The opaque grey shade in the basement doorway was displaying a message: PRIVACY, PLEASE, which Erik had seen on the locks of some of the nicer pay toilets. One of the Ps, an E and the C had been reversed.
Cerise had glued Soup to the banister of the sweeping staircase. The magic around his wrists and ankles was still glowing faint pink.
âNow you stop that, little white boy, none of this is Annieâs fault.â She dabbed under her nose and eyes with a folded red handkerchief. It had grass stains on it.
âThat is like the one thing you know how to do, isnât it?â Hyacinth said sourly.
Cerise sniffed. âYou are not a helpful person.â
âYou glued me to a wall!â
Soup was crying, too, and he couldnât wipe his face. âItâs just messed up, thatâs all! He didnât want to be in your basement because thatâs messed up! Little kids shouldnât take care of big, grown up teachers!â
Maggie looked unsettled, but she wasnât crying, and she shook her head. âSoup, you do that. You brought him here.â
âThatâs different!â Soup snapped. âIâm twelve years old and Iâve been taking care of my mom for basically ever!â
âYouâve got a mom?â Maggie said, staring.
âNo,â Soup said. âShe only likes me when sheâs wasted and I donât like her at all. I have that guy whoâs falling apart in your basement! Is that what you do to him every time?â
âAngel, please let him down. Please,â Ann said. âHeâs just upset.â
âIâm upset too!â said Hyacinth.
Ann rubbed the bridge of her nose where Miloâs glasses usually sat. âHyacinth, please letâs not make this about you. Just Soup, Cerise. Weâll deal with the other thing later.â
The pink woman nodded. She waved a hand.
Soup slid gently to the floor. He drew up his legs and put his head in his hands. âItâs messed up!â he said. âErik has people to take care of him and Seth takes care of everyone and itâs not supposed to be like⊠like some kid walking his drunk dad home from the pub! Why donât you do it?â he demanded of Ann. âWhy donât you glue him back together and put him to bed â youâre old!â
âI canât,â Ann said. âErik can help him stop feeling sick and nobody else can do that, so weâve been letting him. I know itâs not right, but itâs always seemed the least-wrong thing to doâŠâ
âThatâs not fair to Erik!â Maggie burst out. She shook her head. Her expression crumpled. âAnd itâs not fair to Seth, he must hate that!â That was her hypercompetent, super-adaptable teacher in there! And the hurt little kid who kept forgetting her name not that long ago!
He almost killed himself calling a god to help someone he loves too, she thought. She remembered how thin heâd been. It had been like hugging a marionette, just sticks and wire and clothes. And sheâd helped him do it.
âWe canât just let him do this stuff all the time, you stupid adults are supposed to watch him!â she cried. She darted a finger at Ann. âThis is not my responsibility! Itâs not my fault I didnât know this was happening. He never told me! He hid this on purpose! What the hell am I supposed to do?â
Sanaamâs attention had already been drawn by the phrase âlittle white boy,â which he found amusing in this cultural context. But now he thought he heard Maggie winding up to set somebody elseâs dress on fire. He picked up Bethany, who was still crying, held her against his shoulder with one hand and ran over. âMag-Pirate!â
Because it was a magic storm, the worst she could do was kick Ann in the shins. She was about to, and Ann was about to let her, when Sanaam grabbed her. Maggie began to cry. She hid her face against his shirt and pointed a finger at the scene behind her in general. âThis is not fair! People should not be allowed to be so dumb!â
âOh, Maggie,â he said. He knelt and used his spare arm to hug her. âYour mother and I feel that way a lot too.â
She shoved him. âWell, why donât you fix it?â
âYour mother has been trying but Iâve given up,â he said. âWhy donât we go in the kiiiiâŠâ He closed his teeth and bit off the word. There was an insane man cooking in the kitchen. âI mean, upstaaaaâŠâ He glanced upwards. No, the blue gentleman and the yellow woman were throwing boxes at each other up there. âLetâs have Room 102! Thereâs always a box of tissues in there! We can sit on the rug! Soup, come on. You too. You can help explain whatâs going on.â
âItâs the exact opposite of what should be going on!â Soup said damply. But when the enormous black man whom he barely knew offered a hand, he took it.
Cerise hugged Ann. âThere. Now thatâs all right, isnât it?â
âNo.â Ann shook her head. âWe shouldnât have been letting him do it, but now that I want to stop him, I canât. We canât. He wonât let us. Thereâs just always so much going on!â She flung her arms wide and indicated the whole room. Flying boxes, flying food, flying people, an argument about mixed relationships and a hostage situation. She shut her eyes and turned away from it.
