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This car is too big for our abbreviated family. Dad drives, and I sit in the back where he can see me, as if I would budge, just the two of us since the accident that reduced us by half. Beside him is empty. Beside me too. He has a metaphorical way of holding the wheel at twelve o’clock with his left hand backwards like he’s prepping for a hard right or fighting a skid, like he’s shaking his fist at whatever’s ahead, ready to flip the bird. Equally newsworthy, his favorite parking space is alongside any unattended female, and every time we somehow get the checkout line with the cutest cashier. I learn what I observe, not what I’m told. It’s clever for a man his age to tell them what we’re up to, to frame himself a single dad buying game cartridges with his son. When they smile, at him, not me, he appreciates me with gum and batteries. Just once he should tell them why he’s single and who was driving if not drunk then nearly, and who was climbing over the seat to get to the front when we ran into a barricade that was meant to stay put and did. We’re survivors, Dad and I. We flew through the moon roof like superheroes side by side and into the night. I would have been belted in, like now, like Mom and Junior were. Dad never believed in them. The belts, I mean. He doesn’t look at the passenger seat. He doesn’t look at me either. But if he has to brake suddenly, which happens a lot, he reaches back to restrain Junior, when I’m the one who’s sitting here. I don’t get it. The living were always better off without Dad’s kind of protection.
Original Copyright © February 21, 2007
Revised Copyright © February 23, 2026
Video versions of Very Short Novels are coming to your screens (one at a time and slowly). Trade Rumors is the first to be posted to our affiliated Must See Theater channel on YouTube. Life Line has been shot and is in post-production. And Eat the Air is on the schedule next. Check in often.
The Video Version in 299 words
The Print Version in 299 words:
—Dad, are you trying to trade me?
—What would make you say that?
—Mister Moyer said you offered me for his daughter.
—Not just his daughter, son. That was a package deal.
—Why would you want to do that?
—Do you mean why or do you mean why now?
—
—I don’t think you’ll ever be worth more.
—But I’m nothing but potential!
—
—What if I go somewhere else and thrive?
—That’s what I’m hoping.
—Oh, so you’re doing me a favor.
—
—Is it my grades?
—You think I care about your grades?
—I don’t know, but you can’t just trade your family!
—No? Your mother managed it pretty well.
—Is this something I can veto?
—You can beg. You know I like that.
—What if I’m not happy where you send me?
—I didn’t think you were happy here.
—I’m very happy here.
—You don’t act it.
—This is how a happy teenager acts, Dad.
—
—At least let me stay in the same school.
—With those grades?
—
—Anyway relax, there’s not much out there.
—Maybe your standards are too high.
—Why, because I won’t take on someone else’s liability?
—Dad, just admit you don’t like me and let’s move on.
—I couldn’t do that, son.
—You think it’s better not to say it?
—
—This isn’t fair.
—What, fathers and sons? It’s inevitable.
—If that were true, your dad would have traded you.
—Yeah, well. I might have been better off.
—Oh, Dad, is that what this is about?
—
—You think I won’t get enough chances living with you?
—
—Look. Grandpa was an asshole.
—Yeah?
—Yeah.
—Yeah?
—Yeah. You don’t have to be.
—So, what do you think of the Moyer girl?
—She’s cute, but she’ll never tell you the truth.
—Yeah.
—Yeah.
—Play some ball?
—Let’s play some ball.
print version Copyright © July 31, 2009
video version Copyright © September 2025
Very Short Novels 
This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Short for Family from 20 years ago. The revisions…