After dinner—salsa chicken, their favorite—Luca approached his mother with the problem at hand. She was sitting at her computer desk paying bills. Yuck. She could definitely use a break.
“Mommy,” Luca ventured. “Um, I have a classmate at school…and this classmate needs, uhh, a new best friend. What kind of person should she… I mean… What kind of person should be my classmate’s best friend?”
“Well, sweetie,” she said, smiling, “I think I need more information. Can you tell me more about her? I mean, your classmate.”
Luca hesitated. He really wasn’t interested in revisiting the fact that he was helping a girl, but it looked like he might not get his mother’s help unless he was more specific.
“It’s j-just that…” he stammered, and as he did so, he lightly stomped his foot on the floor a few times. “Ughh. It’s… I need, well…she needs a…”
“Yes?” Mrs. Levi squealed with pleasure. “What’s her name?”
Luca felt his face flush with blood as it turned beet-red. This was not going well. “Never mind!” he screeched as he turned on his heel and scurried away to his bedroom.