I was twelve years old when I found out my parents still did it. That was five days ago. I am still twelve, and my parents probably still do it, but nothing else is the same. Since the day my parents did it, Stella died, Ryan got a Game Cube, and Chloe told us she was running away to Africa. Stella was my hermit crab, Ryan is my best friend, and Chloe is my big sister. Mom says I will always have to have Chloe for my sister, even if she is in Africa. I wonder if she will still get first call on shotgun when she is on another continent?

So it all started last week when Chloe handcuffed herself to the condiment bar in the high school cafeteria. They were serving hamburgers that day, like they do every Thursday, but on this particular Thursday Chloe decided she didn't think that anyone should eat them. If I had been there I would have told her that she wasn't stopping anyone from eating the things, she was just keeping them from enjoying themselves by not letting them have any ketchup. But I wasn't there. I didn't even hear about it until later that night. I was across town in Mrs. Lynch's seventh grade science class, messing around with rocks. The Grinch was teaching us about how things like bones and teeth get stuck in the volcanic rocks and make fossils, and Ryan and I were playing Rock Hockey. Ryan is my partner for science lab. We always title our lab reports - "Thom and Ryan Do the Stratosphere," "Thom and Ryan Do Erosion," and so on. But we liked this unit best because Rock Hockey is way better than playing with the Bee on a Stick. We'd gotten those during "Thom and Ryan Do Pollination," but The Grinch had taken our bees away toward the end when she caught us using them as Light Sabers.

Anyway, I wasn't in the high school cafeteria when Chloe decided to handcuff herself to the condiment bar, so I couldn't tell her not to be such a dumbass. She wouldn't have listened anyway, because she doesn't think I know anything. Like when I reminded her later that she eats Mom's hamburgers all the time, she sniffed and said not anymore and gave me the you-just-don't-get-it look. I hate that look, especially because I do get it. I know exactly why Chloe doesn't want to eat hamburgers anymore. It's because of Barbara Walters and that 20/20 special report. I watched it too, I told Chloe, but she still says I don't get it. "You don't appreciate their suffering," was what she said. Sure I do, but they're cows. Everyone knows that hamburgers used to be cows, and everyone knows that getting from being a cow to being a hamburger probably isn't pretty, but nobody really thinks about that while they're eating. Only my sister and Barbara Walters think about stuff like that.

I guess I should explain Chloe. She's a geek for sure, but there's something about her that seems weird even when she's with all the other geeks. It's like they're all G.I. Geeks and she's the Lieutenant Geek. Or if this were Revenge of the Nerds, Chloe would be the main one, Gilbert, only she wouldn't have the rest of the nerd herd. All she would have is Margo. Margo is Chloe's only friend. She's a freak too. She seems to me a bit like that girl from The Exorcist - when I first met her I wanted to grab the metal studs in her ears and twist her head to see if it would spin all the way around. Mom and Dad say Margo is troubled. Chloe isn't though, Chloe is just different. Sometimes my parents say special, but I know better. All kids are special, but only some kids are different.

I've known a few "different" kids, but I never knew my sister was one of them until the Christmas when she didn't ask for any presents. It was four years ago. I remember because I asked for Nintendo 64 and Nintendo 64 came out four years ago. I also asked for new DC shoes and a Lamborghini. Chloe didn't ask for anything. She said she had everything she needed, she had more than she needed even, and she was going to give all of her stuff away to St. Vincent's. Who does that? It's Christmas, you're supposed to ask for presents. You're supposed to ask for more presents than you think Mom and Dad will ever buy you because there's always the hope that they will forget how many they got you last year and go overboard. See, take my list: I asked for Nintendo 64, DC shoes, and a Lamborghini. I didn't get the Nintendo or the Lamborghini, but I got the shoes. It's all about aiming high. If I'd only asked for the shoes, I might not have even gotten them. And I knew that if Chloe didn't ask for anything, she for sure wouldn't get anything. Or at least anything good. She didn't care though, and the day after Christmas she packed up all her presents (new socks, some sweaters, and a girly diary with angels on it) and took them to St. Vincent's. I told her no one was going to want her lame diary. She said shut up.

So anyway, I bet that Mr. Davies, the high school principal, was pretty surprised last Thursday to find my loser sister shaking a ketchup packet in Todd Nolan's face and yelling about dead cows. Todd Nolan rushed for 1,532 yards last season. I hope he doesn't know Chloe is my sister. She'd made flyers too, that had pictures of cows saying creepy stuff like "We're watching you," and "What, the milk wasn't enough?" She even markered in drips of red hanging from the letters, like she was that mummy guy from Tales from the Crypt or something. Luckily, Mr. Davies figured out that Chloe was only using the trick handcuffs I'd gotten when I'd been Eminem last Halloween, and he hauled her down to his office hella quick so the rest of the kids could enjoy their cow without my reject sister screaming at them.

