"So what is your report on?" Pat asked Melissa as they ate dinner.

Melissa looked up. She had almost forgotten about her report. "Umm, family studies. I had something already but the teacher didn’t like it, so I have to find something else."

"What’d you wanna do?" asked Pat.

"I was gonna do being a black family in America. But it was too broad," Melissa answered, twisting her mouth at the new word.

"Too broad?" Pat said.

"Yeah, you know, she said it was like too big for our report and that my outline wasn’t right. So I had to copy Aimee’s," Melissa said with a deep sigh, even though she knew Brian and Pat wouldn’t understand the significance.

"Is that why Dad was mad at you?" Pat asked.

Melissa shook her head. "I got in trouble at school."

"You?" Brian asked.

Melissa nodded. "I didn’t want to copy Aimee’s outline and I said it loud and she said she couldn’t spend all day with me. But I was paying attention--I had my own outline and I didn’t need Aimee’s. So I told her it was dumb."

"You told your teacher she was dumb?" Brian asked.

"Ooo Melissa, you troublemaker." Pat grinned.

"Well, not exactly, but kind of." Melissa returned the grin from behind a glass of milk. She didn’t mind Brian and Pat laughing. They weren’t exactly calling her a goody-goody as Troy and Yolanda would have done or given her a lecture like her parents.

Brian chuckled. "Yeah, George was all in your face."

"Oh and you know what else?" Melissa said. "Dad called my teacher, so I got mad at him."

"What’d he call her for?" asked Pat.

"Oh..." Melissa rolled her eyes, "he started to think it was about black people, you know."

"Do you think that’s what it was?" asked Pat.

"Well I," Melissa paused. No one had asked her opinion on the matter. "I don’t think so. Later, she said doing something about black people was fine, just not that."

"She might have a point," Brian said, "a report on the black family in America could be a lot of stuff. I mean what are you going to do, take it four hundred years from slavery to now? That’s a long paper."

"Really! Didn’t Dad see that?" Pat said.

"Of course he didn’t," Brian answered, "how many thousands of times as he talked about Melissa being the only black kid in the class?"

"Oh God," Pat sighed, "almost as many as the number of the times he’s talked about you being the only black guy on the team."

"You ain’t lyin’," Brian said.

Melissa looked back and forth between them. "So is that bad that you’re the only one?" she asked Brian.

"Well Melissa, when you have something that’s been all white you’re going to get people who want it to stay that way."

"Yeah, Dad says that too," Melissa said.

"Well, he knows about that black stuff from the sixties," Brian said.

"But sometimes I just get so sick of thinking about that stuff all the time. Like when Mom and Dad take your yearbook and go through every picture asking if you know the black people. I hate that," Pat said.

"Oh yeah," Melissa said, "they do that to me too."

"Hmm-mmm. Wait until you get into high school, it’s a much longer yearbook," Brian said.

"Oh no," Melissa said, shaking her head.

"Sometimes I just want to go to school like everybody else," Brian said, "Anne never has to worry about who she knows. Everybody else on the team are just basketball players, big deal, you know?" He looked at Melissa, who nodded rapidly.

"Or like how people look at you when the teacher talks about slavery or something," Melissa added.

"Right!" Pat said. "What if I stared at them when they talked about slaveowners or those white people in the South that set firehoses on people. You know that one guy with the dogs and stuff in like Alabama."

"You’d be looking around all day," Melissa said. She wondered what was so hard about talking to Brian and Pat? No wonder Richard thought the twins were stupid.

Melissa picked up a book of Pat’s. "West Side Story," she read. "What’s this?"

"It’s a play we have to read for English. Then we’re going to watch the movie. Then we’re going to compare it to Romeo and Juliet."

"Yeah, Pat’s into death right now," Brian said.

"Huh?" Melissa said as Pat laughed and told him to shutup.

"Both stories have people who kill themselves or get killed in them. But I didn’t pick them, the whole ninth grade is doing it. You did it last year didn’t you?" Pat asked.

"Yeah," Brian leaned back in his kitchen chair, "showing a bunch of freshman a movie about suicide. Great idea."

