Of course I didn't give a rat's p.o.o.p about what Mark Twain said in whatever cla.s.sic Dad had read. I said nothing.

"He said, 'If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.'"

"Then how come the telling part doesn't work when it comes to me being adopted!" I yelled.

Dad's face tensed up, and the Mad Meter started pulsing fast like the maracas in "La Cucaracha." "You think being adopted gives you the right to disrespect me?"

Respect had nothing to do with it. "You don't understand and you won't talk about anything." I shook my head and crossed my arms.

"How can you say this isn't your real family? I've tried to be the best father I can be for you, Joseph. That's what I understand. Every day I go out there and break my back for you and your sisters. So does your mother. That's family!"

Dad stomped over to the family room and turned the music down. Meanwhile, his temper rose way up with his voice.

"I've never been dishonest about your adoption, Joseph. The truth is, Mom and I know very little. That's how it is in Korea!"

I could yell too. "It's not just about what you know, Dad! Why can't you deal with who I am? I couldn't count on you to help me write one lousy essay. Last time I checked, being adopted wasn't a crime, but you sure act like it is!"

I stormed upstairs and slammed my bedroom door. Then I opened my socks-and-underwear drawer, grabbed the box with the corno, and threw it across the room. Whack! It hit my Amazing Spider-Man poster and fell behind my bed. The poster came crashing down behind it. Even the coolest superhero had collapsed from the stress of living in this house.

I walked to Nash's house, but n.o.body was home. Then I headed toward Shear Impressions, but turned around. I didn't want to face Mom yet.

Somehow I ended up at the Jiffy Wash.

"Yongsu's out back," Mrs. Han said, carrying a stack of shirts and jerking her head in that direction.

I was heading for the door when Ok-hee walked in.

"Mrs. Peroutka told my cla.s.s that you won the essay contest," she said with an unexpected smile.

I nodded, wishing I could disappear between the hangers of shrink-wrapped clothes.

"My essay was about my great-grandmother in Taegu. She made beautiful mother-of-pearl jewelry boxes. What did you write about?"

"Miscellaneous Korean stuff," I said. Ok-hee was finally acting normal, not superior, but this topic was off limits.

A customer walked in with a blanket in her arms, and Mrs. Han turned around.

"I'd like to read your essay," Ok-hee said.

Double geez.

"Sorry, left it at school. See ya!" I said, tearing out of there faster than the Flash, the quickest dude in the comic book universe.

Yongsu was in the parking lot, fooling around with an old skateboard he'd found next to the Dumpster. He got us root beers from the fridge, and we hung out for a while. We didn't talk about school, Korea, or anything, really. I just watched him try skateboard jumps and wipe out a lot. He took so many spills that we started counting them and laughing.

I almost forgot about that lousy essay. Almost.

Pouring on the Guilt Gravy.

"You're in big trouble, Joseph. Mommy and Daddy are talking about you on the patio, and Daddy's Mad Meter is on," Gina announced in her Channel Five reporter voice. Frazer was at her side, drooling as usual.

I'd missed Dad's gourmet feast, though I noticed a foil-covered plate was left for me on the stove. The kitchen smelled more like garlic than broccoli now. It made me realize how hungry I was.

I poured myself a gla.s.s of orange juice. Then I zapped my dinner in the microwave. Gina came over and parked herself next to me at the kitchen table with a bag of Oreos and a gla.s.s of milk. Eeyore sat next to her on the chair.

"Where's Sophie?" I asked as I sprinkled red pepper on my steaming linguini.

"At Kaylie Heinz's bowling party. She always gets invited to birthday parties and I don't."

"Kaylie plays soccer with Sophie, that's why," I said.

"Or maybe it's because kids think I'm a double-squared dork." She sulked, her eyes looking down from behind her gla.s.ses.

Gina kept pulling apart her Oreos, scooping the filling out with her pinkie fingernail, licking the chocolate sh.e.l.ls, and clumping them in a pile. It looked nasty, but I have to admit I prefer the cream to those dry Frisbees too.