PRIVACY, PLEASE was still written across the flat grey basement doorway.
âTheyâre quiet, so we donât give them the help they need. They help each other, so I thought it was all right, but Soup is right. It isnât.â
Ceriseâs eyes brimmed over again. What little makeup she had managed to apply was running. âOh, Annie, you must know⊠Sometimes there are no good choices. You do know that, donât you?â
She had seen Annâs scars. Ann never wanted to talk about them, but it obviously wasnât a happy story. There were very few happy stories at the Black Orchid. Maybe a couple with happy endings, like Lalage and Barbara. And Harry seemed all right, but even he was a war orphan originally. Most of them just had a few hours a night when they could be safe and accepted and then it was back to whatever lesser existence they had outside.
She brushed self-consciously at her gardening outfit. Iâm one of the lucky ones. And soâs Annie, even though she lives in a slum. We didnât always have it this good.
I could be dancing with the Novikov Ballet right now, she reminded herself.
And I would be miserable, she further reminded herself.
âHey, are you guys okay?â It was the green boy with the guitar. He was still holding the birdcage.
âGive me that!â Cerise said. She jerked it from his hand. âI donât know why youâre so upset about what a senile old biddy thinks about your girlfriend when she also thinks a mango is a pet!â
âItâs a horned melon,â Tommy said. âPennyâs grandmother likes them.â
âI donât care what it is, just give it back to her, go hug your girlfriend, and stop listening to what a bunch of idiots with no judgment have to say about it!â
âYouâre one of those idiots, Miss Cerise,â Tommy said.
âTommy, look at me,â Cerise said. She was wearing her work clothes, her makeup was a disaster, and she had forgotten to put on her hair â but she remembered to put on her favourite shoes! Which were muddy and scuffed now. âI canât even mind my damn self. Do not take relationship advice from anybody during a magic storm.â
âYou just gave meâŠâ
âI did, and you can roll it around in your diseased brain and decide what to do about it, but if your girlfriend is any kind of a person sheâll understand that none of us are our best selves right now, no matter what you end up doing. Iâm giving this back to Bianca. Unless something distracts me.â
Tommy stood there frowning for a moment, then he turned and knocked lightly on the door of Room 103. âHey, hon? You in there?â
âMiss Hauser!â Barnaby declared. He had just had one of those extremely rare (for him) non-clairvoyant moments of clarity. He waved a smudged dustcloth like a flag of surrender. âExcuse me! Miss Hauser?â
The woman was consumed in yellow flames, with her white hair forming a crackling corona around her head. Her clothing appeared to be steaming, or perhaps disintegrating. When she turned she left a trail like a comet. âWhat?â
Magic hit a couple more decoys outside and the lights flickered.
He leaned on the railing and spoke conversationally, as if over tea, âMiss Hauser, you do realize that any objets dâart that strike Mr. Trevesâs fancy will go with him when he leaves? And he will store them in his studio and lovingly curate them?â
âIt is not possible to curate a dead rat!â
âSure it is!â Calliope said. âGlorie fixed all my pigeons! Theyâre still good! She can write the spell down and you can do it, or Chris, or whoever reads magical notation.â
âHe wants half the things out of that room! Where will he put all of them?â
âI got a suitcase that holds everything!â Calliope said. âYou can borrow it, babe. Just donât steal my arts and crafts stuff, okay?â
He looked down at her, and then at the woman who was trying to drag down his leg with a pole. He kicked lightly and that didnât seem to do anything, but it wasnât like she was impeding him, so he ignored her. âMars,â he said. âJe aime tu, but your oeuvre is infantile. Je ne veut pas tu glitter glue.â He waved a disdainful hand.
He blinked and leaned down. âIl y a chocolate cake?!â
âItâs floor cake,â Calliope said. She stamped her foot. âItâs cake for people with their feet on the floor. These are the rules, babe, I donât make âem up.â
âPinche floor cake and floor chocolate bars,â Chris muttered, descending. âLet you go me, madame. Please.â
âI suppose if he takes it with him and cleans it upâŠâ Kitty said. She stepped onto the upstairs railing, and from there to the floor next to Barnaby. He wrapped her in two fire blankets and she went out.
âI canât clean like this, Mr. Graham.â
âWeâll work something out, Miss Haber, just rest a moment.â
Ann regarded Calliopeâs ex-boyfriend, who had just qualified for floor cake and was still intermittently spouting phrases in various dialects.
