“The kids could help me.”
“Niko, we should totally do it,” Brayden urged. “In case of emergency.”
“Of course you can work on it,” Niko snapped. “I just doubt you’ll be able to fix it in one day. And these guys leave tomorrow. That’s all.”
“Aw,” complained Chloe. “I don’t want him to leave. Not ever.”
“Me either!” said Max. The other kids agreed.
Niko walked away.
I looked at Robbie, smiling and rustling the hair of the little kids who were gathered around him.
It didn’t seem to me like it would be the worst thing in the world if Robbie stayed more than one day, either.
He grabbed Chloe and Max and lifted them off the floor. They squealed, delighted.
Robbie appointed Chloe the note taker. She kept a log of the repairs needed as Robbie inspected the bus: Pound out dents in roof; replace broken windshield; replace windows; repair seats; tune engine; fix tires.
Henry suggested they paint racing stripes on the bus and Robbie told Chloe to put it on the list.
Robbie had a good sense of kids and how to manage them in a crowd. He sent Brayden and Alex off to get some supplies from Automotive and then he told the little kids that the first thing to do was to clear a working space around the bus. The kids set to work pushing the carts away and cleaning up any pieces of glass or debris that had been missed before.
“I’m good with engines. I have experience. Wanna know why, Mr. Robbie?” Max said in his cheerful way. “Because my dad sometimes works at a chop shop.”
“What’s a chop shop?” Chloe demanded.
“It’s a secret club where you go to take cars apart. It’s really fun.”
“What’s so fun about that?”
“Because it’s a secret and you can’t tell nobody! Especially not the police, because they’re never allowed in the club. They’re always so jealous. The cops would give anything to get in a chop shop.”
Robbie caught my eye and he grinned. I had to grin back.
“And sometimes the cars are really fancy, too,” Max continued. “BMW, Lexus, Subarus…”
“Wow,” Batiste said.
“Our mom drives a Subaru!” Caroline said, her sweet little voice excited and proud.
“It’s a Forester!” Henry added.
“Cool,” Max said.
They were pretty cute, our kids. I could see why Robbie liked to hug them. They were definitely huggable. At times.
I decided I’d better get working on lunch.
As I turned and headed into the Kitchen I saw that Sahalia was sitting on top of the low dividing wall between the Pizza Shack and the cart corral where the bus was sitting.
She was biting her cuticles with determination. She looked really left out and downhearted. I felt bad for her, but not that bad, since she’d been such a pain in the ass to us all in the last couple of days.
I saw Robbie notice Sahalia and walk over.
“We need everyone to help if we’re going to get this bus in shape,” he said softly.
“It looks like you have enough helpers to me,” she said.
“Yeah, but they’re little,” Robbie said. “I need people who can actually help.” He smiled at her and patted her on the knee. “Grown-ups.”
Was Sahalia a grown-up? Not really.
But he knew exactly what to say.
Sahalia smiled. She gathered her hair up and twisted it in a knot.
“Okay,” she said. “Show me what to do.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, giving her knee a squeeze.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HANDS
I let Max help fix the bus instead of making him come do KP with me.
They were having a great time.
While Robbie, Brayden, and Sahalia worked on the tires and then on the engine, the little kids washed the bus with baby wipes, which was absurd but very cute.
Robbie gave Alex the task of figuring out how to replace the windshield and broken windows. Alex set off into the store to forage for Plexiglas. This was exactly his kind of challenge.
I made tuna sandwiches for lunch, with some peas and carrots on the side. I figured Robbie and Mr. Appleton could use the protein from the tuna and fresh (frozen) vegetables are something grown-ups seem to enjoy.
Mr. Appleton was still sleeping, so he didn’t come to lunch, which, truth be told, probably made lunch all the more fun. That guy was a grump.
And Niko had come, taken a plate of food and left, so we also didn’t have him there to be worrying in our faces and bringing us down.
Robbie had all the little kids play a guessing game called I’m Thinking of an Animal.
“I’m thinking of an animal,” said Chloe. “It’s black and white and wears a tuxedo!”
“A penguin!” Max shouted. “Now, I’m thinking of an animal. It’s brown and lives in the woods.”
“A bear?” asked Caroline.
“A squirrel?” guessed Batiste.
“It roars and eats people!” Max added.
“A bear!” Caroline insisted.
“No, a lion!” Max announced.
“They don’t live in the woods!” Batiste said.
“Yes, they do!”
“They’re not brown,” Chloe objected. “They’re yellow.”
“I’m think of animal,” Ulysses offered, interrupting the spat. He was more confident now, with Robbie around. “I’m think of animal—it’s a dog!” he said.
We all laughed.
Everyone was in their finest form.
Josie came and sat with me and Alex.
“What do you guys think about the outsiders?” she asked us quickly.
“I really like Robbie,” Alex said eagerly. “He knows so much about engines. I’m going to show him my video walkie-talkies later.”
Josie turned to me.
“Dean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I like Robbie. I mean, everyone likes Robbie. But Mr. Appleton is pretty heavy.”
Josie nodded, chewing her sandwich.
“You know what troubles me? That Niko doesn’t like them.”
I was glad, for Niko’s sake, that Josie had even noticed his feelings at all. She seemed pretty oblivious to him, most of the time.
“I worry what the effect on the kids would be, if we all want them to stay and Niko still wants them to go…”
I had been wondering the same thing.
“God,” Josie said with a yawn. “Is it really just lunch time? This day already feels a million years long.”
“It’s because so much has happened,” Alex said through a mouthful of tuna. “Our whole universe has changed in just a few hours.”
