“I’m going to tell him you said he should cut his hair,” Fox said brightly.
“Bobby,” I groaned.“Help.”
“You’re doing great,” Bobby said as he massaged my shoulder.“Keep up the good work.”
4
“I’m taking a nap!”Keme shouted before flopping onto his side and pulling the blanket over his head.
“Right,” I said.“I know that.”
Silence from the chesterfield.
“In fact,” I said, “I’m kind of an expert on naps.”
Nothing.
“One time, I napped so hard it turned into a full night’s sleep.Hugo called an ambulance because he thought I was in a coma.”
“Why don’t you ever stop talking?”Keme groaned under the blanket.“Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Because we did something awesome!And I want you to see it and be impressed and know how much we love you and be grateful and tell us how much you love us and—okay, kind of took a left turn there, ignore that last part.”
Keme was utterly still under the blanket.
“If you don’t want to come out,” I said, “Fox and I can rehearse our special musical number that we’re putting together for you.”
A whimper came from the direction of the chesterfield.
“There’sso muchkazoo,” I informed him.
And that’s how you get Keme up from a nap.(Or you can spray him with water, like a cat, but let me tell you: he doesnotlike that, and when he catches up to you, he’ll give you the worst pink-belly you’ve ever seen.)
He followed me outside, dramatically rubbing his eyes, stomping extra hard to let me know how annoying this was, and how annoyingIwas, and how annoying life, in general, was.
A rectangle defined by chalk covered the drive in front of the house.It was filled with hearts and flowers (Indira’s contribution), and really pretty handwriting that said,I love youandCongratulations(Millie), and a dragon fighting a Tai fighter (Fox—although I had been the genius to come up with that idea), and a lot of writing in neat, blocky letters that saidGreat jobandWe’re all proud of you(Bobby, of course—I’d told him to draw a gun and a badge, and he’d told me to go away because he needed to make sure his letters looked good, which in Bobby speak meant he wanted them to all be exactly the same size).
(Also, he didn’t saygo away, because that would have been rude; he said,Dash, babe, I need to focus, and he was so earnest about the whole thing that my heart pretty much exploded.)
Arranged around it, Indira, Fox, Bobby, and Millie were waiting for us.Millie, for some reason, had found a sparkler, and she waved it excitedly when we came out of the house.
Fox booed, but then they added, “I’m only booing Dash,” which you could tell Keme really appreciated.
When we got to the chalk drawing, Keme looked at it, clearly struggling to come up with something to say.“That’s really cool.”
“IT’S YOUR PARKING SPACE!”(Guess who?) “EVERYBODY gets their parking space decorated senior year.It’s the BEST!”
It took about three seconds for Keme to say, “Oh.”And then, “Cool.”
“We know it’s not your REAL parking space,” Millie said.“But you didn’t have one at the high school, so we had to improvise.”
“We already took pictures of it,” Indira said, “but we want a picture of you lying down next to it.”
“And don’t mess up my dragon,” Fox said.
Keme lowered himself to lie on the drive, and Indira snapped alotof pictures.He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and said, “Thanks.This is cool.”
“It would be cooler if you had a car to park in your parking space,” I said.
