“I did. They say I cheat.”
“Do you cheat?”
“Of course. But, then, so do they.”
“Bram! Do we need to come back there and save you?” someone, I think Loy, yelled from the other room. “Did she kick you again?”
The mingling of voices, good-humored arguments, and laughter filtered down to us. Sounded like a party out there.
“Promise I’ll cut you in for ten percent of the take,” he said.
“Ten percent? What do you think I am, a rube?”
“Naw, you’re all upstage. But you are also hiding in your bedroom,darb.”
“Darb?”
“Sorry—I was around when that slang was new. It means excellent, top-notch, desirable.”
Oh. That was nice.
“Well, aren’t you all charm and a half?” I asked. “Also? I’m not hiding in my room. What kind of game are they playing?”
“Probably cards.”
“Fine,” I said. “Sixty percent.” I stepped out and closed the door behind me.
“Thirty.”
“Sixty-five,” I said.
“Thirty-one,” he countered.
We walked down the hall. “How about I cut you in on ten percent since you admitted there is no one else who will play with you?”
“Thirty-two,” he said. “You wouldn’t be playing without me either.”
We had passed through the far side of the sitting room, and the full, delicious smell of fruit pies and something savory wrapped around me.
“There you are,” Dotty said. She pulled a pie out of a high oven using two towels as hot mitts. “Wondered if you were going to sleep the whole evening away. Abraham said you needed some rest.”
“I just didn’t want to be in the way.”
She set the pie down and turned to me. “Nonsense. Have you eaten?”
“Not for a while.”
“Help yourself.” She waved at a pile of fried chicken, a bowl of cooked greens, and a pot of buttery grits.
“I think there’s a game . . .” I started.
“Oh, sugar pea, there’s always a game,” she said.
“There you are, Matilda!” a voice I didn’t recognize called out.
I glanced across the room and froze. Welton Yellow, the head of House Yellow, Technology, stood beside the long wooden table in the main room, his galvanized, Foster First, looming behind him.
25
