The Pizza in New Jersey

About four o’clock, Charlette tells the boys that they are going out for pizza that night. She had thought they might be excited about the unexpected treat, pizza for dinner in the middle of the week! Instead Emmett had said, I thought we were having chicken. That’s what you told us this morning. Yeah, Mom, you did, Jared said. That chicken you make, with the lemons inside. It’s true that Charlette had planned to roast a chicken. She had even gone to the market and bought a chicken, and the lemons, and salad greens, and cauliflower. But she just couldn’t find the energy to cook it all up. That’s the way the housework is going lately. The dirty laundry is piling up, the dust grows thick, the boys find, to their astonishment, that there’s no orange juice or bananas or fresh bread. You could have chicken pizza, she said. The boys look at each other, and Emmett says, Chicken pizza blows.