Apparently, my mother didn't think the same as Jen. In fact she had exactly the opposite attitude to my new interest in school work. When I returned home and showed her my grade, she hugged me and then ran off to call her friends. I heard her on the phone gossiping happily about how well her little Angel was doing and how grown up she was becoming.

I went into the bathroom and examined myself in the full-length wall mirror. Nope. My figure was growing in most the appropriate places for my age. My hips were wide enough for swinging, and my upper body anatomy could swing, too, when I moved right. But up? I looked at the ceiling far, far above me. No, I was definitely not growing up.

“Angela! Angela, where are you?”

My mother, utterly convinced, I'm sure, that I couldn't or at least shouldn't be doing anything in here that her eyes weren't allowed to see, threw open the bathroom door. “Oh Angela.” She beamed down at me. “Wait till your father hears about this. He'll be so excited. And Cathy!”

“Yeah”, I said. “I'll bet Cathy will be real excited that for once, I didn't flunk.”

My mother beamed some more. Did I mention that I have a really big problem with people who don't understand sarcasm?

“We have to celebrate this! What should we do? I know! I'll cook you something special, and you'll get an extra big helping. What would you like, my Angel?”

That's what you get for not screwing up once. I hadn't expected to be hailed as the new Einstein for my recent math achievement, but neither did I expect I would be punished for it. My first instinct was to say: “Nothing, mom. I'd like to go to bed hungry tonight. Do you think you could manage that? Yes? Thanks so much!”

But then I looked into her eager, childlike eyes and I knew I couldn't do that to her. I opened my mouth, ready to resign myself to my fate, when suddenly, an idea struck me. An ingenious idea.

“Do you think you could make pasta?”, I asked with an innocent smile.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

My plan wasn't going to be quite as easy as I'd hoped – which wasn't exactly surprising, I told myself. After all, when I'd helped doing this in the shelter, we'd cooked for a crowd of over a hundred with pots and pans half the size of Montana. My mother was trying to do it in one of her normal kitchen pots for a family of four. And she was trying, really trying, I could tell. She smiled over at me nervously as I sat at the kitchen table, doodling in my notebook, and picked up the oregano shaker to salt the mincemeat. Trying, it seemed, wasn't going to be enough. The phone rang.

“O dear,” mom sighed. “I'll be back in a minute.”

I wasn't exactly sure whether she was talking to me or the mincemeat. The latter would surely have paid even less attention to her than I. As soon as she was out of the room, I sprang up and strode over to the stove. Taking a pan out of the kitchen cabinet, I emptied the pot into it and placed it on the stove. Then I added an appropriate amount of salt and pepper.

My mother was still on the phone. It sounded like another of her friends, and it sounded like that friend was telling her that she had heard from another friend that another friend's daughter hadn't done at all well in the math test – which, of course, promptly caused my mother to sing a lengthy hymn of praise about my recent accomplishments.

The mincemeat was turning a brownish color. It looked like it should look when it was ready for eating, so I carefully took up a spoon, picked up a tiny morsel and tasted. It tasted like it should, too! Not bad for a first attempt. I allowed myself a tiny grin of pride. In the living room, my mother's conversation seemed to draw to a close. Hurriedly, I hid all the spices that I could see on the kitchen counter in the cutlery drawer and ran back to the table. When my mother reentered the kitchen, I was doodling like a real doodler who has nothing to do but to doodle all day.

“Sorry, honey”, she said, turning to me. “That was just Judith. Apparently, Margery’s daughter got an F in math! Can you imagine?”

“If she's anything like Margery, yea, I can”, I muttered too low for my mother to hear. She turned back to the stove and looked at it with a slightly confused expression. “So.. where was I...” Her confusion seemed to deepen at the sight of the pan and the kitchen counter, which was empty of spices.

She took a spoon and tasted the mincemeat, and immediately, her expression brightened.

“How time flies”, she exclaimed. “I'm so excited today I hardly know what I'm doing. But this seems to be all right. Five minutes more and it'll be done. Now we need to get the water boiling...” I watched with apprehension as she cooked water and looked for noodles and the minutes ticked by without her showing the slightest intention to turn back the gas. If she didn't do anything soon, we were going to have charcoal mincemeat.

“I'm.... going to go and... go upstairs, mom”, I said, standing up. “Yes, upstairs.” My mother just smiled and I left the kitchen. Shortly afterwards, the doorbell rang. I was just coming back into the kitchen just when my mother was leaving to get the door.