"What’s wrong with it? Romeo and Juliet are supposed to be around fourteen, that’s the same age as a freshman, that’s why they show it," Pat said.

Melissa nodded, leaning forward on the table. This wasn’t like just listening to her mother and aunts, Pat and Brian were looking at her as well as each other.

"What if it gives people ideas? Then the parents could like sue the school," Brian said.

"Na-uh!" argued Pat. "Who would be that stupid? Did the movie make anybody in your class commit suicide?"

"I’m not saying that they would do it just because they saw the movie, but if somebody thinks their life is bad enough then the movie might give them ideas. You never know," Brian said.

"I think if someone is going to commit suicide they wouldn’t wait for the movie. How’d we start talking about this anyway?"

"Melissa started it." Brian flicked Melissa’s ponytail with his thumb and middle finger.

"Me? I just asked about a book. Pat’s the one who likes death," Melissa promptly answered. Her remark was a hit; Brian broke into laughter and held out his hand for her to hit. Pat yelled "Hey!" but she didn’t look mad.

Yolanda came back into the kitchen with two plates. "Richard said hi. I asked him if I could be in the wedding." She cracked herself up.

"Maybe we should show Romeo and Juliet here," Brian said suddenly.

Melissa’s laughter was nice and loud and Yolanda left the kitchen to go back in the family room.

George entered Melissa’s room later that night as she was getting ready for bed.

Melissa beamed. "Goodnight Daddy."

George returned the smile, but made no move to pass on to the others’ rooms. "So, how did it go with the report research?" he asked.

Melissa’s smile faded a little. She reached down and began fiddling with the buttons on her nightgown. "Fine."

"Did talking to your brothers and sisters help?"

"Sure," Melissa mumbled. She picked up some of the clothes draped over her desk chair and put them in her little hamper.

"So what’s your topic?" George asked.

Melissa kept her back to her father, slowly putting in each article of clothing in the hamper individually. "Well, I was thinking about a lot of things, you know that would make a better outline."

"Hmm..." George came further into Melissa’s room and leaned on her small desk.

Melissa suddenly heard a familiar bumping sound. Brian was coming up the stairs, bouncing his basketball on the carpet. George leaned over to look out of the doorway. Dribbling was forbidden in the house.

"I was actually going to work on my outline tomorrow. I talked to Brian and Pat a lot."

Brian paused when he saw George in the doorway. "Sorry," he said. "Talked to me about what?"

"My report," Melissa said. She hoped her smile looked like the ones the twins had when one wanted the other to go along with something.

"Oh yeah," Brian said.

Melissa started in quickly. "Yeah and remember we were talking about West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet and how some people might get ideas and stuff?"

Brian held up his ball and begin to spin it on his finger. "Oh right. So you didn’t tell us, are you going to do the teenage suicide thing?" he asked. He didn’t look at Melissa or George.

"Yeah that’s my new topic." Melissa looked at her father. "I’m doing the outline tomorrow--you know something like if seeing movies and stuff really makes people want to do it."

George nodded. Melissa’s breathing relaxed a bit. "Well, it still needs work," she said.

"Sounds like a good start." George stood. "What’d I tell you? Go to the source," he s aid, nodding at Brian.

"Uh huh," Melissa said.

Brian stepped aside to let George through.

"Don’t forget to brush your teeth," he said.

"Okay!" Melissa said.

Brian watched George go down the hall. He slipped into Melissa’s room and shut the door. "So what was your report really going to be on?"

"I didn’t know, Brian," Melissa hissed, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

"No way. I totally just pulled that out of my butt." Brian snickered. He was shifting his ball from one hand to the other by passing it around his back. It went in a steady orbit around him like an orange moon.

"Oh no, it was good, really. It has to do with our family, we have teens, right? And Pat’s reading about death."

"Yeah right. Well, you owe me one, squirt." Brian stopped the ball in mid-orbit and tossed it to Melissa.

"Okay," she said. She bent over and tossed him the ball from between her knees, granny style. He caught it easily with one hand and opened the door.

"See ya, Death Girl Junior," Brian said on his way out.

"See ya," answered Melissa.