“We'll give you twenty-four hours to think about it,” Mom said as she handed me a list of demands (要求) . Her skin was dark, having enjoyed three weeks of July sunlight, and she looked five years younger. Dad lay on the overgrown grass, painting a new sign. He saw me looking, gave a cocky smirk (幸灾乐祸的笑) , and held it up: PARENTS ON STRIKE! It was their third week on strike and life in the house had gotten rough. Dirty clothes piled up in the hallways, with a horrible smell from the dishwasher. The eighty dollars a week Aunt Lynn gave Emmie and me for food limited our grocery shopping to the 7-11, and the same meals every day left us bloated and half-nauseous. Morn and Dad had taken the keys to the car, leaving us to bike or walk our way across town on the few nights we wanted to hang out with friends; we couldn't invite anyone over, not after the two person human chain they had formed to block the front door had scared away my friend Chuck enough to keep him from coming back. They had even managed to scare away Grandma, yelling “Scab! Scab!” when she tried to walk up the front path with a few plates of fried chicken. The mood inside the house almost matched the smell. I blamed Emmie for pushing Mom too far with the constant complaining about the vegetables in her homemade Cobb salads or the complaints when Mom bought honeyle-scented shampoo instead of summer peach. She accused me, correctly, of not helping matters when I allowed the grass to grow to an unacceptable length after Dad's repeated requests to cut it. This all came after the Orlando vacation we had to end early after my misbehavior got us kicked Out of Disney World. Looking back, the morning we awoke to find them marching across the lawn, holding signs that read UNGRATEFUL CHILDREN=HATEFUL CHILDREN and NO RESPECT, NO PARENTS/KNOW RESPECT, KNOW PARENTS was much more surprising than it should have been. It took us until that night to realize it wasn't a joke. I read their demands, written on the back of a Publisher's Clearing house envelope and signed by both of them. Two car uses per day with a maximum of ten per week. Set allowance at one dollar per year of age. Chore ignorance resulted in an immediate twenty five percent allowance reduction. Zero tolerance whining policy. I tossed it into the overflowing trash basket. That night, after Emmie returned from the Goodwill store, we discussed it. “That means I'd only get thir dollars a week!” she said, digging into her bare arm with her fingernails. “That's not even enough to go to a movie.” “Yeah, and I'd only get seen.” Couldn't fill a car up with gas, if I'd had one.“ Listen, though. They have to start teaching again in early August. No way they can stay outside then. They can't work without showers or computers or a comfortable bed.” She threw me a desperate look. Her green eyes peeked out from behind her puffy cheeks. “Two more weeks? ”she asked, biting the inside of her lip. I nodded as I looked onto the lawn. A solitary light shone in their tent, casting an orange halo onto the driveway within which their blurry silhouettes( 轮廓 )danced. I could hear their laughter from inside. Two more weeks, I thought. Two more weeks.