The girl still looks at Sam.
Moxie.
He stuffs the brownie in his mouth and turns back to the dishes, anxious to keep his hands busy. She pulls herself up on to the bench top and, legs swinging, sets to work on the plate.
‘So,’ says the girl.
Startled, Sam drops the pot he’s scrubbing into the water with a splash. Wait. She’s going to talk to him? He hasn’t … he can’t … he hasn’t really talked to anyone except Avery in months.
Maybe years.
‘You’re not whining about being lumped with the dishes.’ She holds up fingers to tick off a list. ‘You’re quiet. You’re kind of small compared to Jeremy’s usual strays. And my dad waved a plate of brownies under your nose and you didn’t eat the whole lot.’ She punctuates that by helping herself to another piece. ‘I don’t trust you.’
Sam’s throat is dry. ‘Well, I don’t trust whoever killed this pot. Did they cook potatoes or souls of the damned?’
‘Ah.’ Moxie peers at the blackened base. ‘That was me.’
Oh.
Any minute now Sam is going to melt into the floor.
This is why it’s better to shut up – you don’t accidentally insult the prettiest girl in the room.
And she is pretty, in a frazzled but fierce kind of way. She swings her legs, toenails painted the same purple as her dress. He notices there’s hand-sewn embroidery all over the skirt. So she’s the seamstress.
Sam realises he’s been staring and not answering, so he lets out the weakest laugh in the world and promptly wishes to die.
‘So how was your trip?’ he hears himself saying, while three-quarters of his brain shouts what are you doing! The boys seem to have been camping and the others … he’s not sure. He would like to know how his house stealing went so wrong.
‘Well,’ Moxie says, ‘it sucked. You try being trapped in a car for four hours with preschoolers who either scream or want to sing Jingle Bells for the forty thousandth time.’ She rolls her eyes to the ceiling. ‘The things you do to visit grandparents.’
‘True,’ Sam says, and hopes he doesn’t sound like someone who’s never visited grandparents in his life.
‘How was your trip?’ Moxie says.
Sam must hesitate too long, because Moxie shakes a brownie at him impatiently. ‘The camping trip you boys all went on? I mean, Jeremy said it was just “a few of the guys” but I’m guessing the fifty billion people here are all casualties of eating baked beans in the scrub for two days. You all need to shower, by the way. For hours.’
Sam can play along, right? He’s got this. ‘Oh, well … it was great. Good, um, weather.’ What do you even say about camping? He’s never been camping. Unless you count sleeping on the veranda of his aunt’s house because locking the Lou brothers out was her go-to when they pissed her off.
Sometimes he thinks she’s the reason they both started taking apart locks.
‘Chatty, aren’t you?’ Moxie licks brownie off her thumb. ‘Ah, caramel,’ she says, the lemon in her voice exchanged to sugar for just a second. ‘Only the best thing in life.’
‘Except for honey,’ Sam says.
Why is he still talking?
Why, Sam.
Why.
‘Excuse you,’ Moxie says. ‘You’re here to wash, not disagree.’
He’s here to steal, actually. But somehow he’s stolen dishwater and a T-shirt soaked with soapsuds.
‘Speaking of being disagreeable,’ she says. ‘Why hasn’t Jeremy come to rescue you anyway? I keep forgetting you’re his since you’re in here and not out there.’
I’m not really Jeremy’s, he wants to say. Technically now I’m yours.
Sam opens his mouth to spin a floppy lie, but he’s saved by the stream of sweaty teenage boys tramping inside with volume set to maximum. Half of them bolt upstairs and the others rummage in cupboards for towels.
‘Hey, we’re going to the beach,’ a boy tells Moxie. Her brother? They share the same olive skin, although he has a buzz cut and the softest brown eyes.
‘I’ll go tell Dad.’ She slides off the bench and runs upstairs.
The boy taps his fingers on the bench and notices Sam.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Are you Moxie’s friend? She doesn’t usually invite people over.’ He smiles. ‘I’m Jeremy.’
No, I’m supposed to be your friend.
‘Ah, yeah, Moxie’s friend,’ Sam says. ‘I’m Sammy – um, Sam.’
‘And she ditched you with the dishes? Typical. Get out of there, man. We’re going to the beach. I’ll get you a towel.’
Sam tries to protest, except exactly no one cares. He gets the impression that this family is exceptionally bad at listening.
He’s not going to the beach with them. Come on.
Sam finds himself sitting on the bottom step with a beach towel in his arms while watching a dozen boys slamming in and out of the downstairs bathroom and changing into swimmers and eating. Again. Because why not.
Just don’t ask me who I am.
Please.
Jeremy reappears, eating leftover potato salad with a soup ladle. ‘Ready?’ he says to no one in particular. ‘Jack? Is Moxie back yet? What’s she doing up there?’ He raises his voice. ‘How long does it take to put swimmers on, Moxie! We need to go!’
The one who possibly is Jack – and who Sam remembers as the boy from the stairs with the spiky ponytail – appears in board shorts with a towel slung over his shoulder.
‘Girls,’ he says. ‘You know how they are.’
Moxie materialises behind him and executes a swift elbow jab to his ribs.
Jack yelps and grabs his side like he’s been shot. ‘The hell, Moxie?’
‘If something even remotely sexist comes out of your mouth again,’ Moxie says, her eyes glinting, ‘I will take a pound of flesh per word.’
Jack swears again and checks his ribs for damage.
‘And for your information,’ Moxie says, ‘I was asking Dad if any of us are supposed to be babysitting. But we’re clear.’
‘We’re clear!’ Jeremy raises his towel like a conqueror before battle and a cheer goes up.
The hordes pour towards the door. Sam’s piecing together a hazy sketch of this family of the butter-yellow house – which ones are family, which ones are friends. Jack and Jeremy appear to share a face, so definitely twins. And Moxie is nearly a head shorter than everyone else. He wonders if she’s his age.