Chapter 23: Clara's Rules

Every porch light on Parsons Avenue seemed to come on at once.

A man walking his dog across the street started clapping.

Matt put his forehead down on my shoulder and laughed without making any sound.

"Clara Sorensen," my mother said from the window. "Inside. Now."

"I'm not done!"

"You're done."

The window scraped shut.

Through the glass I could still hear her arguing.

Matt lifted his head.

His shirt was untucked on one side and his hair was standing up where my hands had been.

"I think I've been reviewed," he said.

"You got one star."

"From the critic or the neighborhood?"

The window scraped open again.

"Breakfast!" Clara yelled. "Nine o'clock! You have to come for an interview!"

The window shut.

Matt looked at me.

"Is that a real interview?"

"She's been working on the questions since April."

He tucked his shirt in, very slowly.

"I'll bring a snack," he said.

He came at nine sharp with a box of the orange peanut butter crackers and a bag of clementines.

Clara was waiting at the kitchen table upstairs in her crown, with a clipboard I didn't know she owned.

There was a chair across from her. Just one.

"Sit," she said.

He sat.

I leaned on the counter with my coffee and stayed out of it.

"Question one." She read from the clipboard in her bossy capitals. "Do you snore?"

"I don't know. I sleep alone in the daytime."

She wrote something down.

"Question two. Can you do a rose yet?"

"I can do a rose that doesn't lean."

"Prove it."

I handed him a piping bag and a paper plate.

He did a rose.

It was small and a little flat, and it stood up straight.

Clara studied it from three sides.

"Seven," she said, and wrote it down.

"Out of what?"

"I'm not telling you that. Question three. What's your best joke?"

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