5 Exaggeration

Chapter 5 Exaggeration exaggeration (n) a technique in which a magician makes a showy, flashy gesture (also called a flourish) in order to misdirect the audience so they won't notice what the magician is really doing "So what do you guys do for fun around here?" asked Mr. Treski, clapping his hands and rubbing them together as if he were getting ready to cook up a really great meal. "Lots of stuff!" said Jessie. "I'm going to my room," said Evan, heading for the stairs. "What do you mean? I just got here. And now that Mom's gone..." He raised and lowered his eyebrows several times as if he were planning to do something Mom would not approve of. Something

fun. Something exciting. Jessie felt her stomach flip then flop. "What? Now that Mom's gone... you can leave?" asked Evan. "Man, Evan," said their dad, shaking his head and smiling. "Give it a rest, would'ya?" "I'm going to my room," Evan said again, and this time their dad didn't try to stop him. "What's he so mad about?" muttered Mr. Treski as he walked across the kitchen and retrieved his backpack. "Is he mad?" asked Jessie. "Yeah, I would say so." "But he didn't yell," said Jessie matter-of-factly. "No..." "And he didn't call names or say he was mad." "That's true, but..." "And his face was like this," said Jessie, making her face go completely blank, as if it were sand on a calm beach and a gentle wave had just smoothed it flat.

"Yeah, but Jessie, he was mad. Couldn't you tell?" Her father looked at her long and hard. Jessie started to get that feeling of wanting to go up to her bedroom, close the door, and read Charlotte's Web. Her dad pulled his phone from the side pocket of his backpack. "That's a nice phone," said Jessie. It had a big color touchscreen, big enough that you could watch movies on it. Jessie's mom's phone didn't even have a screen. It was the kind that came free when you signed up for cell service, and it was at least five years old. "Yeah," said her dad absently as his thumb flew over the screen, pushing buttons and looking at the text and images that flashed by. "I couldn't live without my phone." "That isn't actually true," said Jessie. "That's hyperbole. We learned that word during our poetry unit with Mrs. Overton. Hyperbole is an extremely exaggerated statement that isn't true. So it's kind of

like a lie, except that Mrs. Overton says it doesn't count as a lie, because it's a figure of speech. Which doesn't make sense to me. If it's not true, then it's not true. Like what you just said." Jessie didn't like exaggeration. She liked facts to be facts. "Mmm, yeah," said her dad, never taking his eyes off the screen. "I get your point... but.. just give me a second, okay? I've got to check the feeds." "What are the feeds?" asked Jessie, perking up. This sounded like reporter talk. "I'm hooked up to... well, they're like... they tell me what's going on in the world before anyone else knows about it." "What's going on in the world?" asked Jessie. "A lot. Every minute of every day. And I'm responsible for some of it." "I thought you said you were between assignments." "Yeah, well, a reporter is never really between assignments." "But that means you lied—"

Jessie's dad held up a hand to silence her as he stared intently at the screen. Then he pushed one last button on his phone, and it made a chirping sound as he slid it into his back pocket. "But nothing's going on this second. At least nothing much. So what should we do?" He had a big smile on his face. "I want to show you my room!" shouted Jessie. They went upstairs, and Jessie showed her dad everything. The newest additions to her collection of trolls, all her homework and test papers for the whole school year, the books she currently had checked out from the library, and all the drawings and posters she'd made to decorate her room. Then she showed him all four editions of The 4-O Forum, which was the classroom newspaper that Jessie wrote and edited. He looked at each paper, but he didn't read any of the articles. So Jessie read the front-page story for each paper out loud to him so he wouldn't miss any of the good stuff. "And I have eighty-one dollars and forty-three cents saved up," said Jessie proudly, folding up the

newspaper. She thought of taking out her lockbox and showing him her savings, just so he would know she was really telling the truth, but then she remembered her rule about never showing her money to anyone. "Good for you!" he said. "You're like your mom, saving money. Not like me!" He leaned back on her bed, casually resting against the headboard. Jessie's dad liked to lean on things. In fact, when Jessie's mom first met her dad, he was leaning against a cherry-red sports car. Not that the car was his, but he sure looked good leaning against it, her mom always said, laughing when she told the story. "Can you please take your shoes off the bed?" she asked loudly, pointing at her father's feet, which were on top of her comforter and dangerously close to her stuffed animals. Her dad swung his feet so that they hung over the edge of the bed. "Seriously, Jessie. That's a lot of dough for a nine-year-old." "I'll be ten in four months."