My eyes go so huge they might just pop out of my head. Leave it to Kiera to have the coolest birthday party this town has ever seen.
As Oscar and I walk through the door, we’re both frozen in awe. There are trampolines everywhere. Trampolines with basketball hoops and trampolines surrounding a giant foam pit and a rock-climbing wall and an obstacle course.
Loud, poppy music booms through the speakers. I’m pretty sure this is, like, the coolest place within a two-hundred-mile radius of Valentine, Texas. I almost want toturn to Mr. Kapoor and ask if this is some sort of mistake and if they meant to open this place in a bigger city, because up until now the best thing Valentine had going for it was the slide at the community pool, and last year it was closed for half the summer because part of the ladder had rusted out.
“Ho-ly cannoli,” I finally utter.
“Um. Ditto,” says Oscar wide-eyed. “Mega ditto.”
After we put our shoes away and replace our regular socks with the neon-green Trampoline Zone socks, we take our gifts to the party room, where Mrs. Bryant is setting the table with emoji-themed plates and cups.
She looks up and clasps her hands together. “Oh, Sweet Pea! And Oscar too. Y’all get to jumpin’! Nate!” she calls, and then when no one answers, she shouts, “Nate!”
Mr. Bryant sticks his head in the door with the kind of expression I give my mom when she comes in my room without knocking. “What?” His face shifts a little when he sees me.
“Sweet Pea and Oscar are here,” she says sweetly.
He nods curtly to the two of us, and another dad taps him on the shoulder, freezing for a minute as he sees me.
“Do you happen to know where Kiera is?” Mrs. Bryant asks.
“Uh, on a trampoline?”
Another mom walks through the door as Mr. Bryant turns to talk to the dads. “I think I saw her on the rock wall, Shawna.”
Mrs. Bryant turns back to us. “You two oughta go find Kiera. She’ll be thrilled to see you both.”
Oscar and I file out of the room past Mr. Bryant and the other dads. Maybe it’s all in my head, but there are hushed whispers as I walk by, and I swear I hear it—the word Dad used to explain why he couldn’t stay with Mom and how it was no one’s fault.
Gay.
Adults don’t always act like they’re supposed to. Besides Mrs. Young and her wife, there are only a few other gay people in town that I know of, so it shouldn’t surprise me that people—even well-meaning ones—can’t seem to talk about anything else.
What’s it called? Gaydar or whatever? Yeah, my gaydar totally went off around that guy.
Liz really knows how to pick ’em, huh?
That’s gonna screw that kid up real good.
By the looks of it, she’s been eating her feelings.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I nearly stuff my fingers in my ears. I’m not ashamed of Dad. (Or Oscar, for that matter!) These people don’t know anything about me or Mom or Dad except for the things they whisper back and forthto each other in the produce section of Green’s Grocers. And now look at ’em all. Making all sorts of assumptions and jumping to all kinds of conclusions.
Oscar turns to me and takes my hand. Can he hear them too? His face looks a little pained, and I can tell I’m not just making it up. Suddenly, I feel fiercely protective. It’s not just Dad they’re talking about. In a way, it’s Oscar too. But whether or not Oscar is gay, it doesn’t matter, because these people are just flat-out wrong.
I whisk him away from the wall of gossiping adults, stomping as much as any two seventh graders can wearing just socks on soft foam mats.
“Where to first?” he asks.
I swallow back the anger and anxiety swirling in my chest like a sandstorm. Neither of my parents have made their reason for getting divorced a secret, but something in me—the same thing that would jump in front of a moving car for Cheese—makes me want to stop anyone from saying anything mean or rude about Dad. To protect him.
“Sweet Pea?” asks Oscar. “Can we just go jump?”
My mom always says that sometimes the best thing you can do to show a bully that they’re in the wrong is to live your very best life, and right now our very best life is jumping up and down until our heads spin. “Anywhere but the rock wall!” I finally say. “Just looking at that harness gives me a wedgie.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Life of the Party