So, Ann⊠Calliope doesnât just like shy people who hide in basements, does she? She likes weird people who are two people.
âŠone of whom is damn near impossible to communicate with. Yes, Milo. I suppose she does. Why are you happy about this?
If she hadnât been wearing the dress, he wouldâve been dancing around the front room and trying to get Mordecai to make him some champagne. Iâm better than him for all of that! Sheâll never find anyone weirder or more two people or harder to talk to! She traded up!
I suppose thatâs nice for you, Milo. For us. But what are we going to do about Erik?
That sobered him. We canât be mad at him no matter how scared we are, Ann. Okay? Not today. I donât think ever, not for this. This is bad for him, but he didnât throw us out of the basement to be bad. And heâs probably really scared weâre mad at him and he did something wrong.
It is wrong, Milo.
Yes, but itâs not wrong because he wanted to do a wrong thing or he didnât care. Itâs the opposite of that. So we canât scold him and tell him no. Itâs way more complicated and we canât do that today.
Do you want to just let him?
Not âjust.â But sometimes we can only do the least-wrong thing, and I think thatâs not having a fight with a scared, sick kid during a magic storm. I donât know what else, but the first thing we do is we donât do that. Get me?
Yes, but I donât think anyone else would if you tried to explain it like that. She shook her head. I hope he lets us back in and we donât go the whole storm with PRIVACY, PLEASE.
So we can still do the thing with the headphones?
Milo, itâs a very good thing I canât hit you, because right now I would. Get me?
I was only teasing, Ann.
I know exactly what you were doing. Cut it out.
He quieted, and she sat down on the floor facing the basement doorway.
PRIVACY, PLEASE.
âââ
Sanaam had dispensed several tissues, most of which had been crumpled and deposited on the rug. He raked them into a pile. âOkay,â he said. âSo you are upset because Erik has to look after Seth at all, and you are upset because of that, but also because nobody told you and now you canât do anything to help. Have I got it?â
This was pretty much standard operating procedure for conflict resolution onboard ship, except he was usually dealing with a couple of people who had decided to start punching each other, so the tissues would have blood on them, and heâd either be in the infirmary or the brig. Listen first, then restate the problem, but nicer, and confirm.
He had cribbed his arbitration style from the legal system on Saint Mattâs, and they didnât even have a brig. The judge would just tell one or both parties to go home, essentially sentencing them to âtime out.â Or sometimes theyâd go to the Marselline Consulate and get drunk.
Neither of these seemed like an appropriate solution in this case.
âIâm sick of this happening! I live here too! He had a whole year to tell me and he didnât! I thought we were friends!â
âI used to have to walk my mom home and put her to bed and tell her she was a good mom â even though sheâs not â and thatâs an awful thing to do to a kid and Erik shouldnât have to do it too!â
He raised both hands for quiet. âOkay, okay. And you both have very complicated lives for a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old respectively, but I canât do anything about that right now. The thing right now is Erik and Seth in the basement, right?â
âI made my teacher cry and Iâm still mad about the rainbows,â Bethany said. She rubbed her eye with a fist.
Sanaam turned and smiled at her. âSweetheart, I know. Please play nicely with Erikâs stuffed bear and try not to think about it, Iâm trying to do several things at once. Iâll bring you something to eat in a minute.â
âI want cookies,â the pink girl said.
âOkay. In a minute.â He turned back. âNow youâŠâ
âIâm almost eleven, Dad.â
He blinked at her. âOkay, yes, Mag-Pirate, but letâs try not to get distracted. Weâre upset about Seth and Erik in the basement and there is literally nothing anybody can do about that because Erik has sealed them both in there, right?â
Soup said, âYes.â
Maggie planted her hands on her hips and said, âCanât you come up with anything?â
âEr,â Sanaam said.
Still no wind, Cap. Want me to get out and push?
Stop being selfish, Bill. Iâm more helpless and desperate than you are! Throw me a line and Iâll dive over the side and pull.
Oh, the fun they had. But it didnât solve anything. They just laughed a little and went back to staring at the ocean and feeling helpless and desperate.
âIâm going to get everyone some cookies!â Sanaam declared, and he ran for the kitchen.
âââ
The General broke away from Ted and Maria, whom she had just convinced to remove the shield from the dining room, and caught her husband by the arm. âTell me whatâs going on.â
He snatched his arm away and glared at her. âI have to wait months before I find that out, you can give me a couple minutes to get cookies!â
âThere are cookies out here,â the General said, but he had already vaulted over the invisible baby gate and she didnât like to follow him.
