Chapter 16I scarfed down my mother’s blueberry pancakes with homemade whipped cream and the best syrup she could find at the grocery store. The real stuff, she told me. “We don’t eat anything artificial in this house.”
Either way, it didn’t bother me. And if she monitored my crappy eating habits outside the house, she’d blow a gasket, and ground me for a week. Too much healthy living is hard on the system, I thought, ducking out after I rinsed my plate off and piled it into the dishwasher.
I checked and rechecked my cell for a text from Rocco.
There was nothing.
My mother refilled my orange juice and was holding out the glass to me on my way out of the kitchen. “We need to talk,” she said, crossing her arms over her pink apron and staring me down as if she belonged to the bald eagle fa