But after Mr. Davies got Chloe away from Todd and out of the cafeteria, I don't think he knew what to do with her. I could have given him a few ideas, but he must not have known the number for Mrs. Lynch's fifth period science class, so he called my parents instead. Both of them should have been home. My mom is a travel agent and she works out of the corner of our kitchen. Dad has a shop in the basement where he makes rocking chairs and end tables out of solid oak. He is very proud of his solid oak - "a real man's wood," he says, whenever he is trying to show me how cool it is to work with tools all day long. I've already told him Ryan and I have other life plans. We're going to make a sequel to Dude, Where's My Car? starring us as the dudes. We're calling it Dude, For Real, Where's My Car?

So my parents should have been home when Mr. Davies called, but neither of them answered the phone. Maybe because they were already doing it by then. Mr. Davies left Chloe alone for one minute while he dealt with some kid who got kicked out of study hall for sticking eleven of the big kind of marshmallow in his mouth at once. Pretty pathetic. I mean, I can do fourteen, and I'm only in seventh grade. I'll be pushing at least twenty by the time I'm in high school. But anyway, as soon as Davies' back was turned, Chloe was out the door. I don't know what she was thinking. She probably wasn't. This is the girl who didn't want Christmas presents, remember. She just had to get out of there, she said.

As dumb as that was, it was nothing compared to what she did next. Not only did Chloe ditch school, but then she just walked home in the middle of the day like it was no big deal. It's because she reads too many books. Every normal person who watches Cops knows that when you're a wanted criminal, home is the last place you're supposed to go. I always go to the magazine racks at Jimmy's and stay for at least an hour. Sometimes if I stay longer, Jimmy lets me go in the humidor and look at all the cigars. Once I stuck one in my pocket when he wasn't looking, a big fat stogie. I showed it to Ryan later and even let him smoke a little bit of it, but he just coughed and turned kind of gray. Then I told him about how Crazy Uncle Pete lets me smoke from his cigars all the time, ever since I was nine. But Ryan doesn't have an Uncle Pete. His only uncle is Elliot, and who ever heard of a Crazy Uncle Elliot?

So Chloe walked in the house and saw my parents doing it on the family room sofa. Not someplace cool like an airplane bathroom or a burning building. Not even on the kitchen table. Nope, my parents were doing it on the family room sofa. Sick. I mean, I watch TV on that sofa. What am I supposed to do now? It's fine for Chloe, the only things she watches are the History Channel and Daria. When I asked her later she said she didn't even stop walking when she saw them. She just yelled can't anyone control themselves anymore? or something like that, and went upstairs to her room. Later, when Mom and Dad tried to talk to her about it, she just rolled her eyes and turned on her music really loud until they gave up and came to give me the talk instead. I couldn't tell them that Scottie McKenzie and I talk about this stuff all the time when we watch Baywatch with Scottie's big brother Jason. So I just had to sit there while my mom told me about doing it and my dad mumbled things about solid oak and they both gave me the you'll-understand-when-you're-older look. I hate that look, especially because my parents have probably never even seen Baywatch.

The next day in science class, I told Ryan that Chloe saw my parents doing it. He said that meant they were going to have another kid. We were playing Rock Hockey and I was killing him, as usual. I said don't be such a dumbass, all parents do it. Ryan said no, all parents do it a few times. Then they stop. He said you can tell how many times they did it by taking the number of kids plus sixteen times for the honeymoon. I said how the heck do you know? From his mom, Ryan said. Whenever his dad worked late, Ryan's mom would sigh and shake her head and say who knew eight times in one day would tire him out for the rest of his life? Ryan asked her what she was talking about once and she said nothing, she was just thinking about her honeymoon. That means sixteen times, Ryan said, because my parents only went to Florida for the weekend - two days times eight times a day. I said what are you, the doing it expert? Ryan started saying Tho-om's parents sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I told him he was an ass clown and besides they were doing a lot more than that in a tree or actually on the family room sofa. Ryan said he is not coming over to watch TV in our family room anymore.

That night at dinner Chloe wouldn't eat the pork chops. She wouldn't eat the rolls, either. All she would eat was the asparagus. She was a vegan now, she said. I said she should be a vegan all the time because it meant more rolls for me. My parents were pissed though. Mom was saying things about protein and iron and how expensive organic food was, and Dad said you can't be strong and solid if you don't eat meat. Why don't you like meat? I asked Chloe. She shot me the look and started going off about earthly desires and material things and flesh. Only Chloe would use the word flesh. That's like saying loaf or dental hygienist. I bet Barbara Walters says flesh. I bet Barbara Walters is a vegan, too.

Stella died on Saturday. Or at least that's when we found her. She was fine when I went to bed on Friday, but her box was empty when I woke up. She must have figured out a way to crawl on top of the big rock and then from there over the side of the box. I have no idea how she did it or how she made it all the way downstairs, but that's where she was. My dad found her buried in the pile of wood dust that collects underneath his circular saw. She was all shriveled up and nasty. Dad shook his head and said hermit crabs are just a different kind of animal. Then he made a little oak box to put Stella in and we buried her in the back yard. I put some wood dust in the box too, because she seemed to like it so much.