âââ
âMordecai, did you make any cookies?â
The red man was kneeling in a puddle beside the washtub and trying to do dishes. This was irritating and difficult with one hand, and he was beginning to wonder if he could just bake more plates. He had a vague idea that ovens were involved in the manufacture of ceramics; it was only a matter of temperature level.
Also, he kept forgetting he had a cast, and repeated immersions in the washtub were beginning to override whatever water-repellent charms were included in the plaster. He had lost his foil sticker with the pink poodle somewhere and his three-legged rainbow unicorn was melting. It was like watching a distant relative age over a series of photos in an album. Hey! Check out the inevitable advance of mortality in stark images! Wow!
He straightened with a smile and leapt back to his feet. âCookies? Sure!â
Sanaam clasped both hands on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. It looked a bit like a giant movie monster latching onto a skyscraper so he could use it as a toothpick. Instead, he leaned against it, making the wood creak, and said, âI have no idea how to handle a problem I canât wrestle to the ground and tie up! You have ten minutes maximum to teach me how to do emotions before people start to get suspicious and my daughter finds out Iâm a terrible father!â
âWhat kind of cookies?â Mordecai said happily. He brandished a spatula.
Sanaamâs expression tightened. He looked the red man up and down. âThis is like the goose with the golden eggs, and if I crack open your head to gain access to the knowledge inside, I will only find a lot of useless grey goo and youâll die, correct?â
âIâve never had occasion to try that!â Mordecai said. He began dishing a random assortment of baked goods onto a paper towel.
Sanaam frowned. âThereâs an egg in there somewhere and Iâm going to get you to lay it, you stupid goose. Give me the spatula.â
âThat is a rare phrase,â the General said, observing from the doorway.
Sanaam screamed and fell over the chair.
âââ
Calliope was still monitoring Chrisâs consumption of chocolate cake, but sheâd decided to sit on the floor next to Ann and view him from a distance, like wildlife. âYou know, every once in a while heâll âcomoâ something when heâs working, but heâs embarrassed and he doesnât like it. Except during storms.â
She smiled towards him, but it came off a bit melancholy. She felt bad for the guy. He was going to be so embarrassed later, and he really didnât have to be.
âI finally got it out of him he grew up in this little tourist trap on the border and everyone there speaks everything, but not all of it. So when you donât know a word, you switch languages and say it louder and slower while gesturing. But when he moved to San Rosille his teacher told him he sounded like an idiot, so he quit talking in school⊠Youâre not interested.â
Iâm interested! What was that about not talking in school? Iâm going to adopt Chris! Unless he has parents!
Ann shook her head. âIâm really sorry, dear. Itâs not that I donât want to be interested⊠and Milo is trying. Weâre just thinking about something⊠Itâs a problem but itâs a secret and itâs not our secret, so I donât feel right sharing it.â
Calliope wrapped an arm around her and dropped her head on her shoulder. âIs whatâs going on with Seth and Erik a secret?â
Ann turned her head and regarded the opaque grey doorway. âWell, it is now,â she muttered.
âSteven told me something funny about magic season,â Calliope said. âChris kinda told me, but getting him to talk about personal stuff is like pulling teeth. I kinda thought he wanted an open relationship, but it is totally not that and Iâm embarrassed now and I think I bullied him into saying it was okay if I wanted to bang other guys when I didnât even want to and I was just trying to say it was okay if he wanted to⊠Girls, not guys⊠Or guys, thatâs okay too⊠I mean, he can bang whoever he wants now, we broke up⊠but heâs probably not gonna calm down enough for me to apologize today.â
Ann winced at her. âIâm sorry, dear. This is hard for me, too, but if you canât stay on topic, I may not be able to follow you right now.â
âItâs okay, Ann, just do your best,â Calliope said. âI asked a dumb thing. Bethanyâs birthday is in March and I can do mathâŠâ
Ann drew back. âOh, my god, Calliope, you didnât!â She knew, because sheâd almost asked that herself back when sheâd first moved in, but Hyacinth grabbed her and told her it was rude.
