I’m trying very hard to stop laughing, and I’m not quite there. “She’s okay,” I tell Bash.
“Shewoaw.”
“Yes, she did her chicken roar.” I giggle.
Giggle some more.
Glance at Jonas, who’s alternately watching the bird suspiciously and me half-suspiciously. “Did you goose the chicken?” he asks.
“I took a picture!”
“Dodo Ono no wike pikker,” Bash says.
Jonas raises his brows at me and crosses his arms. “So the chicken doesn’t like having her picture taken, and you did it anyway?”
I giggle so hard I snort. “You were cute.”
“I koot.” Bash flexes an arm. “And tudwy.”
Jonas blinks. “Studly?” he asks me.
“Too much Theo, but he was totally egged on by Zen and Grey.”
“Pantakes!” Bash yells.
I’m finally able to speak without laughing. My cheeks hurt. My stomach hurts. I definitely need to change my pants.
And probably give my chicken a bath and smooth her ruffled feathers.
Quite literally.
Definitely change her diaper.
This istotallythe sort of thing that would make any rational being crap themselves.
“And where are our manners?” I ask Bash.
He puffs out his chest and grins at me. “Pantakespwease.”
“Jonas, you know how to make pancakes?”
He steps off the couch. “Sure. I mean, I know how to google and YouTube. And I’ve watched Françoise do it a hundred times. Or maybe half a dozen times. She doesn’t like people in her kitchen. I blame Keisha. She’s a bad influence. Except for the part where it got me lessons in making pancakes when she made me go into Hayes’s kitchen with her for coffee while Françoise was cooking pancakes.”
Yolko Ono growls at him.
I swear, she does.
He eyes her.
She eyes him back.
“Truce?” he says.
She squawks once, then hops to me and settles on the floor beside my leg.
I giggle again. “I think you’ve been dismissed,” I tell Jonas.
“Better than being chicken food. How much do you know about making pancakes, Bash? Wanna help a guy out?”
