“What’re we gonna do?” Henri says like I have the solution. “If mom and your dad see our tattoos, they’re gonna kill us.”
“Holy, that’s awful.” Lola stares off into the distance, then smiles. “You could stay with us. The gang will keep you safe.”
“Not literally kill us,” I hiss. “It’s an expression.”
“Even so, you guys are righteous,” Benji says forgetting that he called us dweebs just a moment ago. “You could live with Lola and me.”
Live with a circus ringmaster and a spaced-out girl. It’s soooo tempting. “No, we have to go with them. Dad’s gang will go T-Rex on your gang if we don’t get out there. And seriously, you don’t want that.”
“I got an idea,” Henri says as she looks Benji over. “Give us your jacket and shirt. They’re long-sleeved so we can hide the tattoos until we figure out how to tell the parents.”
“Or we could just say we were forced to,” I reply.
Henri looks at me like I’m stupid. “Yeah because these two are really scary-looking and mean.”
Lola misses the sarcasm. “We’re not mean. We’re artists.”
I glance at my ink. Hash is Van Gogh compared with these two.
“You’re right,” I concede to Henri against every instinct in my body. To Benji, I say, “Give us your clothes.”
“No,” he protests. “They’re my best clothes.”
Sadly, I believe him. “We’ll give them back.”
Henri backs me up. “We’ll get them dry-cleaned and everything.”
Lola seems confused. “How will you give them back? You don’t know where we live.”
Henri and I exchange disbelieving glances.
I sigh as I hold out my left arm. “Benji, write your phone number on it. I’ll call you, then we can meet somewhere.”
“I’ll write my phone number on your arm,” Lola coos.
“Oh no you won’t,” Henri exclaims for some unfathomable reason.
“It makes more sense for me to give them my number,” Benji tells Lola. “They’re my clothes after all.”
“We’re agreed then,” I say holding out my left arm again.
Benji picks up the ink gun.
“No!” I exclaim. “With a pen, you idiot.”
“Right,” Benji says as he pats his pockets. “I don’t have one.”
Henri roots around in the ink box. “Here,” she says as she produces a felt marker. “Use this.”
I yank my arm back. “It might be a permanent marker.”
Lola’s suddenly a genius. “You can use rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, nail polish remover, or coconut oil. And if that doesn’t work, the skin regenerates itself in about a month and the dead cells shed like hair on a poodle.”
Notwithstanding the fact that poodles don’t shed, the three of us gape at her.
She shrugs. “Just saying.”
“Right.” I push my arm towards Benji who scribbles his phone number on it.