Calliope frowned. âThis isnât a religion, Ann, Iâm not making stuff up to teach you a lesson. I said it was dumb. But they are exactly the same hue, value and saturation and Ted and Maria and Steven live together anyway, so I thought maybe they had a thing.â
âThey do not have a thing!â
âI know, I already asked about it.â Calliope bapped Ann lightly on the forehead with the heel of her palm. âDuh, Ann! But Steven straightened me out. He told me Bethany isnât his even if she is really. Because magic storms donât count. Coloured people got together a long time ago and decided that. They had to, because they used to have cities all by themselves, and everyone would go out of their minds a few days every year, but then they still had to live together and get along the rest of the time. Steven said the shtetls in XinâŠâ
Ann put up her hand. âIâm sorry, Calliope. Did Steven Yaojing use the word shtetl to mean little coloured villages in Xin or are you being funny?â
Sheâs not, Ann. Pay attention.
âHe doesnât know what they call them in Xin and thatâs what they call them here,â Calliope said. She shrugged. âAnyway, they made their calendars out of knotted silk rags and the days when it storms are just gone. Like, some years have three-hundred-and-fifty-five days, and some have three-fifty-two. Maria said itâs the same way in Iliodario, but they made wool rugs. And they called their coloured villages barrios, but that just means neighbourhood. Like, we live in a barrio too.â
âCan we go back to the idea that magic storms donât count, dear?â
âYeah. Sorry. Thatâs the important part. They still happened and you donât have to pretend you donât remember. And if you broke something you have to try to fix it. And if it canât be fixed you have to do what you can to make up for it. But itâs not anybodyâs fault. Nobody meant it, so it doesnât mean anything. Bad or good. Itâs the other three-hundred-fifty-five days or however-many you need to be a good guy or tell your family you love them or punch that dude you hate and blow up his shed. Ted is Bethanyâs dad when it counts, so thatâs what matters. And it was dumb of me to ask, because I already knew that.â
Ann sighed. She put her elbows in her lap and her head in her hands. âI suppose I already knew it, too, but itâs nice to have it in context. I donât know if Erik understands it that way⊠And even if he does, Iâm worried about all those other days. We are. Heâs little and heâs still learning, and the world isnât being very careful about what it teaches him when we canât be there to protect him. Milo and I already decided not to talk to him about this today, but I donât know how to talk to him about today tomorrow⊠And I donât know what to do about today today!â
Calliope hugged her. âThen itâs a really good thing today doesnât count.â
âââ
âSo Master Rinaldi is having some kind of flashback to early childhood trauma and Magnificent is angry about being excluded and the violation of trust, and you successfully divined the problem and then panicked and yelled for help with a solution.â
âRather,â Sanaam said. He was still standing on the other side of the baby gate and hoping the goose would lay an egg. âI think thereâs a little violation of trust with Soup too. Seth is the closest thing he has to a good parentâŠâ
The General reached through the doorway, pulled him down to her level and put a kiss on his cheek. âI appreciate a support person who knows when to ask for some support of his own. It saves lives.â
Sanaam put a hand to his cheek. âA support person? Is that what I am?â
âWell, youâre certainly not in charge.â She drew herself up. âI outrank you.â
He grinned at her. âIn every way. Except clothing sizes!â
âYou know, the thing about magic storms is they donât discriminate against coloured people,â said the goose.
The two people in the kitchen doorway paused and observed him. He had decided cookies required tea, and was arranging the coconut-shell tea set on a tray.
â…They discriminate in our favour, and they get all of us, more or less. Everyone has an excuse for acting totally mental and nobodyâs head is clear enough to take unfair advantage of it. We have to be understanding and accepting of each other â itâs a matter of mutual self-preservation! And it never lasts much longer than a day, so we donât get sick of it. Like a carnival! Except thatâs something we swiped off of you people, culturally. Coloured people donât need to schedule a day to turn the world upside-down, it happens randomly and with very little warning.â
There were six cups in the set and he popped a tea bag in each one before pouring boiling water over them from a glass pot. Neither Sanaam nor the General could recall seeing him place that pot over a heat source of any kind. It just happened.
âWe say magic storms donât count, thatâs the only way to explain it, and people like you understand that from a practical standpoint, but they canât understand how it feels from the inside. Intellectually, I know that Iâm acting like a total idiot today and neglecting some very real responsibilities, but I also know that I canât be held to any standard of behaviour. And when imposter-syndrome kicks in, all I have to do is look around at everyone else like me, struggling just the same way. And when they see me making a fool of myself, that makes them feel better too.