“Strange. Who could that be at this hour?” she wondered. “It can't be your father already, surely. Have you invited someone over, Angela?”

“Me?” I widened my eyes in innocent surprise. That's another thing besides puppy-dog they're excellently suited for. “No.”

“Hmm.”

She continued on and I hurried over to save our dinner from incineration. I had just turned off the gas when my mother returned.

“Strange”, she said, her brow furrowed. “There was no one there. “

I shrugged. “Perhaps someone thought it was April Fool's Day.”

“It's June.”

“Isn't that nice! I like the summer, don't you? And I like my special dinner. Looks delicious!”

Her eyes lit up.

“Do you really think so?”

“Of course I do!”

Perhaps I shouldn't have sounded quite so enthusiastic, because after my compliment, my mother carried on with even more energy than before. I could see what a struggle it was for her. She hated cooking! It was a messy business, and when you knew what the food looked like before it was cooked, that tended not to improve your appetite. When she got tomato juice on her spotless apron, I could tell she would have cursed if she hadn't abhorred cursing even more than cooking. But although she hated to do it, she was happy to do it. She was celebrating her little girl's big day! Parents... they really should come with a therapist attached.

It didn't take long for her to lose track of time again. Soon, the noodles were in danger of dissolving into the world's first noodle sauce. I looked at them with apprehension. When the doorbell rang, I turned around, stunned, not sure if I had suddenly developed telekinetic powers in my effort to avert family food poisoning. But then I realized that it must be Cathy. I must admit, I would have liked telekinetic powers much better.

However, I was not the one to squander an opportunity such as this. The minute my mother was out of the kitchen, I jumped up and hurried over to the noodles. When she returned with Cathy and Dad, who had apparently arrived at the same time as my sister, I was doodling. Doodling is fun. Plus, nobody thinks you're up to anything when you doodle, except perhaps if they're a secret agent. They're smart that way. My mother apparently wasn't.

“Strange”, she said, looking at the pot of noodles, now resting on the kitchen counter. “I could have sworn I hadn't taken that off the stove yet.”

“You said yourself you were excited today”, I reminded her.

“That's right. After all, who else could have done it?”

See what I mean? Definitely no 007.

Soon, our Family was gathered around the dining table.

We folded our hands and spoke:

“Bless us, O Lord,

and thy gifts,

which we are about to receive from thy bounty.

We thank thee for what you have given us,

We praise thee for thy wisdom, thy...” etcetera, etcetera, Amen. When we were finished, my dad unfolded his hands and rubbed them.

“What's on the menu today?” He wanted to know.

“Pasta, honey. Angela said she'd like it.”

“And why,” Cathy inquired, “Does that mean it's going to be on the table today?”

“Angela passed her math test”, mom gloated. “Isn't that fantastic? And with a B-, too!”

“Well done”, Dad grunted and settled into his usual chair.

Cathy sat down beside him, picked up her spoon and looked at her reflection from different angles. It seemed like she was pleased with what she saw.

“Yea, fantastic”, she yawned. “Now can we please get on with this?”

“Dinner's coming!” My mother took an enormous bowl from one of the cupboards and placed it on the kitchen counter. A second bowl followed. Every day she put the dinner in those bowls before serving it, and I still hadn't figured out why. Did she imagine it tasted any better than it would coming directly out of the pan? On Sundays, she even used special bowls with flowers painted on them and a golden rim. I'm sure Jesus was very impressed by that.

Mom opened the cutlery drawer and retrieved an enormous spoon and a fork that wasn't much smaller. These were obviously better suited for moving stuff from pot to bowl and vice versa than for eating, although I'd sometimes looked at them and wondered if perhaps they wouldn't be the right size for Cathy's mouth. We sat there, waiting, and expected mom to start filling the bowls. But she just stood there, looking down at the open cutlery drawer with a puzzled expression. Then she reached down, and as her hand came out of the drawer again, she was holding a salt shaker.

“How strange”, she exclaimed. “Who put that in there?”

I tried not to meet her eyes.

After having emptied the cutlery drawer of salt, oregano, pepper, Dean & Deluca's Five Spice Blend and a few more items that didn't exactly belong there, mom finally filled the two bowls, one with mincemeat, the other with noodles, and carried them over to the table.

“And don't you forget”, she said, “Angela gets an extra-big helping today because she's done so well.”

Cathy smirked, looking derisively first at the bowls, then at me.

“Of course. Everything for my dear little sister.”

