Chapter 4

There was steak for dinner that night, which meant there were a lot of references to

killing the fatted calf, which meant there were also a lot of references to the return of

the prodigal son, which everyone laughed at except Abigail.

She remembered the story that they were joking about and did not find it very funny.

It was a Bible story, and one of the ones that made Abigail shake her head.

As she remembered it, the story went more or less like this.

A man had two sons. One of them was good and stayed home, and one of them was a total jerk and went away. And then the total jerk came back

and everybody threw a party and made a big fuss about him. And when the good son said,

Hey, what about me? The father basically told him to shut up. It was one of the

most deeply unsatisfying stories that Abigail could remember from Sunday school. As far as she was

concerned, the story was as unfinished as the ending of Cinderella, when no one even bothered to cut off

the wicked stepmother's head.

There were several things which annoyed Abigail about the references to the prodigal son's story

that were flying around her dining room just now. If she had to put them into some kind of order,

the list might have looked like this. Number one.

She was not entirely sure what prodigal meant, but she was pretty sure it meant big jerk.

And not only was Jeremy not taking offense at this, but he was laughing every time it came up, as if he were not actually a big jerk, which he was.

Number two. They would not let the joke die,

even though it had not been very funny in the first place.

Every few minutes, her father, her mother would ask if Jeremy was enjoying his fatted calf,

and they would all laugh as if they had not just called Jeremy a big jerk, which

...