Meelie narrowed her eyes. “And your grandparents are—”
“Dead,” Felix said, nodding.
“And you two are just—?”
Felix shrugged. “For the time being, anyway.”
“Meelie,” Pidge said in her solemn voice, “I want to keep them. Can we? Please?”
Meelie seemed to consider this.
“I bet they’re more fun than Laura and Ringa,” Pidge offered.
Meelie studied Maisie and Felix. “You think? I’m not so sure.”
“Well, these two are real and Laura and Ringa are make-believe—”
“They’re invisible,” Meelie corrected. “Not make-believe. There’s a difference.”
“These two are visible,” Pidge pointed out.
“True,” Meelie said, twirling that blade of grass.
She was silent for a moment more.
“Boy,” she said finally, “what’s your name?”
“Felix. Felix Robbins. And that’s my sister, Maisie, who’s fallen in love with your dog.”
“Felix,” Meelie repeated.
“Robbins,” Felix said again. “And Maisie Robbins.”
“Well, Felix Robbins, we want to keep you,” Meelie said.
Pidge shrieked with delight and clapped her hands together.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she shouted, hugging her sister around the waist.
“That’s great,” Felix said. “Thanks. I guess.”
Actually, he felt a little weird, like he was a prisoner or something. Felix thought of Geronimo, forced to sign autographs and have his picture taken while he was a prisoner of war.
“Did you see Geronimo at the fair in St. Louis?” Felix asked Meelie, because she seemed to be the one in charge.
Meelie frowned. “Who said we were at the fair in St. Louis?” she asked him.
“Uh . . . you said it, didn’t you?” Felix stammered.
Thankfully, Pidge said, “We did see him! Papa bought one of his hats! And Mama said to stop spending money and Papa said you only get to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition once in a lifetime and you have to enjoy it and then he said, ‘Amy, stop sounding like your father,’ which is our grandfather and he disapproves of almost everything Papa does.”
“That’s enough, Pidge,” Meelie said sternly, and went back to studying Felix.
“You like fishing?” Meelie asked him finally.
“I never tried,” he said.
“You’ve never gone fishing?” Pidge said in disbelief. “Why, we always go fishing, don’t we, Meelie? We go almost every day and we catch perch, and Mama cleans them up and dips them in eggs and cornmeal and fries them with potatoes and Meelie always eats a bowl of radishes with that dinner but of course she eats radishes with everything. You love radishes, don’t you, Meelie?”
Felix listened in wonder. Pidge could talk without taking a breath longer than anybody he knew.
“Do you like adventures?” Meelie asked, like it was a dare.
That got Maisie’s attention.
“We have adventures you wouldn’t even believe,” Maisie told her.
“Oh yeah?” Meelie said.
“She built a roller coaster and rode it off the roof,” Pidge said, excited and proud. “And she didn’t even die! She just tore her dress and got a bruise on her face and split her lip—”
“I got kidnapped by a gorilla,” Maisie said.
“You did not,” Meelie said dismissively.
“And I survived a fire at sea and—”
Pidge pointed a finger at Maisie and grinned.
“You’re funny,” she said. “You’re a storyteller, which is different than a liar, but not much.”
“It’s true!” Maisie insisted.
“Our mother was the first woman to climb Pike’s Peak,” Meelie said, placing her hands in her hips. “In 1890.”
“Which is a real adventure, and a real accomplishment,” Pidge said. “And Pike’s Peak is in Colorado, and it’s more than a fourteen-thousand-foot-high climb.”
“Wow,” Felix said, impressed. “That’s something.”
Meelie chewed on the blade of grass and studied Maisie.
“Let’s go fishing,” she said at last.
By the time Maisie and Felix and Meelie and Pidge and James Ferocious made it to the banks of the Des Moines River, Maisie and Felix had learned practically everything about them from Pidge. Except who they were and why one of them should get the airplane compass.
“We were both born in Atchison, Kansas,” Pidge told them. “Meelie’s two years older than me and our grandfather Otis is a lawyer and our father is a lawyer but not such a good one, we are practically in financial ruin,” Pidge said with a dramatic sigh.
“Grandfather Otis does not approve of many things we do,” Meelie added. “He wants us to wear dresses instead of bloomers. He wants Father to get a better job.”
“He didn’t even want us to go to the World’s Fair in St. Louie,” Pidge said. “He said it was a waste of money!”