This story takes place beforeBroken Bird.
1
“If you do exactly as I say,” I told Bobby, “we might just manage to pull this off.”
It was the day before Thanksgiving, and Hemlock House was warm, filled with people I loved, glowing against the morning’s low, gray skies, and most importantly, full of the smells of baking.
Indira had gone all out over the last few days.Not just a pumpkin pie.Not just a single cheesecake.There were tarts.There were pastries.There was a gingerbread trifle.There was some sort of cranberry gateau.There were pecan bars, for the love of God.And there were browned-butter apple cupcakes.They smelled like browned butter.They smelled like baked apples.They smelled like cinnamon.Have you ever seen a cartoon character catch a whiff of something truly delicious, and his feet leave the ground, and he floats toward it?It was like that.Only it was everywhere.
“I’m not doing anything,” Bobby said.We were in the living room, and he was stretched out on the couch in a hoodie and joggers, and he had these adorable socks with plaid teddy bears on them.One of the socks was twisted slightly at the end of his foot, and somehow, that didn’t seem to drive Bobby crazy.Not that I cared how his socks looked.Or what kind of socks he wore.Not that it mattered if anything about Bobby was cute, adorable, distractingly endearing, or, frankly, hot.Because Bobby was my friend.And, yes, mytemporaryroommate.(He always insisted on addingtemporary.) Until he found a place of his own.Until, I guess, something better came along.He looked up from his phone to give me a flat look.“And neither are you.”
“Bobby: browned-butter apple cupcakes.”
“And Indira said they aren’t for you.She’ll make you some tomorrow, she said.”
“But I want them now.”
“Are you Veruca Salt?”
“That’s a very dated reference.And more importantly, they’re cooling on the windowsill.I could just have one, Bobby, and nobody would even notice.”
“Are you Yogi Bear?”
“When did you grow up?Who was president?Were there fifty states in the Union?”
“Leave the cupcakes alone, Dash.She’ll make you some tomorrow.”
“Also, I think he specialized in picnic baskets.Yogi, I mean.Not whoever was president when you were growing up.I want to say Coolidge.”
“Since you don’t seem to have anything better to do—” Bobby said.
I sensed the trap and sat up quickly.“No, I do!”
“—wouldn’t this be an excellent opportunity for you to do some writing?”
“But it’s a holiday.”Too late, I added, “Plus, Iamwriting.I’m brainstorming.It’s like a remote job; I can do it from anywhere.”
“The first part was kind of a giveaway.It’s a Wednesday, Dash.”
“A Wednesday that’s part of a long holiday weekend.And, again, brainstorming.”I had further arguments about the importance of, uh, generative relaxation and productive idleness and there was even a Tolkien quote aboutfertilizing the leaf-mould, which I thought would really hammer the point home so that Bobby would let me watch some mindless TV or play Xbox until my fingertips started to bleed.But then genius struck.“You know what?You’re right.I should do some writing.”
Bobby settled back onto the couch with a satisfied grunt.I was halfway to the doors when he said, “Please don’t make me arrest you and book you for stealing and eating a cupcake.”
“But if I ate it, you wouldn’t have any evidence to make the charges stick.”
“Dashiell!”
“Just, you know, in theory!”And I scurried out of the room before he started to get suspicious.
One of the beauties of Hemlock House was its layout: there were two entrances to the kitchen, and although Bobby was guarding one of them, the other (through the servants’ dining room) would be unwatched.I crossed the hall, stepped more quietly past Fox (who, dressed in stormtrooper boots and a floral poncho, had fallen asleep under one of the benches), and pushed my way into the servants’ dining room.
Only to find Keme sitting there, staring at me.And, honest to God, cleaning his nails with a knife.He looked at the knife.He looked at me.And he smiled.
Teenagers, in general, are terrifying.And Keme was in a class of his own.
“I was just going to see if Indira needed any help in the kitchen—” I tried.
He shook his head.
