Calli Be Gold Read Online Free Page A

talking about different shots and defensive moves that Alex made throughout the game. He always does this—relives every single second of Alex’s games, or Becca’s competitions—for days afterward sometimes, like everything else in life isn’t worth a sentence.
    Alex listens and nods and smiles; then Mom and Dad both lean toward him and give him about twenty-five hugs apiece. Finally, he shrugs them off and says, “I’m hungry. Let’s go.”
    I look up at my brother. “Good job, Alex,” I say, and he swats me softly on the back.
    “Hey, Cal,” he says. When he smiles at me, my heart feels a little lighter.
    We start walking again and I see how many red and yellow leaves have fallen around the parking lot, trampled on in the rush of everyone leaving the game. The air feels cooler and I make a secret wish for an early first snow this year so Wanda, Claire, and I can go sledding on our favorite hill across from the junior high.
    On the car ride home, Mom calls Grandma Gold to tell her about Alex’s victory. I can hear Grandma’s voice clearly from the speakerphone, because wouldn’t you know it, she’s pretty loud too.
    “Well, of course! I wouldn’t have expected anything less,” Grandma Gold shouts. She then says that Alex’s basketball talent definitely comes from the Gold side of the family. “My Joel could have played in college, you know.”
    Mom looks a little annoyed. “Larry played basketball too,” she says.
    “Not past freshman year in high school,” Grandma Gold reminds us. “Joel had the goods. But what can you do? Medicine was calling.”
    I met Uncle Joel only a few times, when I was little, and I don’t remember him. He lives in California. Dad says he’s very busy being a plastic surgeon to the stars.
    “E-mail me Alex’s schedule,” Grandma says. “I’ll see if I can get to a game one of these days when I’m not tied up with mah-jongg.”
    “Okay,” Mom replies. Then she ends the call and I hear her mutter, “Joel never really could have played in college. What is she saying?”
    “Mom?” I ask as we pull into the garage. “Don’t forget I need that spiral.”
    “I didn’t forget,” she says.
    When she turns off the car, she sniffs suspiciously like she’s some sort of police dog, then exclaims, “Something’s burning!” She runs into the house, drops her purse onto the counter, and races to the oven.
    “Becca!” she yells, jerking open the oven door. Smoke pours out and fills the air, and Mom starts waving her hands frantically through the thick haze. “Did I or did I not tell her to turn the oven to ‘warm’ at seven o’clock?” she groans, looking at me.
    “You did,” I answer quietly, coughing a little from theburning cloud of smoke hanging in the air. The oven clock says 8:15.
    Becca stumbles into the kitchen and says, “Oops,” as Mom removes a glass pan holding a very burnt, very blackened, very crisp-looking lasagna.
    “Would you look at this?” Mom fumes, setting the pan down and parking both hands on her hips. Her glasses fog up and her eyes sort of disappear for a minute. She pins her lips together tightly and marches over to a drawer. She pulls out a spatula and jabs at the top of the crusted lasagna.
    “So what! Aren’t I allowed to forget something once in a while?” Becca stamps a foot. “You don’t understand! I’m under a lot of stress right now!”
    She flounces from the kitchen, tripping on her way out, as Dad and Alex come in from the garage. The four of us stare at the lasagna.
    “Well,” Mom says sharply, “we’ll just have to deal with it. This is dinner tonight, because I don’t have time to cook anything else.”
    Within five minutes, we are all sprawled around the table. Alex is shoving crackers into his mouth, Dad is still beaming about the last shot of the game, Becca contorts her face and props her ankle on an empty chair, and Mom is sawing off uneven chunks of the hardened lasagna and plunking them onto