“Maybe later,” Morgan said, barely grimacing at all. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time for all of that soon enough.”
And I really liked the sound of that.
THE NEXT day there was a package delivered from the castle, addressed to MR. SAM HAVERSFORD. I was enthralled by it, seeing as how I’d never received a package from anyone.
“Are you going to open it?” Mom asked me after I’d stared at it for three hours.
“Don’t rush me,” I said, not looking up from it. “I’m relishing.”
“Relish away,” she said, ruffling my hair.
And I did just that for another twenty-seven minutes before I caved and tore into the package.
Inside was a pair of pointy pink shoes that fit me perfectly and a note with a tight scrawl across it.
See you soon.
—M
SOON MEANT three days later.
Dinner was finished, and Mom and Dad sat me down for lessons. It was a math night, which I hated more than anything else in the world. Math had been conceived with the sole purpose of vexing me terribly. I didn’t see why I would ever need to find the value of x on both sides of the equation or to multiply fractions. “I’m going to work with Dad in the lumber mill,” I grumbled. “Wood doesn’t need math.”
“And yet,” Joshua Haversford said, “complaining about it isn’t going to get you out of doing it. Funny how that works.”
“That’s not funny at all,” I pointed out.
“I thought it was a little funny,” Rosemary Haversford said, her gypsy accent like musical notes curling around every word.
“You have to think it’s funny,” I told her. “He’s your husband. It’s, like, the law.”
“Hear that?” Dad said to Mom. “It’s the law.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll find what it’s like to sleep outside tonight.”
And there was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” I shouted, pushing my chair back from the table, thanking the gods for the distraction. With any luck, it would be the police asking questions about a murder investigation where I was the sole witness (even though I had never seen anyone murdered), and would take up the rest of math night.
I threw open the door and, without seeing who it was, said, “I saw the whole thing! He used a fireplace poker and bashed the poor fellow upside the head! I am traumatized, I tell you. Traumatized.”
“Who did what now?” Morgan of Shadows asked.
Pete stood next to him, face in his hands.
A couple of other knights stood behind them, looking bemused.
“You’re not the police,” I reminded them, in case they didn’t know. “Ignore what I just said.”
“You should probably ignore a lot of what he says,” Pete muttered.
“That’s mostly true,” I admitted. “But hey! Hi! Look!” I pointed down at my pink and pointy shoes, beaming up at Morgan. “Did you get the thank-you note my mom forced me to write—I mean, that I wanted to send all on my own?”
“I did,” Morgan said, a strange look on his face. “I haven’t had a chance yet to answer any of the ninety-seven questions you asked.”
“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “You can get it back to me by next week. Tuesday at the latest.”
“Is this… where you live?” he asked.
“Yeah! With Mom and Dad. I have my own room and everything.” My eyes went wide. “Dude. I just had the best idea ever.”
“Uh-oh,” Pete said.
“You should totally come see my room.”
“Totally?” Morgan asked.
“Totally,” I agreed.
“Sam, who’s at the door?” Mom called.
“Just the King’s Wizard, Pete, and some other scary-looking knights!” I yelled back over my shoulder. “Can I take him to my room and show him my stuff?”
There was a brief pause and then what sounded like chairs getting knocked over and footsteps running toward us.
“It’s math night,” I told our visitors. “Sometimes it gets a little wild.”
Mom and Dad burst from the kitchen, looking wide-eyed and flustered.
“My l-lord,” Dad stammered.
“We are honored t-t-to have you,” Mom stuttered.
“So embarrassing,” I mumbled.
“Rosemary, Joshua.” Morgan nodded slightly. “Sam here was going to show me his room, if that was okay with you.”
They gaped at him.
“They’re totally cool with it,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Honest. And, oh no! Shucks! Since we have guests now, we have to cancel math night! Darn! Of all the rotten luck! Morgan, come on. Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I tugged him until he began to follow me toward my room.
Behind us, I heard Pete say to my parents, “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
But I didn’t care about that. It was probably boring grown-up stuff anyway. What I did care about was having my friend Morgan in my room. I’d never had a friend over before, and I was unsure what to show him first. Did he want to see the drawings I’d done that Mom said I wasn’t allowed to take out in public because “People just won’t understand your artistry, Sam. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go be sick for reasons unrelated to what you’ve just shown me. And, as a bit of constructive criticism, you may not want to use mayonnaise for paint, as it tends to rot.” Or I could show him my book collection (I had three) or my rock collection (I had three hundred forty-nine) or the—
I looked back over my shoulder to make sure he had followed me through the doorway after I’d dropped his hand. He was still there, not yet having entered my room. He looked sad for some reason. I glanced around, trying to see if something might have upset him, but my room looked like it always did. It was small, with a little bed in the corner with soft blankets Mom had made for me. A bureau in another corner held my rock collection and the few clothes I had that Mom and Dad fretted over, saying I was growing up too fast. I didn’t see a problem with it. As long as I had something to cover up my privates, I figured I was doing okay. The floor was made of dirt, but the walls were solid, and the roof barely even leaked. I even had a little window above my bed, and at night, if I craned my head just right, I could see the stars above the stone buildings that stood around us.
All in all, it was a pretty good room. A lot of kids in the slums didn’t have their own room like I did. I was thankful for it.
And now I had a friend here, and even though he still looked sad, it was something new, something exciting.
“I have books,” I told him proudly. “And I can read them all myself. Mom said if I’m lucky, I might be able to get another one for All Hallowed Day. And I also have rocks. And a wooden raccoon that my dad made me. Isn’t that great?”
Morgan studied me closely. “Do you really think so?”