House Broken by Sonja Yoerg

keyhole and open the door.
    She remembered to turn on the driveway lights, which was nothing short of a miracle. Her mother hated to drive up in the dark, especially with fog, but Ella almost never remembered the lights. The Prince was about to leave all his crap right by the front door. She told him not to be such a complete slob, so he dragged it to his room, bitching all the way. She tossed her bag on the floor of her room. The words floated above her and she wondered whether she should tell her mom about Adolf. She’d be upset for sure and might go off on a long lecture about responsible pet ownership and all that. Maybe she’d let Charlie tell her. Bad news from him didn’t seem to freak their mom out as much.
    Ella visited the Build-A-Bear dispensary and took a couple hits. Then she flopped on the bed and rolled onto her stomach, looking idly at her desk. Oops. The SAT prep book. She was in such deep shit. Good thing her phone said she had time for exactly one test from the writing section before her mom came home and ordered her execution. It was nine less than she was supposed to have done, but it was better than nothing.
    Twenty minutes in, she ran into the sort of question that often tripped her up. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because the five options for completing the sentence were so lame:
    8. It will be hard to ————— Leonid now that you have so ————— him.
    The answer was “mollify—incensed,” but how boring was that? What about, “It will be hard to make an Olympian of Leonid now that you have so disabled him”? Or, “It will be hard to get a decent settlement out of Leonid now that you have so totally screwed him.” She was finally enjoying herself. She moved on to the next question:
    9. He was normally entirely ————— , but in the embarrassing situation in which he found himself he felt compelled to ————— .
    Tempted as she was to get creative, she told herself just to finish the damn thing. She scanned the choices and lingered on the word
indolent
. Not the answer but it gave her a kind of déjà-vu feeling. What’s that about? Then it hit her.
Indolent
. Perfect. She dug through her backpack and took out the most importantobject in her world—her poetry notebook. She flipped to the last marked page—a mess of crossed-out lines, bubbled ideas, doodles, and a very large “ARGH!” But it was her beautiful mess, and so close to coming together. Like one of those optical illusions where the background and the foreground can switch. First it’s a vase; then it’s two people facing each other. Right before you suddenly see it the other way, if you pay attention, you can feel it about to happen.
    The last line was “The slumbering notions of a half-starved god.” She crossed out
slumbering
and wrote
indolent
. She put her pencil down and read the line aloud. Leaning back in her chair, she laughed. The printout on her bulletin board said the date for the poetry slam in the city was May 26. Today was the thirteenth, so she’d definitely be ready.
    There was a commotion at the front door, then footsteps down the hallway. She was still trancing about her poem when her mom knocked. She grunted and her mom came in.
    â€œHi. We just got home. Thanks for leaving the lights on.”
    â€œSure.” She closed the poetry notebook very casually. “Nana here?”
    â€œDad’s with her in Charlie’s room.”
    Her mom scanned the desk. Swear to God, her mom missed her calling as a cop. She pursed her lips and frowned, but didn’t say anything. Normally she’d be all over Ella’s case about something: not doing her SAT or her homework or cleaning the bathroom or whatever. She didn’t usually yell or lecture. Not exactly. More like a concise review of the facts, the rules, the goals,