I started to tune Gina's whining out after a while. Here I was facing an academic felony, and she was carrying on about her lagging second-grade social life. Big deal.

"I wish I were adopted like you, Joseph," Gina said.

That got my attention. "Why?"

"'Cause it makes you special. Everyone compares me to Sophie. We learned about antonyms in school today, like fat and skinny, hot and cold. Sophie and me, we're twin antonyms. She's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and I'm boring vanilla."

"You wouldn't want to be the same as Sophie," I said.

"Yes I would." She grabbed another Oreo and banged it on the kitchen table. It broke and fell to the floor. "See? Even eating cookies is a tragedy for me!"

I stifled a laugh. "Having clone Sophies would be like sticking two fighting fish in the same tank. Besides, different doesn't mean you're not as good."

She kept shaking her head. I knew that whatever I said was going to sound lame, like a parent insisting "you tried your best" after you got cut from the team.

Hadn't I felt second-rate when Gina and Sophie were born? I remember looking down at their cute little faces in their matching wicker ba.s.sinets, wondering if Mom and Dad would still call me their baby. Nonna Sculletti said the twins had Sculletti noses, and Nonna Calderaro called them the picture of Dad. Of course, no one said any of that about me.

As I got up to refill my gla.s.s, I thought about an Italian saying Nonna Calderaro uses: Only the spoon knows what's stirring the pot. I had adoption stuff on my mind, and meanwhile, Gina, the cutest tadpole from Mom and Dad's own gene pool, had her own ident.i.ty crisis. Who knew?

"Okay, here's something that makes Gina Calderaro special in my book. n.o.body sings 'Hakuna Matata' like you. Keep it up, and you just might get into Disney University."

A smile slowly crossed Gina's face. "I love singing. You really think I'm good?"

"You bet your donkey." I tugged on Eeyore's floppy ear.

"There's no such place as Disney University, Joseph," she said with her mouth showing mashed cookie.

"Says who? I read about this geeky guy who graduated first in his cla.s.s from Disney U. He wore gla.s.ses and had a twin, too. Now he's got the lead on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast."

Gina was giggling now, her long hair swinging forward and almost falling into her gla.s.s of milk.

"He's a lot hairier than you, but you've got time." I swiped the last unlicked Oreo.

"Mommy said the Y is offering kids' singing lessons starting this month. She says she'll sign me up if I promise not to change my mind like last year, after she paid."

"Go for it, Gina," I said.

Then I saw Mom and Dad stand up from their patio chairs. They looked as if they were coming my way, so I headed out of their way. Upstairs.

I was in bed reading an oldie-but-goodie comic, "The Revenge of the Green Goblin," when I heard the knock. Actually it was more like knock-knock-BANG!, which could only mean one thing: Mom was on a rampage.

Since dinner I'd felt like a gunfighter readying myself for a showdown. Not only was the waiting stressful, but I had indigestion from the creamy broccoli sauce.

Mom barged in. "Talk to me about this essay," she demanded, her arms crossed over her checkered nightgown.

"Didn't Dad give you the Reader's Digest version?"

She grabbed a sock off the floor and flung it at me. "What were you thinking, making up that story?"

Mom started pacing, which isn't easy to do in my room. Gina and Sophie have the longer room, which gives Mom more s.p.a.ce. Then she started pouring on the guilt gravy-how she's never hidden anything from me, how she's always tried to be truthful, and how come I wasn't honest in my essay.

"What, we embarra.s.s you, is that it?" she shouted, her hands flailing up and down like railroad crossing signs. "Your father is so upset, he barely touched his dinner-and he made it!"

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone, Mom."

She kept shaking her head. Without makeup her skin looked chalky against her dark eyes, and that made her seem even madder.

"It was a dumb mistake. I'm sorry." I stared at my stack of comic books underneath the nightstand.

