Aspen’s jokes aren’t always so hilarious either, Sumac thinks.
Grumps doesn’t seem to hear any of this. But he’s not deaf; Sumac is pretty sure of that now. It’s as if the Lotterys are seagulls and he’s just shutting his ears to their yakking and yawping.
“This is an educational qualification we’re talking about, Moms ’n’ Pops,” says Sic, hand on heart.
“So is a hot air balloon pilot’s license,” MaxiMum tells him, “but not one you’re in immediate need of, given that we don’t own a hot air balloon.”
“That’s defeatist thinking.”
CardaMom hoots with laughter and leans across the table to kiss Sic on the nose, knocking over a not-quite-empty jug of milk with her chest.
“Argh.” Sumac lifts up her glass so it doesn’t get wet.
“Uh-oh,” Oak sings out.
“This house!” That’s Catalpa.
“Sorry,” cries CardaMom, running for a cloth.
“So was that kiss a yes?” Sic wants to know.
“No, treasure,” says CardaMom, “it was a kiss.”
“What about chipping in, say, seventy percent, to encourage me,” says Sic, “because I’m growing my skills instead of lying around reading sword-and-sorcery and scratching my bug bites all summer?”
Catalpa reaches out to thump him, but he blocks her fist with his plate.
“You need encouragement like a giraffe needs a longer neck,” she tells him.
Aspen mimes the giraffe, making everyone laugh. Well, everyone except Grumps.
“C’mon, work with me, people,” begs Sic. “Fifty percent?”
“Maybe thirty?” suggests PopCorn, looking between the other parents.
“Forty percent, we have a deal!” Sic punches the air and nobody contradicts him.
“Were you out early this morning?” PapaDum asks Wood, who’s just come in.
“Sunrise,” he says with a nod. “Saw a rabbit, a red cardinal, two snakes — probably eastern garters, but they were pretty small so they could have been Butler’s garters, except they slid off too fast for me to count the scale rows.”
“Do you think they were mother and baby?” Sumac asks.
Wood shrugs. “They looked about the same size, but I don’t know how long snakes take to grow up.”
Aspen rolls back on her ball so far that she nearly falls on her butt. “Are they monotonous?”
“Not to me,” snaps Wood. “Now cat’s freakin’ cradle, that’s what I’d call monotonous.”
“What monotonous?” asks Brian.
“Boring,” Sumac tells her.
Aspen shakes her head, brown hair falling in her eyes. “Monotonous like pears.”
That puzzles everyone.
“Juicy pears?” asks Brian.
“No! Married.”
“She means do snakes live in pairs, couples,” says Sumac after a second.
“Monogamous! Our code breaker,” says PopCorn, squeezing Sumac’s neck.
“Great question, Aspen, and I’m stumped,” says MaxiMum. “Family life of snakes, anyone?”
“I doubt they’re monogamous,” says Catalpa. “Not with their slithery, sneaky reputation.”
Wood rolls his eyes. “That’s just squeamish humans making up lies about them. Bees kill way more people in Ontario than snakes do.”
“Only in self-defense,” says Sumac hotly. “You owe every third bite of that to a bee —” and she pokes Wood’s French toast.
“Hands off my food!” Wood slaps her fingers away.
“Let’s keep it civil,” says MaxiMum.
“Snakeses be married?” asks Brian.
“Yes, that was our original question, wasn’t it? I challenge Wood to find out.”
“Wolves.” The word erupts from Grumps.
“What’s that, Iain?” asks CardaMom with a smile. “What about wolves?”
“One male, one female, paired for life. It’s nature’s way.”
Sumac checks the parents’ faces, which have all gone stony. “Oh, Dad, I think you’ll find nature’s got lots of different ways,” says PopCorn.
Grumps makes a humph sound. “One male,” he says again, “one female.”
The silence feels like static to Sumac, as if any second now, she’ll get an electric shock. Sic is not smiling, for once. Catalpa’s sucking her lips and Wood’s doing his tough-guy stare. Aspen’s the only one who’s oblivious, eyes almost shut as she makes a Jacob’s Ladder with her string.
“Uh-oh!” says Oak.
PapaDum examines a fresh scratch on Wood’s cheekbone. “You should put antibiotic cream on that.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Which they all know means he won’t.
“May I be excused?” asks Aspen, jumping up.
“Did you eat your French toast?” CardaMom asks.
The plate Aspen’s holding high in the air like a waiter is empty. “I suspect someone else did,” says MaxiMum.
“Increased nutritional needs of puberty,” says Wood, thumping his chest like a gorilla.
“OK, but let’s have another go at your twelve times tables this morning,” MaxiMum says to Aspen … who lets out a groan as if she’s been stabbed.
“Keep at it,” PapaDum tells her. “No use climbing halfway up a coconut tree.”
“Is that one of your wise Indian proverbs?” asks Sumac.