Treasure Island!!!

so sharply that my mother’s eyes pooled with tears.
    “What the heck is
your
problem?” Adrianna said.
    “Nothing,” I grumbled.
    “I mean, jeez, if you don’t want to talk, get out of the kitchen.”
    “Jeez, heck,” I jeered.
    “If you can’t
stand the heat
, get out of the kitchen,” my father corrected.
    “I’m not speaking idiomatically,” Adrianna said.
    “It’s all right,” my mother said. “I wasn’t offended. Really.”
    “This is about courtesy,” Adrianna insisted.
    Which happens not to be a Core Value, I reminded her, though recently I had displayed courtesy as I affected not to notice all the incredibly annoying things that went on around me. For instance, I hadn’t said anything about the fact that Dad stunk up the bathroom, or that my mother’s bread rolls were frozen even after she defrosted them, or the fact that she, Adrianna, had been keeping me up half the night with her sobbing.
    Diversion accomplished.
    My mother turned to her favorite daughter. “Is this true?”
    “No.”
    “Have you been crying?”
    Adrianna flushed. “Oh, god. No. I mean, maybe I had one rough night, but hardly . . . ”
    “Sweetheart, what’s upsetting you?” My mother took Adrianna’s face in her hands.
    “Nothing! Don’t you see?” Adrianna squealed. “She’s trying to shift the focus!”
    “Honey, if you’re depressed, your father and I want to know about it.”
    Your father and I
. I laughed out loud; she was radioing in for backup. I swiveled to look at my father who, sure enough, sat placidly eating applesauce, showing no signs of having engaged with Adrianna or her “crisis.”
    “You can tell us anything,” my mother said.
    “Do you want me to clear the air, Adrianna?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Clear the air about what?” my mother said.
    Have I said that I
live
for the plain speaking of
Treasure Island
? When I think of all the interference, subtext, and evasion of my childhood, I want to scream and pull the antimacassars off the furniture—and never mind the oily blots on the back of the chair. It was time for someone to tell our parents the truth, I told Adrianna, thinking of how Jim Hawkins speaks the truth to Silver, even at the risk of offense. It could either be her or me, I said, but the fact was she had been drifting around in a leaky ship for days, with no sight of landing.
    “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Adrianna cried.
    “Darling, what’s wrong?” my mother said.
    “Why does she have to talk like that? Why do we
put up
with her talking like that? I know she’ll try to make this conversation be about me, but if anything, we should be talking about why she’s wrecking
her
life!”
    “You girls are always so melodramatic,” my mother said.
    “She quit work and responsibility and civility just so she can wallow in an escapist boy-oriented book utterly lacking in psychology or spirit!”
    I’d known she didn’t like my book, or the intensity I brought to my book, but she’d never articulated my doings in such a heartless way.
    “Escapist?” I said. “You know what, Adrianna? F-U-C-K you.”
    “Now, now,” my mother quavered. “Don’t start . . . spelling.”
    “ . . . I’ve seen those index cards scattered around the house. I don’t understand the point. Are you writing a diary? An account of your adventures? A ‘captain’s log’? Why are some of them written in silver, and some of them written in purple? They seem like the ravings of a lunatic. I found one in the bathroom the other day.”
    She sprang up and ran out of the room.
    “Where is she going?” my father asked.
    I knew where she was going; I also knew how to take advantage of her absence.
    “Adrianna is having a hideous sick twisted love affair with an older man who you know and trust!” I blurted.
    Adrianna ran back into the room, squinting, holding one of my cards in her clumsy hand. She began to read aloud its contents in an extravagantly objectionable tone.
    “‘Well, let ’em come, lad, let ’em come. I’ve still a shot in my locker, which is how he turns the Black Spot around. Always time left to turn fate around—’”
    “An affair with who?” my mother broke in.
    “What?” The blood drained from Adrianna’s face. She realized she should never have left the room. Not for a minute! Fetching evidence against me, my ass!
    “Don’t you want to see this card?” Adrianna faltered.
    “No, I want to know about you having an affair. Is he married? Is it