“You appear to be down already,” says PapaDum.
“You’ve only had, what, half a drumstick?” says CardaMom. “You’re going to waste away.”
Sometimes, looking at Aspen’s boniness and CardaMom’s thick middle, it’s nearly impossible to believe that one of them came out of the other’s body.
“And an asparagus spear and a half a huge slice of zucchini,” calls Aspen, already halfway down the Wild, stroking Topaz.
The dessert is something called cranachan. “You like oatmeal and raspberries and cream,” PapaDum reminds Brian.
“Not musheded,” she says disgustedly. She slides off the bench and heads back to the big cardboard box that their last computer came in, which she’s painting red for some reason.
“And here’s the adult version,” says PopCorn, pushing a full bowl toward his father. “D’you remember Mum used to add as much Scotch as cream?”
No comment. But Grumps does eat it, at least.
It’s getting dark now: Fireflies blink their tiny lamps in the bushes. Farther down the Wild, Aspen and Brian are battling with lightsabers.
Sic burps as he pushes away his empty bowl. “Excuse me, peeps. Shemomedjamo!”
This time, Sumac stops herself from asking what that means. She spoons up her last smear of pink cream instead.
“I can tell by the general stunned silence that you’re all wondering —”
“Whether you’ll ever shut up, know-it-all,” says Catalpa.
“Ah, you flatter me, sis. I wouldn’t say I know it all,” says Sic, “just most things. It’s been posited that not since 1800 has it been possible for one person to have a grasp on the sum total of human knowledge. No, I prefer to call myself simply a prodigy, a genius, if you will, a —”
Wood reaches across the table with two hands and presses his brother’s mouth shut so hard that Sic’s eyes bulge.
Grumps is squinting at the two of them, the way a sniper would look through the sights of his rifle.
All this squabbling and messing around was fun till the old man came, Sumac thinks. Now it’s embarrassing, because he’s watching and judging. And what gives him the right? Grumps has got butter all down his shirt, she notices, and he’s picking something out of his teeth with one ridged nail. How come the Lotterys were supposed to improve their table manners for this guy?
Sumac is suddenly so miserable, the only way she can think to cheer herself up is to go lie on her bed with a big stack of books….
But her bed isn’t her bed anymore, Sumac remembers as she carries her plate into the Mess, and her room isn’t her room. She smacks down the plate so hard, she’s afraid she’s cracked it.
She toils up the three flights of stairs. Everything’s off in the room Sumac still thinks of as Spare Oom: how the light slants in, the heavy slope of the ceiling (like a box some giant’s crushed with his foot), the way the bed’s facing — and the mattress is way too hard. The walls are a boring shade of nothing. Sumac picked these pale blue curtains — out of PopCorn’s trunk of fabrics from all over the world — because they were the nearest thing to her sky mural, but now she hates them. This summer, nothing’s the way it was or the way it should be.
*
It’s just nine of them going to the beach on Saturday, because Catalpa’s busy in her mysterious teenage way, and PapaDum’s taken Grumps to the dentist.
“Aspen,” says MaxiMum, stepping out the front door into the glare of the sun, “I’m intrigued that you’ve chosen your roller shoes for cycling to the beach.”
“Don’t have any others.”
MaxiMum allows herself a single roll of the eyes. “You have many others.”
“Yeah, but where?”
“Can we go already?” asks Wood, sinking a basketball in one graceful arc across the Hoopla.
“Have you tried the Loseded and Finded?” Sumac asks Aspen. The gigantic tub down in the Mud Room used to be called the Lost and Found, but Brian’s version of the name is the one that’s stuck.
“I keep forgetting to,” admits Aspen.
“Run!” CardaMom urges her.
“Come on, people, let’s get moving,” says Wood. “Sumac!”
He hurls the ball so hard, she catches it against her ribs and it knocks the breath out of her. She weighs up whether to complain or play. She frowns at the hoop and aims at it….
But the ball bounces off the stonework, way too high, and shoots past the Zhaos’ bungalow just as their brown bulgy car is backing out.
Mrs. Zhao blares the horn as if Sumac’s thrown a hand grenade under her wheels.
“Sorry,” shouts Sumac, not knowing whether she should race to retrieve the ball, or whether that means the woman will run her down. She wipes her forehead and smiles ditheringly.
“Don’t take it personally, that hag doesn’t like anyone,” says Wood as the car — which Brian calls the Poop Cube — disappears down the street.
“Not even Mr. Zhao?” asks Sumac.