For instance, just last week Charlotte had come home from school to find her mother perched all too casually in the kitchen, pretending she was not, in fact, waiting for Charlotte. But she totally was. Charlotte knew the signs; her mother was not casual about anything.

That day the topic of conversation was, not surprisingly, Charlotte and her attitude. Said topic was a particular favorite of Charlotte's mom's; no one in the history of the world ever liked to talk about anything as much as Charlotte's mom liked to talk about Charlotte's attitude. Charlotte thought her mother should be given some kind of plaque or something, or maybe there should be a statue-except the statue would probably want to talk about Charlotte's attitude too.

So anyway, when Charlotte got home from school that day, her mother just happened to be sitting in the kitchen reading, and the kitchen was not really that comfortable a place to be reading, but that's beside the point. And when her mother offered to make her a snack, Charlotte thought for a moment about pretending she had somewhere else to be, but she knew the best thing to do would be to let her make the snack and get this over with.

"So, Char…," her mother said casually, unscrewing the peanut butter lid. "I hear the school play auditions are coming up…"

How did she possibly hear that? Charlotte wondered. One thing about her mother is she has way too many friends.

"Are you thinking of auditioning?" she asked, opening the box of crackers.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Hi, Mom, have we met?”

"Because I thought maybe you should," she said, spreading the peanut butter on the crackers. "You used to love acting when you were little." She smiled and brought Charlotte the plate.