“Sure, Iain. And dinner won’t be long. Will we just show you the rest of the house first?”
“Had my dinner on the plane.”
“I’ll put the kettle on for tea,” says MaxiMum, heading downstairs.
“Let’s just stash your bags, then.” CardaMom leads the way up to the third floor, past the big kids’ rooms.
Aspen goes into the Loud Lounge muttering something about finding her Slinky and forgets to come back.
Up to the attic. “We’ve got you in Spare Oom just for tonight,” says CardaMom, “but we’ll work out something better for you in the morning.”
Spare Oom is a bit spidery, but — Sumac thinks — not half as bad as the creepy Overspill down in the basement, which the Lotterys only use when they’ve accidentally said yes to too many visitors.
They leave the grandfather there to settle in.
“Doesn’t have much to say, does he?” Aspen joins them on the stairs, wearing her Slinky around her neck like an Elizabethan ruff.
“He’s probably exhausted, and a bit shy,” says CardaMom under her breath.
*
The visitor doesn’t come down to breakfast the next morning. PapaDum brings a tray up to the attic.
They’re having eggs fried in holes in bread. Sumac moves the little toast lid over her moon so it goes from full, to crescent, to dark. The Lotterys are arguing about whether propping your knees on the table (Aspen) is as bad as taking chewed food out of your mouth to look at (Brian).
The four parents need to have another Dull Conversation after breakfast, apparently. MaxiMum challenges the kids to spend the time coming up with a list of table manners, “so we don’t appall your grandfather too much.”
“On the Trampoline,” suggests Aspen.
“I’ll get nauseous if I have to bounce and write at the same time,” says Sumac.
So she takes down the manners neatly in the Tree Fort, with Brian practicing Downward Dog, while Aspen repeatedly climbs up the ladder and out the window, dangles from the rope, and drops onto the grass. Sumac writes:
No books/screens/earbuds at meals
No insulting the cooking
No whining or squabbling
No eating like dogs
No hoarding, gobbling, overstuffing, or making yourself puke from overeating
No dangling food (higher than chin level)
No flicking/throwing/stealing
No facing backward, lying down, or eating upside down
No wiping hands on clothes (yours/anyone else’s)
No burping/farting on purpose
When the three kids have gotten bored and started talking about tapeworms instead, CardaMom knocks on the ladder. She passes Oak to them like a parcel through the window so she can take their list and see what they’ve come up with. “Feeding time at the zoo,” she murmurs.
“Is it not a good list?” asks Sumac, a bit offended.
“It’s great, in a stomach-turning way,” says CardaMom. “You’ve included every possible disgusting behavior.”
“Not every,” calls Aspen from the swinging rope. “I can think of way disgustinger things to do at meals, like —”
“Spare us,” interrupts CardaMom.
On the rug that covers the Tree Fort’s splintery floor, Oak lays his face on his foot, watching dust motes in a beam of sunlight.
“It’s just that it’s all put rather negatively. What about some recommendations?”
“Like, instead of no eating like dogs,” says Aspen, “what about eat like human beings?”
“Which ones, though?” Sumac wants to know.
“Great point.” CardaMom nods. “Polite in France is rude in Japan.”
“What I meant was, obviously, don’t stick your face right into your bowl, Aspen,” says Sumac.
“Nobody minds when Diamond does it” comes Aspen’s voice from outside, panting a little.
“Different rules for different species: agreed?” says CardaMom. “What else could we put more positively?”
“Burp and fart … accidentally,” suggests Aspen, and Brian joins in the sniggering.
“Let’s just leave that one out,” murmurs CardaMom.
Sumac goes into Camelottery to cool down a bit. She needs PopCorn so they can finally start properly on being Mesopotamians. (She tried to give him a quiz on nouns on the airplane while the grandfather was snoring, but he only scored three out of twenty.) On the Where Board by the front door, opposite PopCorn’s name she reads Dinia w. Claa, and she gets quite excited because that must be a secret message for her in Sumerian … but finally she figures out it’s just “Clinic with Dad” in his atrocious handwriting.
Up in the Bookery at the top of the house, Sumac looks up pictures of Mesopotamian sculptures. A friend of a cousin of PapaDum’s from Ukraine who stayed a week with the Lotterys painted the ceiling to say thank you. (Her friend Isabella’s so scared of the mural, she won’t go into the Bookery.) It makes you think you’re right inside a book, like an illustration coming to life, with the pages being fanned open by a pair of giant hands.