“Gammy?” Cara suggested bitterly. “You know, like Team Grandma.”
“I guess,” Sammy said. She seemed nonplussed with Cara’s obvious annoyance. “Gael?”
“Sure,” Gael said. By now, he just wanted to get out of the café and on with the silly game. He only prayed that Cara would abandon her bad attitude once she was actually doing the game with his sister.
That’s when Piper’s eyes lit up. “How about Samgael?”
Sammy giggled immediately. “Samgael Gamgee: Samwise’s black sheep of a cousin, up to his hobbit ears in gambling debts, hits the sauce a bit too much.”
Gael couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud. Cara, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get the joke. No surprise, he supposed, since she didn’t exactly like movies.
“I guess it’s sort of perfect,” Sammy said.
“Yeah,” Gael agreed. “I guess it sort of is.”
around the world in three tram stops
The teams split up to do the scavenger hunt, and Gael and Sammy hopped on the tram to their agreed-upon beginning point, the Cypress Swamp in North America.
Sammy looked over the sheet as they cruised past elephants chugging along in the distance. “Pretend to be a zoologist doing an important study. Shush anyone who tries to talk. Ooh, and lead the crowd in a rendition of ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Man, Piper didn’t hold back on this one.”
Gael laughed. “Piper doesn’t hold back on much of anything.”
Sammy laughed. “She certainly doesn’t, my friend. She certainly doesn’t.”
Gael fiddled with his jeans pocket. “Thanks for sticking up for her.”
Sammy smiled, and it was quiet for a moment between them, with only the sound of children laughing and the whir-whir of the bus’s hardworking engine.
“So in case you were wondering, I had no idea her friend was you,” Gael said. “I wouldn’t have tried to rope you into babysitting, I promise.”
“I believe you,” Sammy said. “Don’t worry. We’re hardly even friends, really, I just met her yesterday—ooh, look,” she squealed, interrupting herself. “There’s a baby elephant!”
Gael laughed. “I wouldn’t have expected you to go apeshit for baby animals.”
Sammy raised an eyebrow. “Name one person with a soul who doesn’t go apeshit for baby animals. They’re, like, animals who are tiny. Who are you, the devil?”
Gael shook his head. “I like them, too. Obviously. But your voice went about a million levels higher just then.”
Sammy crossed her arms. “Maybe you should question your ability to maintain an even tone of voice in the face of”—she smiled one of those weird upside-down smiles that little kids do when they’re excited—“BABY ELEPHANTS.”
The tram turned a corner, and the visions of elephants were replaced by children holding ice-cream bars shaped like zoo animals.
“Anyway,” Sammy said, folding her hands in her lap. “Yesterday morning I was making a waffle at the dining hall, and some dick had unscrewed the top on the chocolate chips, and they spilled everywhere. Cara helped me clean everything up, and we had breakfast together. She’s nice, I guess, though I kind of wanted to strangle her when she was not so nice to Piper.”
“I know,” Gael said. “It was surprising.” And then: “I actually met her in an odd way, too. She hit me out of nowhere on her bike, and then she offered me half her nachos. And then she told me she was going to the zoo with a friend, and here we are. Kind of random, to be honest.”
(*twiddles thumbs innocently*)
Sammy nodded. “Yeah, the zoo was my idea. I spend most Sundays with my grandparents, and I wanted a reason to skip at least some of the Price Is Right reruns.”
“Your grandparents live in Chapel Hill?”
She shook her head. “Just down the road, actually. I come to the enchanting city of Asheboro quite frequently. You have to get creative about finding things to do.”
“Damn,” Gael said, genuinely surprised. “I call my grandma and grandpa once every two weeks if I’m good.”
Actually, since the separation, Gael had barely called his grandparents at all. Every phone conversation had gone from chatting about grades and band to awkwardly asking him, over and over, if he was okay, and how he was handling his parents’ split.
Sammy shrugged. “We’ve always been close, I guess.”
Gael stared at her. Even if Sammy’s parents split up, she’d probably be just as good a granddaughter. It was just the kind of person she was.
“What?” she asked.
He shifted in his seat. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s just nice, is all.”
“That’s me to a tee,” she laughed. “Queen of nice!” She pulled her hair back into a tiny bun. “Anyway, this Cara, she’s not the girl you met on your birthday, is she?”
Gael bit at his lip, suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah.”
Sammy laughed, but it sounded a tad forced. “I’m surprised you were willing to be on my team.”