My Life in Dioramas Read Online Free PDF Page A

ifStella was going to get all worked up about it again. On the other side of the same page, she’d drawn the words STELLA + TRIS inside a heart. I didn’t know where she got this stuff. I’d never even see her talk to Tris Culpberg.
    â€œJust doodling,” she said. “So what’s this about Naveen? You’re finally going to admit that you have a crush on him?”
    â€œNo. For the gazillionth time . Why are you so set on me having a crush on somebody anyway?”
    â€œBecause it’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
    â€œAccording to . . .?” I looked around the room.
    â€œNever mind, Kate.” She started to doodle another heart. “Why is Naveen a genius?”
    So I explained about the fecal matter, and how I officially had a plan.
    Or at least I thought I did.
    Until Stella said, “I can’t believe I’m going to stoop to your level, because it’s totally disgusting, but how are you going to collect it? And where will you even put it?”
    â€œI’ll figure it out,” I said.
    I had to.

6.
    Like most of the people on the planet, I liked Friday afternoons best of all.
    Fridays were when my dad would whistle at five o’clock and open a beer and sit out back and ask me about my day and talk about weekend plans.
    Fridays were when my mom cooked red sauce and meatballs.
    Fridays were free and fun.
    But when I came home, I didn’t see any sauce on the stove. My dad was in the living room, looking through old records and playing “Semi” at low volume.
    â€œHey,” I said, plopping down on the couch.
    Angus came over to greet me so I petted him on his head.
    â€œHey.” Dad turned an LP over to look at the other side.
    â€œWhere’s Mom?” I listened as her sad, sad violin part kicked in while my dad sang the line, “I’m passing that old farm again / I carry the same load as the last time.”
    â€œNapping room,” he said, and he sang along softly, “Don’t ever think of you anymore. My mind’s clear as the road.”
    I listened.
    I petted Angus some more.
    â€œWhy did you write a song about a long-distance truck driver?” I asked.
    He shook his head and smiled. “I have no idea.” He was sorting records into crates and stopped for a second, then started shifting them again. “I guess I was writing about loneliness. Longing. Roads not taken. All that sort of stuff.”
    â€œBut you were like twenty-five when you wrote it, weren’t you?”
    â€œTwenty-seven,” he said. “Yes. And that’s not too young to be lonely and longing for stuff.”
    Miss Emma was twenty-seven. I knew what she longed for—a boyfriend, an actual dancing gig—but my dad? It was hard to imagine. “What were you longing for?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He looked up and out the window. “Love? Life?”
    I saw Pants out the window, down by the tennis court, licking her front paws. Seeing her usually made me happy. But not today. “Do you still feel like that?”
    â€œDo I feel longing ?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    â€œYeah, I mean. I guess. Doesn’t everybody?”
    I was longing for a lot of things right then. Or maybe just one thing. Power. Control over my own destiny.
    My dad said, “But also, no, not really. I have you. I have your mother.”
    â€œSo then what do you long for?”
    â€œI don’t know, Kate.” He stopped shifting records again. “Time? The past?”
    My mother’s violin solo kicked in. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that those notes, those words, had come out of the minds and bodies of the people who were now my parents. “How did you even know you could write songs?” I asked.
    â€œI didn’t,” Dad said. “Until I did it.”
    â€œHey.” Mom came up the stairs, her hair all flat from sleep. Angus went over to nudge her hello and she