“Why does it have eyes?”Millie asked.“IS IT A MONSTER?”
“It doesn’t have eyes,” I snapped.“Bobby, for the love of God, tell them what it is.”
Poor Bobby.Poor sweet, beautiful, innocent Bobby.He actually, literally cleared.his.throat.
“Unbelievable,” I said.“This is absolutely unbelievable, that not one of you can—”
“It’s an RV,” Keme said from the windowsill.
“Oh!”(That was Indira.)
“Okay…” (That was Fox.)
“Babe, that’s so clever.”(My sweet boyfriend.)
“OH MY GOD!”(Guess.)
“We had a minor setback having to do with, um, the whole thing collapsing,” I explained, “and then Keme said we should do something that wasn’t a house, and I was eating Oreos, and the rest is history.It’s got windshields—” I directed a stern look at Millie.“—not eyes—and it’s got Twizzlers for windshield wipers, and you can see the little door Keme made with frosting.Oh, and it’s got a jump ramp, and inside there’s a dojo, a command center, and an isolation unit.Plus we made this sweet zipline out of candy floss.”
“It’s very nice,” Indira said again, with more enthusiasm this time.
“How does it have a zipline if you drive it around?”Fox asked.
“KEME, IT’S SO GOOD!”
“And what do you do with the jump ramp?”Fox said.“It’s too wide to fit in the back of the RV.”
Bobby kissed the side of my head.“It’s so creative.”
“And why does it have an isolation unit?”Fox reached as though they might open the RV, and I smacked their hand.“Isolation from what?”
“Plague victims,” I said, “the walking dead, bad guys.Ever heard of the Joker?”
Keme scowled and made a gesture that clearly indicatedthere you go.
“Is it an RV or the Bat Cave?”Bobby asked.
“It has a dojo,” Millie said with something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.
With something that sounded like patience, Indira said, “Let’s move on.”
Fox’s effort wasn’t exactly surprising.But itwasless than impressive.
“It’s a deconstructed gingerbread house,” they said.
“Really?”I said.“Because it looks like you just stacked all the gingerbread and put the tub of frosting to the side.”
“It’s avant-garde.It’s groundbreaking.”
“I LOVE IT,” Millie announced.
“I thought you were an artist,” I said.“Shouldn’t this be your time to shine?”
“Thisisart,” they informed the rest of us.“This is me shattering thousands of years of conformist, representational thinking.”
“Ceci n'est pas une pipe,” Bobby said.
(Bobby.Of all people.)
