On purpose? Really?”

“What happened Mommy?” he asked.

She turned to him and put a finger to her lips, then pointed to the phone she held to her ear.

PJ frowned and walked back to the den, where his dad was working. He was reading his spreadsheets. His dad was an accountant, which meant that he helped people with their math. He was really, really good at math and people paid him lots of money to help them with their math so they didn’t get in trouble with the IRS. PJ didn’t know what the IRS was, though his dad tried to explain to him. All he knew was that if you made a math mistake you could get in real big trouble and have to pay lots of money.

PJ vowed to never make a mistake in math ever.

“Daddy, Mommy is on the phone and I’m bored.”

His dad looked up. “It’s a workday for me, buddy. And it’s a busy time.”

“Because it’s almost April 15.” That was his dad’s busiest day.

“Exactly. You’re so smart. Your mom’s probably right and the schools will close at lunch, and by then I’ll need a break. You can come with me to get the girls, okay?”