“It’s ancient-grain hemp, ultra thirsty, hand edged,” says the woman behind the counter.
CardaMom gives Catalpa a mind your manners look.
Sumac wonders how a bib can be thirsty.
Aspen’s riding way too fast on the Cuddly Rocking Hippo and almost knocks over an Eiffel Tower made of Legos, so Sic sends her outside.
Catalpa checks her phone again. “Yarn-bombing with Quinn’s on again! See ya.”
“Be back before dinner,” says CardaMom.
“Probably.”
“Better be,” says Sic, “since you’re making Moroccan apricot stew.”
Catalpa groans. “The one with the carrots and the sweet potatoes and the squash and the eggplant and the peppers and the zucchini?”
“Good recall! I’ll help with the cutting up,” says CardaMom.
“When do we get to meet this new inseparable friend Quinn?” asks PopCorn.
Catalpa flicks her hair out of her face scornfully.
“Can we hear a track from Game of Moans, at least?” asks Sic.
“Tones!”
Sumac and Aspen share a grin.
“You’re so easy to get a rise out of,” Sic says to Catalpa’s departing back, “it’s not even satisfying.”
PopCorn’s up on a Brachiosaurus Fold-out Step Set now, trying to reach the last Samurai Finger Puppet on the top shelf.
“How much?” Brian asks, holding up a net of marbles.
Sumac glances at the handwritten tag. “Only four ninety-five, but Oak’s too young for those; he’ll try to eat them.”
“Not for Oaky-doke.”
“That’s right.”
“I gots four ninety-five in piggy?”
“You probably do, tsi’t-ha,” says CardaMom, “but we’re not going to buy marbles.”
“I buy them my money out my piggy,” Brian tells her.
“Not today, honeychild.”
Just then PopCorn gets the nosepiece of his glasses entangled in the invisible thread of a mobile of the solar system. “We can’t take you anywhere,” Sumac hisses, smacking his butt, but not hard.
Finally the Lotterys have picked a few good presents for Oak. “We don’t take the tags off till we’ve paid for them,” Sic reminds Aspen, scooping a set of beanbags out of her hands.
Like playing tag, Sumac thinks: A tag means you can’t get away.
“Mission accomplished, and we didn’t even break anything,” whoops PopCorn, carrying Oak out of the shop upside down, frog shoes waving in the air.
Outside, MaxiMum’s buying a magazine from a woman with one cloudy eye and listening to her views on the mayor, while Aspen’s practicing handstands against the window of a bank. Grumps is finishing a cigarette and staring in the opposite direction.
Sumac helps Brian fit her truck on over her head and put the strings back on the red marks on her shoulders. “Don’t they hurt?”
“Nope,” lies Brian.
Sumac walks beside Grumps, trying to think of something off-putting to mention about this neighborhood. Unfortunately they pass three swanky stores in a row: artisanal cheese, custom-designed cakes, and one-of-a-kind chairs. Nothing to off-put him here. “Oodles of graffiti, aren’t there?” she says, pointing.
No answer from her grandfather.
“Catalpa’s gone off to do it with wool.”
Grumps’s forehead creases as if he has no idea what she means.
“Oh, look, there’s the rehab center for drug addicts,” Sumac says, pointing it out. Two badly sunburned men are half lying on the step: all the better. “And that shop there is a tiny little mosque,” she adds. She bets he doesn’t like mosques. The bait shop, hm; would Grumps think worms were weirdy, or does he like fishing?
He doesn’t respond to any of this.
As they pass a Caribbean café, Sumac asks, “Do you like roti?” Hoping he doesn’t.
“Roast?”
“No, roti, like potato curry wrapped in bread. Sometimes with goat in it,” she adds with relish; she’s pretty sure that Grumps doesn’t eat goat.
Shouts, from behind them. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” It’s the woman from Toytally Awesome, all out of breath and hair stuck to her face as she catches up with the Lotterys. “I’m sorry, but — your boy stole something.” Pointing at Brian.
“She’s a girl,” says Aspen before anyone can stop her.
“Not a girl,” objects Brian.
PopCorn and CardaMom exchange a helpless glance.
“Well, he — there’s an item in his, in her pocket,” says the woman confusedly.
Brian grips the sides of her fire truck as if she’s about to speed off in it.
“Maybe you took a toy and forgot to pay, sweet peach?” PopCorn murmurs.
“I gots four ninety-five in piggy but CardaMom say no!” Eyes brimming, Brian reaches down below her fire truck and yanks the marbles out of the pocket of her shorts.
CardaMom sighs. “I’m so sorry, it was a misunderstanding. Brian, can you give them back, please?”
But the tiny hand stays locked.
The woman from Toytally Awesome grabs hold of the net.
“Our Grumps need marbles!” Brian pulls back. One marble, then another, then a whole flood of them cascades to the sidewalk.