The next day, Sunday, was the worst day ever. Ryan called in the morning and asked did I want to come over and watch Dude, Where's My Car? I said ok because he has DVD and his parents do not do it on the family room sofa and besides we needed to do research for Dude, For Real, Where's My Car? We were just at the part where the dudes wake up and find all the pudding in the fridge and I turned to Ryan to tell him we are going to need lots of pudding too and that is when he tells me. He is getting Game Cube. I said you're a liar and he said no it's true. He said after he told his mom about my parents doing it on the family room sofa she started yelling to no one and then his dad came home and there was lots more yelling and then they told Ryan his dad was moving out and he was getting a Game Cube. He said it was hella creepy when his mom was yelling at no one and he hid in his room so she couldn't yell at him. After all the yelling stopped he came out and his parents told him about the Game Cube and he asked if he could get Tony Hawk too and his dad said yes. This is when I realized that life is not fair and that it is always not fair to me.

When I got home I told my mom that I needed Game Cube. I told her Ryan is getting one and it is not fair because he already has Play Station 2 and all I have is sucky Super Nintendo, a weird vegan sister, and parents who do it on the family room sofa. Mom said I should be happy that my parents love each other so much and that she was sure Ryan would let me play with his Game Cube. I said it didn't matter, he would still be better at Tony Hawk than me because I would have to come home and sleep sometimes. She said tough and went to make the tofu stir-fry for dinner. Sick.

I went into the family room to watch The Simpsons but Chloe was in there so I couldn't. I told her she was sitting on the contaminated sofa to make her move, but she didn't. She was watching some National Geographic special on people in Africa who wear soda cans in their ears and big plates in their lips. Seriously, they showed this one dude who had taken his plate out and his lip was all stretched out and flopping around. I said gross and asked Chloe if she thought they left the plates in when they were doing it and she said I was an ignoramus and that I was only concerned with affairs of the flesh. She said it on purpose, I know she did. Then she started going off about different kinds of beauty and cultural norms and other stuff I can't remember. I kind of zoned out until she stopped talking and then I asked her if people in Africa ate tofu. I was just waiting for her to tell me I was an ignoramus again, but she didn't. She just looked at me and then got up and left. I heard her bedroom door slam as I picked up the remote and put on The Simpsons.

Monday in science class I told Mrs. Lynch about Stella. I asked her why she thought Stella had run away to the basement and she said maybe Stella was molting. I said like a goose? And The Grinch said sort of, only Stella wasn't losing feathers, she was getting rid of her shell and growing a new one. She said molting is kind of a tricky process and hermit crabs need a safe place to hide out while they wait for the new shell to harden. They usually dig down into the sand and do it there, where no one can see. But maybe there wasn't enough sand in Stella's box, so she went looking for something else to cover her up and found my dad's wood dust. Only there wasn't any water in there so she died instead. I told The Grinch that my parents should have gotten me a dog like I asked for because a dog wouldn't pull crap like this, and she actually laughed. When I told Ryan, he said maybe her heart was growing a size or two and she wouldn't make us learn about rocks anymore.

That night at dinner Chloe told us she was going to Africa for the summer. Mom said absolutely not and I said can't you go for longer and then Chloe started crying. She said we were sitting here eating hamburgers and she was sitting here eating baked tofu and god knows what people in Africa were eating but she wanted to find out. She was sick of the kids at school and she was sick of diaries with angels on them and she was sick of the family room sofa and she was sick of - I sucked in my breath here because I thought she was going to say flesh, but she didn't. She was just sick of everything, she said, and why couldn't anyone understand that? Our parents couldn't stop her, she told them, she was going to Kenya for the whole summer. I wanted to ask her if people in Kenya wore plates in their lips, but she was still crying so I didn't. Even Dad didn't have anything to say, and Mom just looked sad. We sat and ate our hamburgers and our baked tofu. I gave Chloe the last roll and she actually smiled and took it. When she was finished we cleared the table.

That night I dreamt that I got a Game Cube. I walked into the family room and there it was, sitting in front of the sofa next to the TV. There was already a disk in there, some sort of hunting game. Like the old Duck Hunt only cooler and with way better graphics. I started playing. I didn't even know what I was hunting for - I thought it might be my car, only I didn't have one. Maybe my parents had gotten me the Lamborghini after all? I was running through a forest. It was hella dark in there, and it smelled like my dad's hands always do, even after he washes them twice with soap. Up ahead I saw a huge, gnarly old tree, and at the foot of it was Stella. She was digging down in between the roots, already half-covered in dirt. I kept going. The trees cleared out and I was at the bottom of a volcano. The thing must have already blown because the whole place was fried and it smelled like Jimmy's humidor, all musty and smoky. Just then I saw Chloe in front of me. She was smiling up at the volcano and as the ash from the eruption started to drift down, she raised her arms and let it fall, covering her.

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