“I can’t decide,” I tell Steph.
“I can keep investigating,” Steph says.
I hate asking my human friends to do anything that seems at all risky. There are things that seemed like such good ideas that led to so many complications. I resolve to keep a close eye on anything that results from this. “Yes,” I say. “Please do. That would be very helpful.”
6• Nell •
My father is the one who fetches me from Steph’s house, not any of the Things. “Did you have a good first day at school?”
“Yes, sir,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it. I don’t think I really succeed.
“Jenny asked me to pick up dinner,” he says. “What sort of food do you like?”
“Oh, anything at all,” I say.
“Mexican? Indian?”
Mom makes tacos sometimes, and they’re okay. I have no idea whether I like Indian food or not. “Mexican, please.”
This Mexican food comes from a restaurant, and my father orders in Spanish. When we get home, the dining room table that’s been covered with papers since I arrived has been cleared off and set with plates, and my father unloads a stack of heavy cardboard takeout containers and plastic cups of salsa and guacamole.
The tacos my mother makes have hamburger and lettuce that you scoop into crunchy shells. These tacos are made with wraps and served with lime wedges. I try one, cautiously. I have no idea what sort of meat I’m eating, but the sauce is really yummy. Thing Two pushes one of the containers of salsa across the table to me. “This one’s mild,” she says. “You can try it on some of the chips, if you want.”
“Thank you, Ms. Hands-Renwick,” I say. She winces a little and tries to hide it. I catch Thing Three shoot her a look like, Don’t pick this fight, and feel a little thrill of victory.
I mean, yes, the food is good. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that these people took me away from my home and everyone I know.
When we finish eating, I tell them I’ve decided I would like to paint my room blue, and Thing Two leaps to her feet like we’re going to Disneyland and sweeps me out the door to head to a home improvement store before I realize that she’s using this as an excuse to avoid doing the dinner dishes.
Thing Two insists on buying samples—miniature cans of paint in near-identical shades of blue—assuring me that if I paint the swatches tonight and choose my favorite, she will buy the paint for the full paint job while I’m at school tomorrow. “I’m happy to paint with you,” she says.
“Thank you, but I can do it myself.”
I can see her forehead pucker, like she’s worried I’m going to accidentally paint the floor. “That’s fine,” she says.
Except then I can’t get the paint jar open. It’s a screw-top lid, but it’s as tight as a new jar of pickles. I almost just give up, but I have an assignment and Steph’s got me all nervous that they’ll know somehow. So I choke down my pride and say, “Excuse me, Ms. Hands-Renwick, could you help me open this?”
She takes the jar with a sort of patronizing smile, but her eyes widen as she tries to open it. “This is really stuck,” she mutters, and gets some sort of fancy jar-opening gadget from the kitchen to pry it open, and then just sort of drifts after me into my bedroom, an old bedsheet in hand to use as a drop cloth. I paint the three sample squares and conclude, reluctantly, that she’s right, one shade lighter than the paint chip I initially picked will be fine.
“Why mustard yellow, anyway?” I ask as she wraps up the paintbrush in one of the plastic bags from dinner so it won’t drip paint while she takes it to the sink.
She grimaces. “Look, when I insisted you needed samples, there was a reason,” she says.
I check off Make your space your own on the Invisible Castle but still get no gold star, maybe because I haven’t actually finished this yet.
And then my Tribulation Team chat buzzes to let me know a close friend has logged on. That means Glenys. My heart leaps with joy and relief, and I drop to my bed and pull up the chat. “I’ve been worried about you,” I type without preamble. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says.
“How are you? How is everything in Lake Sadie?”
“Same as it always was. I miss you. Tell me about Minneapolis.”
“I live in a literal house of sin and depravity,” I say. “My father has a wife and a girlfriend AND she has a girlfriend and everyone lives in this house. They put me downstairs so I don’t have to go up to where I assume they engage in sexual debauchery. Also, they’re slobs.”
I expect Glenys to make a joke about the debauchery, but she says, “That’s terrible.”
We have an actual code for “My mother is nearby and either reading over my shoulder, or could start reading at any moment,” so I ask, “How’s Gretchen the Chicken?” There was this laying hen at her house who was incurably curious and nosy. Nosy as ever means, “Yes, my mother is potentially in my face right now,” and Still soup means, “No worries.” Actual Gretchen the Chicken turned into soup a while ago.
Instead, Glenys says, “All the chickens are fine,” which makes no sense, and then she asks, “Do you have any chickens in Minneapolis?” which doesn’t follow at all, and I feel a prickle of anxiety. Something isn’t right. My palms are sweating.
“No,” I say. “But some neighbors do.” The question Glenys asks me if it’s my mom or grandparents who might be snooping is, “Have you washed the dishes today?” If I say, “All clean,” no one’s looking. If I say, “I should do that,” danger. Since she didn’t answer her own question, I say, “I