âIt is intensely frustrating not to be able to think about anything much more complicated than hollandaise, but also strangely liberating to know that everything is messed up today, itâs not anybodyâs fault, and thereâs nothing to be done about it. Itâs a shame all you have are carnivals.â
He picked up the tray, then he blinked and put it back down. âDid you want cookies? I seem to have got it into my head somehow that you wanted cookies.â
âThereâs your egg, what would you like to do with it?â said the General.
âServe it to the children with cookies, I suppose,â Sanaam said. He picked up the tray. âThank you, Mordecai.â
âI ought to make hollandaise,â muttered the red man. âAre there eggs in this house?â
âSort of a two-pronged attack?â said the General. âThen I shall accompany you. We shall cut off their supply lines â of stress â and beat them into submission with tea and baked goods!â
Sanaam stepped lightly over the baby gate, which elected not to interfere with his delivery of the tray. He leaned down and lowered his voice, âYouâre not coloured, sir. Whatâs your excuse?â
âI do not make excuses.â
âGeneral DâIver?â Maria was holding a cardboard box full of paper and art supplies. âCalliope put this together for us, but weâd rather play cards, I think. And Mr. Treves wants to play with the things from upstairs. Bethany likes to colour. Maybe your daughter does too?â
âShe prefers to create her own designs, but thank you, Mrs. Toussaint.â
âââ
The General noted the crayon drawings affixed to the walls with a frown. Most of them were at a lower level of skill than she had come to expect from her daughter, barring a few which she suspected had been given as gifts.
On the walls? But they will become dirty and damaged.
She had Maggieâs art in a file. It came in handy. They went over it occasionally. Do you notice how your grasp of perspective has markedly improved since your Sunny Yellow Daisies Period at age six, Magnificent? Let us compare to the early FauvistsâŠ
The Captain knocked into her from behind and lifted the tray over her head. âWhooo wants cookies?â he said, beaming.
âBethany wants cookies!â the pink girl cried.
Soup looked torn and said, âWellâŠâ
Maggie put a hand out and nudged him back. âTheyâre trying to distract us, donât encourage them.â
The General suppressed a smile. That would make it look like she wasnât taking this seriously. She squared her shoulders and spread her arms, taking on the aspect of a stewardess on an airship.
Magic killed one of the decoys outside, and the lamp flickered.
âMagnificent,â said the General, darkly. âI regret to inform you that our situation today is irrevocably Bartholomewâs dogs, it is nobodyâs fault, it is nobodyâs responsibility, it cannot be fixed and we can do nothing but make small repairs and distract ourselves â both of which are equally valuable as occupations.
âForgive me for being gruesome, but the ship has gone down and we are only deciding which of the survivors to eat first while we wait for rescue, raw and without salt. Any wailing or gnashing of teeth will be entirely appropriate for the duration.â She bowed.
Maggie staggered back a pace. âShoot, Mom,â she said, blinking. âYou sure?â
âMagnificent, if it were ever going to be possible to improve the operation of Hyacinthâs house during a magic storm, we would have managed it today while she is glued to a wall and out of our way, and your father is here to assist us. I am afraid this is the best we can do.â
âThis sucks,â Maggie said.
âYes,â Sanaam said. âEat this cookie.â He put one in her open mouth.
âI also have art supplies,â said the General. She set the box on the floor.
Maggie removed the cookie and stared at it. âOatmeal raisin cookies!â she declared at a shriek. She lifted it over her head as if she desired to cram it down the throat of an almighty God. âWhy is Uncle Mordecai using perfectly good magic to make the worst cookies known to mankind?â
The General put a hand on her shoulder, âBecause today sucks, Magnificent. Write it down, draw a rainbow around it and I will put it up on the wall to remind you.â
âHell, Iâll eat them,â Soup said, already cradling multiple cookies in his hands, and with one in his mouth.
âI am going to draw a sucky rainbow,â Maggie muttered.
Sanaam clapped her on the back. âThatâs the spirit, Mag-Pirate!â
âââ
âHey, Ann?â Calliope nudged her and pointed to the basement doorway.
PRIVACY, PLEASE had been replaced by JUST ANN, PLEASE. IâM SORRY. The words were surrounded by an orange box like a place on a form that required a signature. The J, an R and both of the Nâs had been reversed.
Ann hugged her own shoulders and let out a sigh. âI guess weâre all done deciding what weâre going to do about today today.â
Calliope signed her two thumbs up and smiled. âIt doesnât count today, sis!â
I wish I believed that, Ann thought. She put a cautious hand out, and when the grey nothing in the doorway accepted it, she followed after and disappeared.
PRIVACY, PLEASE flickered back into place.