Odessa Again

The New House
There comes a day in the life of every big sister when it's simply no longer suitable to share a bedroom with your toad of a little brother.
For Odessa Green-Light, that day was a Tuesday.
They'd only been living in the new house a few months. Odessa and Oliver shared a room, like they had in the old house, and like they did in Dad's apartment. This new house, of which Odessa was not particularly fond, had one redeeming feature that the old house she missed so much did not.
It had an attic.
From the first time the landlady gave them the tour--with someone else's scribbles on the kitchen wall, and someone else's stickers stuck to the dryer that had dried someone else's clothes, and the narrow wooden staircase scuffed from someone else's shoes--Odessa had her eye on that attic.
"You'll love it here," the old lady barked at Odessa, as if this were an order and not a wish.
Odessa doubted very much that she would love it there, but she did think that she might love living in the attic, a full flight of stairs removed from Oliver.
She asked, but of course her mother said no. If there was one thing Odessa could count on, it was Mom saying no to the things Odessa wanted most.
So a few months back, on move-in day, a day Mom tried to make cheery by blasting old-fashioned music and singing into a broom handle, Odessa unpacked her stuff into one half of a too-small bedroom while Oliver the Toad unpacked into the other.
And each day since, or at least every weeknight and every other weekend, which were the nights she spent at her mother's, Odessa had begged to move into that attic, but it hadn't worked.
Begging rarely did.
She'd also tried cajoling, bamboozling, and hoodwinking.
"Not a chance," Mom said.
Sometimes, however, victory is found in unlikely places.
Oliver discovered the field mouse that delivered this victory in the backyard. Oliver didn't seem to know how to get along with real live people: his terrible shyness got in the way. But there