Sammy’s bottom lip trembles, but he lost his words. He wouldn’t give them to his dad anyway. His dad is a monster in the dark and Sammy will never be like him.
Aunt Karen reappears and they yell some more and then his dad slams out of the house, while Aunt Karen screams down the driveway that she doesn’t want these kids.
Sammy very slowly, very carefully, pries open Avery’s fingers and tucks the car in. There’s a smear of blood on it, but that’s OK because it’s the baddie’s blood and Sammy is the superhero.
Aunt Karen comes back inside, rewrapping her tulip dressing gown.
‘Is he coming back soon?’ Sam says.
Aunt Karen closes her eyes. ‘You’re staying with me for a while. Did your father do that to Avery?’
Sammy nods, because in the light you can see Avery’s swollen cheek, his broken lip, the bruises blossoming on his back where his shirt is hitched up.
Aunt Karen sighs and reaches for Avery. She tries to pull off his shirt but he gives a mangled growl and kicks wildly.
‘Avery,’ she snaps. ‘Let me help. God, you’re not even all there, are you?’
He’s fine, Sammy wants to say. To shout. To stand on top of the wicker chair and scream. Avery is good and he laughs like chipped pieces of fairy magic and he knows a million facts about cars and there’s nothing wrong with him.
Aunt Karen snatches at Avery’s wrist, the one that holds the car, and Avery freezes, his gaze flicking from the car, to his aunt, to Sammy. His eyes are burned out blue.
‘Don’t take his—’ Sammy says, but it’s too late.
Avery starts screaming.
And he just
doesn’t
stop.
They arrive back at the yellow house behind the wild rose bushes at dusk. The air cools, crickets pick up their song, and the night sighs under suddenly weary eyelids.
Sam’s salt-crusted jeans have stiffened against his legs and sand rubs every crevice of his skin. Every time he tilts his head, more sand rains down his cheeks. He’s exhausted. Too much sun and throwing himself off rocky outcrops when the flu still has fingerprints on his bones. His eyes are a little blurry and he’s starving and
yet
he’s not felt this happy in forever.
He nearly forgets that he’s the thief as he trails up the short garden path to the veranda where everyone slings towels over rails and dusts sand out of hair. A few of Jeremy’s friends give backslapping farewells and leave, but the rest just topple back into the house.
Sam hesitates on the stairs. He has to get his backpack, obviously, but then he needs to leave for—
nowhere.
Moxie brushes past him, her skin cool and damp against his for a single heart-pounding moment.
‘You might as well stay for dinner,’ she says. ‘Sunday night is waffles.’
Sam stays.
The house has emptied considerably. A lone preschooler rides a trike around and around the sofa. Several girls (around ten or eleven, which is the most terrifying age, in Sam’s opinion) are at the kitchen table surrounded by mounds of waffles and blueberries and maple syrup. Sam feels vulnerable without a thousand bodies packed in to cover his tracks.
Moxie’s dad waves from the kitchen. He’s got a spatula in one hand and his apron says: LEAVE WHILE YOU STILL CAN – DAD IS COOKING. Hopefully that’s a joke.
‘How many are staying, Jeremy?’ he says. ‘I’ve got two waffle makers going, but do I need another batch of batter?’
‘Dad, what kind of question is that?’ Jack says. ‘We’re teenage boys.’
Jeremy smacks him playfully on the head. ‘Only six of us guys left. And Moxie obviously.’
Moxie pulls a face like an unimpressed frog. ‘Gee, Jeremy. Thanks for remembering me. Don’t forget Jack’s new adopted hatchling Sam.’
Sam shrinks. He can’t help it. Being pointed out to adults is never good in his experience.
‘Nice of you to stay, Sam.’ Their father piles waffles on a plate. ‘Did you swim in your clothes? Jeremy, lend him a shirt.’
Sam is, in fact, already wearing Jeremy’s shirt but no one seems to have registered that fact. Jack argues with the others about who’s showering first and Jeremy strides in and out of the laundry with armfuls of towels like he’s used to tackling the washing machine. Their father wisely makes more waffles.
It’s then, with the room not so loud or overcrowded and with everyone busy with food or washing or ramming a trike into the wall, that Sam realises they’re missing someone.
A mother?
‘I can get your clothes washed and dried in a few hours,’ Jeremy says. ‘You can wear my shirt, but pants are going to be a problem.’
Sam blinks, still registering the fact that they’re now going to clean his clothes for him.
‘Everything of mine will end up around your ankles,’ he goes on. ‘Dude, don’t you ever eat? Please consume at least nineteen waffles tonight. For the greater good of humanity and pants.’
Their father takes a fresh plate of waffles to the table. ‘He could wear a towel?’
Sam feels a little panicky.
‘Dad,’ Jeremy says, patient, ‘would you wear a towel in a house where Jack would find it super amusing to step on a corner?’
His father shuffles around some jam pots to make room for the plate. ‘I see your point.’
Jeremy and their father turn to look very hard at Moxie who’s wringing her hair out in the kitchen sink. She still has the frog-shaped frown on and doesn’t see the fixed looks until she flicks her hair back so it stands up like a salt-encrusted shark fin.
Then she notices. ‘What?’ She looks at them and then at Sam. ‘Oh, haha. No.’
‘Come on, he’s your height,’ Jeremy says. ‘I’ll clean his clothes super fast. After all, you invit—’
Sam’s super considerate body chooses that moment to execute an organ-rattling sneeze.
He looks up to three concerned faces.
‘Look, he’s gone and caught cold,’ Jeremy says reproachfully.
‘I had the flu already,’ Sam says. ‘It’s fine. It’s nothing.’
The father turns back to the griddle. ‘Wet clothes aren’t helping. Moxie …’ He casts her a meaningful look.
Moxie throws her hands in the air. ‘Oh, fine.’ She stabs a finger at him. ‘You. Follow me.’