The rumbling volcano hasn’t said one word to Sumac yet. Has he already decided not to like her, because he doesn’t like PopCorn and she’s his daughter? Or maybe — it occurs to her — because she’s adopted, so she doesn’t have any of the grandfather’s genes? Disliking in advance, that’s prejudice. She climbs into the back.
At the nursing center, the three of them wait, wait, wait in a waiting room where the books are ridiculously kiddish and the coloring book of Creatures of Yukon is all scribbled over already.
The grandfather stares into space. He fiddles with the packet of cigarettes the nurse has reminded him twice that he’s not allowed to light up here. He’s got a horrible phlegmy cough; Sumac wonders whether it’s from smoking or whether he breathed in poisonous fumes from the fire.
PopCorn buys chocolate from a vending machine; it tastes as if it’s been melting and hardening over and over since Mesopotamian times.
The grandfather bursts out: “Load of nonsense.”
“The doctor’s only here twice a month,” says PopCorn again, “so I guess he has to see the urgent cases first.”
“I play golf, the mornings.”
Sumac’s quizzed herself on all the difficult spellings from the coloring book: cougar, musk ox, white-footed deer mouse, pine marten, ptarmigan with its silent p. She considers spelling her name Psumac from now on. Psumac, Queen of the Land of Ancient Psumer. That’s nearly as pretty a name as Seren, which is the prettiest Sumac knows; it means star in Welsh. Her cousin Seren Johnson has the hugest laugh, and loves singing and acting, and Sumac hopes she’ll remember to message Sumac from England like she promised.
At the bottom of the book box she finds a crumpled leaflet called Fun for All in Faro. “There’s an arboretum that showcases the wonders of native flora and fauna.”
PopCorn doesn’t look up from the screen of his phone. “Let’s see how much time we’ve got at the end of the day.”
“And a sheep center where you can see those special sheep with the curly horns….”
“Don’t nag, Sumac.”
She wasn’t! She was only mentioning some things they could do when all this boring stuff is over.
“Those fellows are all up the mountain, this time of year.”
She turns to the grandfather. “Who are?”
“The sheep.”
Sumac tries to keep the conversation going. “What I’m really longing to see is the northern lights. I watched this show about them once, how the oxygen ions make the green and the nitrogen ones make the orange. Did you know the Inuit believed the lights could kidnap children?”
“Not in summer.”
Sumac blinks at him.
“You won’t see the lights. Sky’s too bright.”
Oh. So much for that, then.
PopCorn carries on swiping his screen and biting the skin around his thumbnail.
All the grandfather has said to Sumac so far is two things she can’t do. She supposes he’s trying to make sure she won’t be disappointed when she doesn’t see the special sheep and the northern lights, but still, he’s not exactly a sparkling conversationalist. Maybe PopCorn got that talent from his mother, who died years ago, or maybe it’s all his own.
She tries again, pulling the tablet out of her backpack. “Want to see some pictures of the rest of your grandchildren?”
The old man doesn’t say no, at least.
The ones from the exhibition yesterday are all blurry, of course; that’s what happens when you let the four-year-old take the photos. (It’s one of Sumac’s jobs to edit and file all the family pictures.) She clicks on Erase all taken on same date, then flicks back through July and June to find some good ones. “That’s Sic, my biggest brother, he’s sixteen,” she says, with a pang of missing him.
The grandfather squints at the screen. “The one with the clown hair?”
“It’s called an Afro.” Though knowing Sic, he’d probably like the sound of clown hair.
“Why would a person want to be called that?”
“Sic? Oh, it’s not sick, like vomit — it’s S-i-c,” Sumac explains. “That’s a special word you put in square brackets after something that looks nuts, to tell readers you really did mean it that way.”
His watery eyes blink once, twice.
Sumac finds a group shot taken in the back of the Wild behind Camelottery. “There’s Catalpa, she’s the next oldest.” In black, with a coffin-shaped zipper bag over her shoulder, rolling her eyes; it’s as if Catalpa woke up on her fourteenth birthday and decided everything was exhausting. (Whereas nine, like Sumac, is just the right age, because you’re not confused by everything the way a little kid like Brian is, but your brain hasn’t been rotted away by hormones yet.) “The one poking Catalpa with a branch is Wood, that’s short for Redwood, because when he was born the parents thought his hair was going to be red, but it turned out brown. Here’s Aspen, with Brian on her back — used to be Briar — and that’s Oak, he’s our baby.” Oak looks so adorable with his foot in Wood’s mouth, playing Alligator Attack.
“Very hippy-dippy,” says the old man with something that could be a snort or a sniff.
“What is?”
“Trees.”
“I guess names have to come from somewhere. What did — what were you named after?” asks Sumac. “I mean for.”