Anyways, the hedge has lots of bugs in it. Some of ’em hide from the sun, and some of ’em like the sun, like the black-and-yellow garden spider, or Argiope aurantia. The baby spiders leave their egg sacs in springtime, but they’re hard to see until they’re all grown-up. I prob’ly won’t see them till summer, but I still look for them, just in case.
The monarch is sitting on one of the flowers just above my head. I watch it as it opens and closes its wings, like it’s stretching or getting ready to fly. I get as close to it as I can. I don’t want to scare it or make it fly away. Its antennae twitches, then it rubs its legs together. I like monarchs. There’s a Little Einsteins episode about them, how they migrate to South America and, like, all the trees in this forest are covered with them. I think that would be so neat, to see them like that, but when I asked Mommy and Daddy if I could go to South America to see them, they kind of laughed and said maybe when I was a grown-up.
The monarch flaps its wings and suddenly it’s floating up and up and up, above the hedge and over into the Martins’ yard.
I look over to the sidewalk and see Gigi sitting there. She’s watching me, almost like she’s curious.
“Hi, Gigi,” I call to her. She swishes her tail and I turn back to the hedge.
The leaves of the hedge are real green. Mommy says Mr. Escalante feeds the hedge real good food to make it healthy and stuff. He used to use this thing with a really sharp blade and a loud buzzing motor to trim the hedge, but I told Mommy that would kill lots of bugs, or at least, scare ’em away, and she kind of looked at me funny when I said that, but the next time Mr. Escalante came, she talked to him, and now he trims the hedge with clippers, which is much better.
I walk along the hedge toward the house. I look up at the window and see Shadow. I wave to him, but he’s not looking at me—he’s looking at Gigi for sure. He barks and paws at the window, then whines and barks some more. Lucky he’s not out here, ’cause he would definitely scare the bugs.
Closer up to the house, I see some bugs that look like ants with wings, and I know that those are termites, and I also know that Mommy and Daddy don’t like termites because they eat the house. Well, the wood of the house, and Daddy says that’s not good for the structure. I don’t know how they could eat the whole house, though. That would take like a million trillion gazillion termites.
Anyway, I’m okay with termites, ’cause they’re bugs, after all, but not as interesting as other ones, so I keep going. Marco seems interested, too.
As I’m walking along, I see something a little ways away on the outside of the hedge, kind of in the middle. It’s kind of shimmery, and the closer I get, I squint my eyes really tight.
It can’t be. No way, olay.
If that is what I think it is, this might just be the best day ever, even better than winning the spring egg hunt and bringing home Marco.
“No offense, Marco. But just wait till you see this.”
SIXTY-NINE
EDEN
I’m FaceTiming with Carlee and Ava. The screen on Mom’s iPad is split three ways, with Carlee and Ava’s faces on either side and my face in a smaller box on the bottom. I made sure to change out of my nightie and into my yellow shirt and Juicy vest so I’d look cool, because Ava and Carlee always look cool when we FaceTime. I closed my door all the way so that Mom and Dad can’t hear my conversation. Not that I’m going to say anything bad, but I don’t know what my friends are going to say. Not everyone has a curse jar.
“We’re having Easter here,” I tell them after Carlee asks us what we’re doing on the holiday. “Just us and my Aunt Ruth.”
“We’re here, too,” Carlee says. “My cousins are coming. There’s going to be like twenty-five people here. My mom’s totally freaking out, like, yelling at us to stay out of her way and make sure our rooms are clean. Mine’s totally clean already, but she keeps coming in and throwing stuff at me, like ‘put this away’ and ‘clean up this mess.’ Total dragola.”
“We’re going to Mammoth,” Ava announces. She smiling like she thinks it’s totally beast to be going away, and I guess it kind of is.
“When are you going?” I ask.
“We’re getting up at, like, five o’clock tomorrow morning and driving up. We’re going to have Easter dinner at this totally swaggy club where they put your napkins in your lap for you.”
“That sounds beast,” I say, and Ava nods.
“Totally,” Carlee agrees.
“Hey, guys, you wanna come over for a playdate today? Mom said it was okay as long as we don’t make a mess.”
My friends don’t answer. They kind of start to look uncomfortable. “What?” I ask.
Carlee bites her lip and looks down and Ava makes a weird face—not exactly mean, but close.
“Um . . .” She frowns. “Is your little brother going to be home?”
“Well, yeah, but he’s not going to be playing with us or anything.”
“Are you sure?” Ava asks, and now she does sound mean. “Because he seems like he really likes you, Eden. Like, yesterday, when he totally hugged you in front of all of us. Even Ryan thought it was totally creepy.”
My heart goes all thumpy in my chest and I feel sick to my stomach, like when I watched Dad clean a fish last summer and pull out the guts. Only it feels like my guts are being pulled out.
“What—” I clear my throat so I don’t sound so croaky. “What did Ryan say?”
“Just that he was glad he didn’t have a geeky little brother like yours.”
Carlee looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t.
“Is that true, Carlee?”
She looks down again, then kind of nods.
“We don’t want to come over if your stupid little brother is going to be there hanging all over you, do we, Carlee?”
My head hurts. I know why. Because my best friends are totally bagging on my little brother, and I feel like I should defend him, say something about how cool he is, how he gave me more than half of his cookies-and-cream eggs and that he’s totally funny, and cute and sweet, but at the same time, I’m so mad that he’s embarrassed me, and that because of him, Ryan thinks I’m a loser, and I don’t want my friends to think I’m a loser.
My door slams open. “Hey, Eden!” Jonah’s voice makes me jerk my head around. And I wish, not for the first time, that I had a lock on my door so no one, especially my little brother, could come in if I didn’t want them to. Jonah’s all fidgety, totally hyper, probably excited to see me. “You gotta see this, Eden! It’s amazing! Come on!”
I turn back to the iPad screen. Ava is smiling that nasty smile of hers. “Speak of the devil,” she says. “Widdle baby bwother wants his big sistew.”
All of a sudden I feel like I’m gonna explode.
“Get out of here, Jonah!” I scream. “Why don’t you just go play in the street!”
When I turn toward my door, Jonah is gone and I get that sick feeling again.
“Wow, you told him, didn’t you?” Ava says and giggles madly. I’m relieved, but at the same time, I want to punch her in the face. “You got that from me, didn’t you, Eden?”
I don’t answer. Carlee has that same weird look on her face.
“We could probably come over for a little while, couldn’t we, Carlee? As long as he won’t be a problem.”
Carlee nods but still doesn’t look in the camera.
“He won’t be,” I tell them. “I promise.”
SEVENTY