Dad filled his plate and dug in with his usual gusto. I followed suit, and Catherine, unlike with anything else, took what was left over.

Now, it would have been too much to say that the food tasted wonderful. Hey, I'm no Jamie Oliver – after all, I'm a girl and definitely not British. But the thing about the food was that it tasted like actual food. My Dad seemed to have noticed something was wrong, too. He frowned and looked down at his plate.

“This tastes... different”, he stated.

Catherine took a careful bite, and then frowned, too, which must have meant she was really flabbergasted because normally she'd never do that for fear of getting wrinkles. “Yeah”, she confirmed. “Almost edible.”

I smiled proudly. It was the first compliment I had ever gotten from her. No matter that it wasn't very enthusiastic, I could tell that she really meant it – by the way she enviously stared the portion of pasta on my plate, which was about three times as big as hers. Family life could be real fun sometimes.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

After dinner, we said grace, and for the first time I actually meant it when I said thanks. It was nice. My mom was just about to start clearing the table when I said to her: “Thank you so much! That was delicious.” And I gave her a hug. I think she was as startled as I was.

“Thank you, my angel.” She hugged me back. “I'm so glad you enjoyed it. You deserved it. I'm proud of you.”

“I wanted to ask...”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I could head over to the shelter for a bit?”

“But sweetie, it's late. They're sure to have finished dinner over there, too.”

“Yea, but they can probably use my help washing up”, I half-fibbed. “The dishwasher is always breaking down.” It was true enough – but that wasn't the real reason why I wanted to go. I had to share my success!

“Well... Okay, honey, but be sure to be back before ten.”

“I'll do that.”

I ran up the stairs and into the room. There, I stuffed my math test into my backpack. Downstairs again, I dashed into the kitchen and added two cans of coke. Packed and ready, I left the apartment.

In the elevator, I checked my watch. If my memory served me right, a bus was due from the nearby bus station in about 5 minutes. Fortunately, there was money in my purse. The bus drivers weren't as friendly as Enrique.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“Ange!”

Debby waved to me as soon as I entered.

“Finally! I thought you would never come. I missed you.”

“Sorry,” I said with regret. “School was longer today. I probably should have called.”

“Oh no!” Debby laughed. “If everybody called me if and when they would come later, earlier or not at all, I would have nothing to do but to juggle cellphones all day.”

She probably said more after that, but I didn't pay any real attention. My gaze was attracted by a figure sitting, as usual, in a dark corner. Giacomo was just as alone and silent as ever, his face dark in more than once sense.

Debby tapped me on the shoulder and woke me from my revery.

“W-what?”

“I said the dishes are washed but I'll need someone to put them back into the cupboard. Do you think you can do that?”

I looked at the cupboards, most of which went all the way up to the ceiling.

“If you have a ladder for me.”

“O, just stack everything on the lower shelves. There ought to be enough room.”

“Okay, I'll do that.”

“You're an Angel. Then again, you probably already knew that, didn't you?”

I rolled my eyes at her as she disappeared into one of the back rooms. Then, my gaze flitted back to the corner.

Giacomo was still sitting there, hunched over and sanctimoniously tensed as if waiting for an attack. He looked unexpectedly vulnerable – and much younger than I had at first thought. Perhaps he was still just a boy. The three-day beard that covered his chin made him look older that he actually was, as did a certain look in his eyes that reflected the things they must have seen.

'Still too old', I thought. 'Still too strange, too dangerous, too different.' After all, what did I really know about him? Did I know who he really was? No. Did I know where he was from, what he was doing here and where he intended to go? No. Did I know why and from what he was hiding? Why he chose to retreat into the darkness, alone and friendless? No, I didn't.

On the other hand, I did know that he was years older than me, that he was unemployed, homeless, secretive and sometimes aggressive. What had my curiosity gotten me into? I should avoid him, should never see or speak to him again. Not when every moment we were together I was thinking about leaning into him, feeling his strong arms tighten around me and... Stop! Stop! This was ridiculous. I should avoid him! I had every reason to!

The words were perfectly logical. Still, they sent a searing agony through my heart. I took a deep breath and went over to the waiting stacks of dishes. I picked one up. It was white, new, seemingly completely untouched. It would either soon be filled with wonderful things, or it would fall and shatter on the floor.

Or it would be put inside the cupboard. Enough with the metaphors. Sighing, I started to work.

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My imagination is used up and I can't think of an interesting author's note today ;)