The Importance of Wings Read Online Free

to Kathleen. Kathleen eyes him with newfound interest.
    I feel suddenly and totally morose. Margo has a boyfriend who takes her to the city for dinner and dancing. Kathleen has Eddie, a mom at home, Doritos, cupcakes, an older-brother bodyguard, and plenty of other siblings to fill her house with activity.
    I look down sadly at the package of hot dogs in my hand. If you’d asked me right then and there whether I’d ever
    a. feel okay about my hair
    b. accept gym
    c. watch less tv
    d. stop missing my mother
    I would have said no.

chapter five
    on saturday mornings, Gayle and I get up early to watch cartoons. Yeah, I know—this is little kids’ turf. I should be sleeping late on Saturday mornings. I should be in bed till noon. But I get bored just lying around. Besides, one of my favorite shows is on Saturday mornings.
    Super Friends
is about all the great American superheroes—Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins—living together in a place called the Hall of Justice and fighting crime together.
    The Wonder Twins are purplish and have weird, pointy faces. They morph into things. Usually, they touch their fists together and say, “Wonder Twin Powers, activate!” Then Jayna, the girl twin, says, “Shape of a gorilla!”—she always seems to choose apes—and Zan, the boy twin, says, “Form of water!” He always seems to end up being carried around in a bucket, but sometimes he turns into something useful, like an ice rocket.
    Aba
always gets up after
Super Friends
ends. Since Saturday is the busiest night in the city, when almost everyone needs a taxi, he starts working in the afternoon. He usually doesn’t get home till the next morning. He shuffles into the kitchen as Gayle and I are watching
The Smurfs.
    He blinks at the TV. “What’s that?” he asks with distaste.
    “Smurfs,”
Gayle answers merrily. “La-LA-lala-la-LA,” she sings.
    “Hah?”
Aba
asks.
    “That’s the theme song,” Gayle explains. “La-LA-lala-la-LA.”
    “Team song?”
    “Theme,” Gayle repeats. “Th-eme.” “Team,”
Aba
says. “No, not t. Th.”
    My father tries to pronounce the word again but can’t. All Israelis seem to have trouble with
th.
    “I guess I no say it,”
Aba
says.
    “I guess I can’t say it,” I correct. It’s always been my job to correct my parents’ English.
    “I guess I can’t say it,” he repeats, then asks, “Ready soon?”
    “Where are we going?” I ask.
    “The mall,”
Aba
answers definitively, as if there is no other destination on Earth worth considering.
    “I want my own
moussaka
this time,” Gayle says.
    “Okay, okay,”
Aba
says with amusement. He turns to me. “You want your own
moussaka
too?”
    “I guess,” I reply.
    Sometimes I wonder what American families do on Saturdays. I’m sure they do more interesting things than what we do. I’m sure they do American things like bowling, or roller-skating, or swimming, or going to the movies, or going on a picnic.
    We go to the Staten Island Mall.
    Shopping at a mall is a very American thing, but not like we do it. If we were doing it the right way,
Ema
would take us, and actually buy us things, and treat us to lunch at the restaurant inside Macy’s, where I would order a strawberry sundae with whipped cream. You can’t get more American than that. I bet Donna and her mom do it all the time.
    But
Aba
has a whole different routine. First, we go to Sears to browse in the hardware department—fun for him, torture for us. Then we go to the food court for Greek food—the closest we can get to Israeli food. After we eat,
Aba
looks at tires or something equally boring, while Gayle and I pine for designer jeans like the kind Donna wears from Merry-Go-Round or The Limited. Sometimes we play in the arcade.
    Nothing special happens with
Aba
‘s mall routine today, except that Gayle beats me twice at
Donkey Kong.
When we get back home, a white truck is sitting in the driveway of the Cursed House. It