The Meaning of Maggie: Chapters 5–9

I stood back and surveyed the damage.

Mom’s eyes were fuzzy and the freckles on her face were flushed with red.

Everyone was joking and laughing and gallivanting but I had to get down to business.

Dad was sort of obsessed with being cool. In fact, before his legs fell asleep he did all kinds of supercool stuff like cartwheels and somersaults.

Mom never let me read the pamphlets while we waited for Dad at the doctor’s office either. She’d say they were filled with propaganda and then I’d say, "Geez hippie, calm down.”

I’d have to step up my research about the sleepiness. Right after I stepped up my research about the migration of monarch butterflies for my science project, but before I stepped up my research about Franklin Roosevelt and his sleepy legs.

I went to the bathroom to give my face a good splash of cold water, hoping it would scare away any residual weirdness I had left inside.

So they stayed in and helped me get ready for trick-or-treating. They tried to convince me to be a ton of things involving makeup, high heels, and tight dresses but I opted for an homage to one of my heroes: Albert Einstein.

I couldn’t believe that Dad would humiliate me at this critical moment in my relationship with Clyde.

His fingers were probably still sticky from the Snickers we snuck before dinner. In fact maybe the Rolling Stones were in a similar predicament when they named the album.

And then when I got home, I was preoccupied with my trick-or-treating loot. Inspecting every single piece for poison took time and precision.

I tiptoed into the living room because I felt like we should still be tiptoeing both literally and metaphorically.

So I decided it might be best if my mission to deliver the Smarties to Dad was as covert as possible.

Empty bag of candy corn? Check. Nothing was missing. Nothing was out of order. And there was a rogue candy corn at the bottom of my bag, so that was good.

But they didn’t budge because popular teenagers sleep in a near comatose state because their brains are filled with nothing.

Tiffany picked up the blankets and sauntered down the hall.

"We’re fighting a war of attrition.”
Cool! We were wearing down the enemy by trapping her in a room with no phone, no food, no access to the outside world.

Dad wheeled over to Tiffany and tried to console her. "I’m just worried about you, honey. I see so much of myself in you, which is good because I’m really cool, but bad because I’ve done some really uncool things. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made.”

They talked in the garage more and more. I guess it was neutral territory. Kind of like Switzerland but with no Swiss Miss.

I sulked into the living room and sat on the couch with my back turned away from the enemies who said they were my parents.

And then I couldn’t stop thinking about the good old days when Mom was always around. She maintained a certain level of order that I not only followed to a T, but respected to a T too.

The next morning, Mom woke me up extra early to go get the last-minute staples for our Thanksgiving feast.

I got a cart and Mom navigated the store fearlessly.

The last time I saw Grandpa he tried to steal my nose and I was traumatized for life.

I retired to my room and thought long and hard about how our Christmas was being infiltrated by crazy.

Our Christmas, which had already been compromised by Mom telling us we were only getting a few gifts because "things were tight” since Dad left work.

And I also needed an assortment of candies and chocolates to replenish my "for emergencies only” stash that was completely depleted.

And I also needed an assortment of candies and chocolates to replenish my "for emergencies only” stash that was completely depleted.

She was very small and frail. So frail I imagined her bones were made of dust, so I scooted back trying not to knock her over.

And the brown eyes I thought we shared were actually much darker than mine. Probably muddled by years of crazy this and crazy that.

Her voice was low and gravelly and I must have still been lost on Prince Edward Island because I answered her in my best turn-of-the-century vernacular.
"Whatever do you mean, Grandmother?”

The nerve of that woman! You’d think after all we’ve been through that she would at the very least be cordial! I don’t know why I put up with it!

The tree was ablaze with colored lights and brightly wrapped gifts for one and all. I suppressed my urge to dive into the presents immediately and found Mom instead.

Inside was the most perfect pair of fake diamond earrings. They were dainty and understated.

I resolved to do something that would take all of my brain, all of my heart, and both my bootstraps pulled all the way up.
I resolved to fix Dad.