“And not New Agey ones made of braided grass, like last time,” Aspen warns him.
“I’m putting you on the one-fourteen via Vancouver,” murmurs CardaMom, her fingers busy on the screen of her phone. (Sumac’s noticed that it’s nearly always the adults who claim to have some urgent reason to break the no electronics at meals rule.) With her long skirts and gray-black hair down to below her butt, CardaMom can look like she’s from the nineteenth century, but actually she’s the techiest of the parents.
“Bless you,” says PopCorn, picking up the coffeepot and filling his mug with a slosh.
“Hang on,” says Sumac to him again.
But the bless you makes Brian do a pretend sneeze, so of course Aspen does a bigger one. Then Opal, on his perch, produces a parrot version of a sneeze, and Oak finds that so hilarious, he coughs most of a blueberry back up onto his tray.
“I think laughing may be your best talent, Oaky-doke,” MaxiMum tells him with a thumbs-up.
Oak tries to do one back at her, except he forgets to let his thumb out of his fingers, so it looks like he’s shaking his small fist in wrath.
MaxiMum wipes his hands, his face and double chins and neck, and the tray of his high chair. (The only thing she says she misses about working in a lab is that being a neat freak was her job, not something her loved ones mocked her for.)
“Can I get down,” Aspen asks from the door, “because Slate’s in my sock drawer and he misses me?”
“You haven’t eaten anything, beta,” PapaDum points out. (That’s the pet name his parents called him when he was growing up in India.)
She pulls a face. “One more spoon?”
“Three.”
Aspen runs back and shovels up her oatmeal.
“Hang on.” Sumac nearly shouts it at PopCorn this time. “What about our One-to-One Lottafun?”
He blinks at her.
“You and me are doing ancient Mesopotamia, remember?”
“Sorry, sweet patoot, it’ll have to be another week.”
“Sumac, you could cycle to the market with me and learn, let’s see, nutrition and budgeting, then in the afternoon we’ll can peaches,” offers PapaDum.
She scowls. One-to-Ones with PapaDum always boil down to the cooking or home repairs he was going to do anyway.
“This afternoon I’m going fern hunting with the smalls,” says MaxiMum. “You could plan our hike route, put together a photo chart of the ten most common ferns in Toronto….”
Sumac sees red. “You said you and me would be Mesopotamians all week,” she tells PopCorn, “and put on a show with costumes and ancient snacks, and now you’re going to jet off to the other side of the continent instead!”
“Sumac,” says MaxiMum crisply. “It sounds like your grandfather needs a visit, and it can’t wait.”
She chews her lip. “Then bring me.”
“Sure,” says PopCorn with a shrug.
The other three adults glare.
“Whoops,” he says, slapping his hand, “I mean, let me consult with my coparents.”
“Not fair if Sumac flies to Yukon when she’s only nine,” yowls Aspen.
“Nine-going-on-nineteen, PapaDum called me the other day,” Sumac tells her, “and my reading age is thirteen.”
“The grandfather won’t need you to read to him,” says Aspen scathingly.
“Right after a fire doesn’t sound like the best moment to meet PopCorn’s dad,” says PapaDum.
“No, it is,” Sumac insists, “because two of us will be twice as cheering-up as one. I’ll be totally helpful and mature.”
“Come on,” PopCorn tells the others, “travel’s educational. Aren’t we the family that likes to say why not?”
“Two seats it is, then,” says CardaMom, tapping her phone.
Aspen lets out an outraged gasp.
“Don’t tell me you actually want to go too,” says MaxiMum.
“Well, no, but I should get something. Twenty-four hours of Minecraft?”
“One hour.”
“Deal,” says Aspen, and slips out of the Mess before anyone can object.
Diamond barks again.
“Woof,” cries Oak from his high chair. He says that for Topaz and Quartz too, and even Slate: He seems to mean any four-footed animal.
But the Lotterys all clap and woof back at him because it’s Oak’s only word so far, and Brian’s so proud of teaching it to him.
*