“That’s not very kind,” Eamon said.
“Says the guy who called me a mountain troll,” I snapped. “And what do you plan on doing with Annie?”
“Say, who?”
“Her guitar!” Ryder yelled.
“Your guitar is called Annie? That’s fairly cute.” He smiled, and part of me was tempted to smile back. I told that part to sit down and don’t even think about it. Instead, I focused on his scrappy hair—I mean, really, it was the scrappiest dirty-blond argument of a hairstyle I’d ever seen. At least it flopped over his elf ears in a way that slightly camouflaged their weirdness.
Eamon held up some rope. “Let’s tie Annie to the roof.”
“Are you insane?” I cried out.
He laughed, slammed the trunk, and held open the driver’s side door, which was actually the passenger door, because the car was inverted. “Annie’ll have to ride on your lap.”
I folded myself in and pulled my guitar after me. “Eleven days,” I murmured, Annie pressed between my knees, my chin propped on the top of her case. “Ten after today.”
Eamon’s driving was all jerky gear adjustments on the serpentine, narrow roads, a problem exacerbated by Ryder’s endless questions. Within minutes, I’d found out Eamon was eighteen, grew up in Dublin, and wasn’t planning on going to college in the fall. Huh.
“So what are you going to do? For money and stuff?” I asked.
“Dunno,” he said. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
Double huh. “Are teenagers allowed to do that here? In America, it’s like, ‘You’re going straight to college, young lady, or you’ll fail out of life.’”
Eamon laughed. “That’s massive stupid. How’re you supposed to know what you want to do as fast as that?”
I bristled at his use of “massive stupid,” even if he seemed to be using both words differently—and even if he was right.
After singing the praises of every cow, sheep, and half-crumbled stone tower, Ryder started snoring. I craned my neck to look back at him. He was sweet and fragile when he was asleep, but even then, I could hear him chirping Jaded Iris. To be honest, I was feeling bad about being a giant grump. That’s the thing about negativity—it gives you control and makes you ugly in one fell swoop. By that logic, my father was the ugliest, most powerful man in California.
And also the real reason I was crammed into this clown car.
“I want you to take Ryder on that Hollywood excursion to Ireland,” my dad had said only a week ago, as if he were asking me to make dinner instead of cross the Atlantic. He didn’t even bother to look up from his laptop. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“But you told Cate Collins we wouldn’t be part of her movie,” I said, stunned. “You swore at her.”
“Yes, well, she won’t stop calling, and your brother won’t stop asking. Today I received a written notice that he’d like to trade”—my dad grabbed a piece of paper and read—“‘five birthdays and Christmases for the trip to see the Elementia filming.’” He dropped the paper. “Also his therapist thinks it’s a great idea. I’m overruled.”
I was speechless. Particularly because my dad had spent the last seventeen years listing reasons why I should hate the nerd fantasy written by his mother and the last year monologueing about how much he loathed the film adaptation that was in development.
“I’m serious, Iris,” he said through my shocked silence. “My book is overdue to my editor, your mom is deep in her writing, and I can’t deal right now.”
“Ah, the truth comes out,” I muttered.
“Take him. Have one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. But no alcohol or flirting. Your job is to watch your brother.”
“Watch Ryder? What’ll that be like?” I snipped sarcastically. “However will I manage?”
“Don’t give me that crap. Make the arrangements.”
I took a deep breath. He was asking me to do something huge; I was going to ask for something huge in return. And I was ready. “I want to access my trust fund when I’m eighteen instead of twenty-five. I know you can change that.”
My father finally looked up from his screen. “That money is purpose money. Tell me, Jaded Iris, do you have a purpose?”
“Yes.” I did my best to sound as certain as he did. “I want to buy recording software and equipment. For my songs.”
“Are you going to play for me?”
I paused. “No.”
“Well then, I can’t help you. If you’re not ready to let me hear you play, you’re not ready to record. I’m not letting you turn into one of those entitled, skip-the-hard-work-to-get-to-the-top, ‘oh look at me, I’m a YouTube sensation’ teenagers.”
“Then I’m not taking him.” I’d backed up, nearly out of his office before he replied.
“Speaking of your trust fund, Iris, you should thank Cate Collins. In person. Grandma Mae’s book sales, a.k.a. the funds in your trust, are growing exponentially because of those films. Once you’re done with college and find a real purpose, you can live however you want. Your kids can live however they want. Your grandkids can live however they want.” He said that like it was a bad thing. Like it’d been a terrible idea for him to live however he wanted: writing ill-received detective novels all day and night in the darkest room in the house.
“Maybe I need money to help me find my purpose,” I’d argued.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, “if you bring Ryder there and back again. Safely.” He’d waved me away, leaving me to wonder if this was a real deal we’d made.
Eamon’s tiny car shuddered while climbing a hill. I managed to reach my backpack tucked at my feet and pulled out my journal. I scribbled a few lyrics before I realized that Eamon was trying to read them. “Hey, Shannara Chronicles! Watch the road!”
He jerked the car back to the left. “You’re a writer?”
“No.”
“I hear your dad’s a writer. Never read his stuff though.”
“That puts you in the category of most human beings,” I said. He looked at me askance. “No one
