Lucy smiled. “To Clock Island? They can, but they probably shouldn’t without an invitation. The island is private, and the Mastermind owns all of it, like it’s all his house. It would be kind of rude to show up without being invited.”
“Kids do it in books all the time.”
“True, but still, let’s wait for an invitation.” She gave him a wink.
Lucy knew better than anyone about the kids who showed upuninvited on Clock Island. Not that she was going to tell Christopher about that, not until he was older anyway.
He dropped his hands from the map and looked at her. “Why aren’t there any more books?”
“I wish I knew,” Lucy said as she went back to wrapping the scarf with tissue paper and twine. “When I was your age, they were coming out four or five times a year. And I read every one of them the day they came out. And about ten times the week after.”
“Lucky…” Christopher said wistfully. The Clock Island books weren’t very long, 150 pages or less, and there were only 65 of them. Christopher would have read them all in six months if she hadn’t doled them out to him one week at a time. Even so, they’d finished the whole series and started over from Book One a few weeks ago.
“Don’t forget the letter to our customer.” Lucy winked at him.
“Oh yeah. How do you spell Carrie?” he asked, putting his pencil on the paper.
“Sound it out,” she said.
“K-A—”
“It’s aC,” Lucy said.
“Carrie starts with aC?C- is aKsound,” he said.
“But so isC,sometimes. Like theCin Ca-hristopher.” She booped his nose.
Christopher glared at her. He disapproved of booping. “There’s a Kari in my class,” he explained as if Lucy wasn’t as bright as she looked. “It starts with aK.”
“You can spell names a lot of ways. This Carrie is with aC,twoRs, and anI-E.”
“TwoRs?”
“TwoRs.”
“Why?” Christopher asked.
“Why does it have twoRs? I don’t know. Probably being greedy.”
In his child’s hand, Christopher carefully blocked out the wordsDear Carrieand made sure to put bothRs in the name.
“Your spelling and handwriting are getting a lot better.”
He smiled. “I’ve been practicing.”
“I can tell.”
Lucy included a thank-you note for buying a hand-knitted scarf from the Hart & Lamb Knitting Company in every package. Not a real company, just her Etsy store, but Christopher got a big kick out of being “co-president.”
“What do I write now?” he asked.
“Something nice,” Lucy said. “Maybe…Thank you for buying a scarf. I hope you like it.”
“I hope it keeps your neck warm?” Christopher asked.
“That’s good. Write that down.”
“Even if it’s a supergirly scarf.”
