Page 79

Wait a second. Zip ties. I frown and sit up, looking closely at the three men. Big Uncle and Second Uncle are both tied up with Fourth Aunt’s black zip ties, but Third Uncle...
I jump up, hurry over, and fling the blanket off him. And gasp.
“Oh, shit!”
30
“Apa?” Ma says. “Kenapa, Meddy?”
“What is it?” Nathan says, rushing over. “Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay, just shut up a second.” I pause. “Sorry. Love you.”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay, um,” I take a deep breath and turn to face my family. “So, who tied up Third Uncle?”
Fingers shoot out and I get a tangle of finger-pointing. Big Aunt, Second Aunt, Ma, and Fourth Aunt are all pointing at each other and glaring.
“Okay... clearly this isn’t going to work,” I mutter. “Who noticed him first?”
“Aduh, by the time I see him, your Fourth Aunt already tie him up!” Ma says.
“I never touched the guy. It was probably you in your weirddrunk state,” Fourth Aunt snorts. “Who can’t handle a single glass of champagne, seriously?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. But hey, at least it seems like the effects of the drugs and alcohol have worn off. They’re acting more or less normal. Well, normal for them, anyway.
“Ngga, not Natasya, I think Natasya too drunk to power over man,” Big Aunt says.
“Yes, Natasya not big enough to do it,” Second Aunt says, side-eyeing Big Aunt so hard I half-wonder if her eyes are going to roll all the way around. “But ada orang, who is.” She side-eyes Big Aunt even harder. “You know, orang yang all day carry big, heavy cake, probably can carry big, heavy man, no problem.”
Big Aunt’s gaze snaps toward her, and it’s a testament to Second Aunt’s courage, or maybe her lack of survival instincts, that she doesn’t flinch. I mean, I’m not even the subject of the Big Aunt glare and I flinch. Big Aunt narrows her eyes and the temperature in the room drops a couple of degrees. “What you saying? You saying I do?”
We all shrink away as Big Aunt takes a step toward Second Aunt. In that moment, Big Aunt is so terrifying that I can totally picture her overpowering anybody. I can easily imagine her advancing on Third Uncle like Annie Wilkes inMisery, except worse because not even Annie Wilkes has the wrath of a slighted Chinese-Indonesian auntie.
I need to cut this exchange short now. “Zip ties!”
Big Aunt frowns at me. “Apa?”
“Zip ties.”
She looks at me blankly.
“Cable ties,” Fourth Aunt says. The other aunties look at her blankly. She says it again but pronounces it “kah-bell-tiss.”
“Oh, cable ties, yes, kenapa?” Second Aunt says.
“You packed cable ties, didn’t you, Fourth Aunt? Black ones. We used them to tie up Big Uncle and Second Uncle.” I gesture to the two men, whose wrists and ankles are indeed tied up with black cable ties.
“Right...” Fourth Aunt says.
“So who brought white cable ties?” I say.
“Huh?”
They all look confused.
“Look at Third Uncle’s wrists.”