"You know what plagiarism is, Joseph?"

"This isn't plagiarism, Mom. I wrote the story myself. I didn't copy it."

"But that man wasn't your grandfather. You stole him from a book! Your father and I decided that for lying, you're sentenced to a weekend of yard work. No going over to Nash's house, no TV, and no video games."

I pouted my lips, but actually I'd gotten off easy. Maybe Mom was going light on me because she knew how bad I'd get ha.s.sled at school. They might suspend me, or even expel me. Then I'd have to go to a reform school with psychopaths who'd cut off my ears if I didn't hand over my lunch money.

Mom walked toward the door, but then she stopped. "Lying, trouble in school-this isn't like you, Joseph. You're adopted, and that's perfectly fine. Why didn't you tell the truth?" She rubbed her eyelids with her fingertips.

"I don't know the whole truth, Mom," I said. "Sometimes I look in the mirror and wish I knew more about the kid staring back. It's nothing against you and Dad."

"Mom! We're out of toothpaste!" Gina yelled from the bathroom.

"You want to know more about yourself, being Korean? Is that it?"

I nodded and thought about the Internet posting. Wondered if I should've told Mom about that too.

"I understand that, honey. And deep down, your father can too. He has a heart bigger than the ladder on his truck, but he's pigheaded. You're his oldest and only son, Joseph. I swear, sometimes he forgets that you're adopted."

"It's not like I got a vote," I said.

"Joseph, adopting you was one of the most wonderful days of my life. Your father's, too," she said, and her eyes filled up with tears. My hands trembled against my comic book.

"Your father...well, I know he's hard to talk to sometimes, but that doesn't mean he doesn't accept you for who you are," she added.

"But you're speaking for him, Mom. Dad never talks like that, and that's part of the problem."

"Well, maybe I am speaking for him, but after being married to your father for twenty years, I know his every thought."

"Will someone help me? I need toothpaste!" Gina shouted like she was drowning.

"Stop yelling! Geez Louise, it's on the shelf under the sink," Mom snapped. Then she flipped on my night-light.

"I wish you'd talked to me about your essay," she said, a bit softer. "We could've figured something out together. I would've tried to help."

"Will you talk to Mrs. Peroutka for me?" I asked. "Explain how I'm adopted so we can fix this?"

"Joseph, my job isn't to fix everything for you. My job is to help you deal with life's messy parts. I'm sorry, but you'll have to talk to your teacher yourself."

Ugh. Just thinking about walking into Mrs. Peroutka's cla.s.s made my stomach hurt again. Facing her. Facing everyone. Like how Susan Amber must have felt last year when she got caught rigging the yearbook's "cutest smile" vote for herself.

"Capisce?" Mom asked.

I nodded. "Capisce."

"No more stolen relatives. Go see your teacher on Monday morning with a big shovel and dig yourself out of this hole."

Essaygate.

Forty-eight hours without TV and video games felt like cruel and unusual punishment. And what made it even worse was dreading Monday, my day of reckoning. I kept rehearsing what I'd tell Mrs. Peroutka. I even had a nightmare that after I'd fessed up, a CNN reporter stuck a microphone in my face and shouted, "So, was being adopted what corrupted you?"

After social studies ended, I waited until the last kid left the room to come clean. Mrs. Peroutka was erasing the chalkboard when I approached her. Shoving my sweaty hands in my shorts pockets, I plunged right into my confession of how I made up the Sohn Kee Chung story.

When I finished, I put on my sorry face I use when I lose the house key or forget to throw the clothes in the dryer for Mom. Mrs. Peroutka was ancient and demanding, but I could tell she cared about her students. I didn't like disappointing her.

But Mrs. Peroutka didn't raise her eyebrows or reach for her red pen and grade book. Instead she barraged me with a bunch of deep questions.

"Out of all the famous Koreans to be related to, why did you choose Sohn Kee Chung?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "He seemed brave, a cross between a jock and a rebel."