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CHAPTER TWENTY

FINN

“Rylee, it really is going to be okay,” I say as she huddles on the ground of the bedroom she’s staying in at Orin’s house.

She’s just wrapped around the cat, smoothing his fur down with her endless tears.

Of course the cat doesn’t care. The whole room is filled with the sound of his purrs.

Orin has some stuff to quickly deal with and asked us to watch her, which means that it’s our job to make her stop crying.

How he’s managed to keep her happy, I have no idea because the second she saw us, she burst into tears.

I’m sure Marcus has had plenty of people burst into tears the moment they saw him, but I never have!

“En left me and he’s never coming back, and I love him so much but he doesn’t love meeeeeeeeeeee .” That “me” is said with such a wailing noise that it’s dragged out for an unbelievable amount of time. Marcus gets a little impatient waiting for it to end as he gives me a look.

“What about some ice cream? Would that make you feel better?” I ask as I pick her up off the floor and set her on the bed. It makes me feel at least a little bit better if she’s not just wallowing on the ground.

“M-Maybe but probably not but I still want some.”

“Awesome. I’ll go get you some ice cream while Marcus reads you a story. That sounds like fun, yeah? You could read it in bed! And eat ice cream in bed! And then after we’re done, we can go swimming! Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

“Not really!” she complains, but I push a book into Marcus’s hands anyway.

“She said ‘not really,’” Marcus says, like that’ll get him out of it. “She obviously doesn’t want it.”

“She’s just upset and doesn’t know what she wants,” I assure him as I flip open the book to where it looks like she left off and force it back into Marcus’s hands.

“I mean… is Ender really even worth crying about?” he asks.

“He’s the best person to have ever existed,” Rylee declares.

Marcus doesn’t look convinced.

“Ice cream coming right up. Marcus, you want some?” I ask, so I can distract Marcus from explaining why Ender isn’t the best.

“No thanks.”

“Man, what a weirdo, right?” I ask Rylee. For some reason, that makes her cry harder. Apparently, we’re quite good at this.

Leaving that mess to Marcus, I hurry down the stairs and start scooping up the ice cream before returning to find Marcus reading the book in the most monotone fashion possible. “‘Sandra sees something orange dash across the street as Eddie yells, “There she is.” Together?—’”

“You gotta do the voices. En does the voices! You sound like you hate life! You sound as miserable as I feel!” Rylee whines.

Marcus’s face scrunches up in disgust. “I can’t do the voices. Here, Finn.”

“No, you can do the voices,” I urge as I dodge the hand trying to pass the book off to me before handing Rylee her ice cream cone. “I want to eat my ice cream, and I need two hands for that.”

“I’ve seen you eat ice cream, read a book, and pet the dog all at the same time, you’re not fooling me.”

“Ohhhh, my arm. It aches today so I only have one hand to hold the cone as the other sits uselessly.” It’s all quite dramatic and oddly doesn’t seem to convince him. “We’ll listen. Go on now. Do the voices.”

Marcus grumbles but gives a curt nod. He’s such a good partner. “‘Sandra dashes after Eddie as they reach the large tunnel the cat disappeared into. “I think Buttercup ran in here,” Sandra says.’”

I nearly choke on my ice cream as Rylee stares at Marcus in fascination. “Oh my. How old is Sandra? Is she related to Batman? Is she Batman? I bet she’s Batman. What do you think, Rylee?” I ask.

Rylee giggles as she nods.

Marcus gives me a look. “She doesn’t… no! Just… if you have a problem with it, you can read it.”

I lick my ice cream in bliss. This really is quite fun. Picking on Marcus does seem to be one of my favorite pastimes. “I’m busy eating! Right, Rylee? I mean… he should learn, at the very least.”

“Her voice is perfectly fine as it is,” Marcus decides.

“Is it?” I ask. “Poor Sandra is hitting her midlife crisis at the early age of ten.”

“She is not. You’re so picky.”

“I would never be picky!” I say. “Just… do better.”

This makes Rylee giggle even more.

Marcus sighs and turns back to the book. “‘The tunnel is tall enough they can stand in it as they hear the pitter-patter of Buttercup’s feet. “I think she went this way! Let’s go!” Eddie shouts.’”

“Oh noooooo. Rylee, that’s what happens when you start smoking from the young age of two weeks. That’s what you’d sound like. This is why you don’t ever want to smoke, okay?”

Rylee is laughing so hard that Marcus just closes the book and tosses it onto the bedside table before stoically sitting there with his arms folded over his chest.

“I give up,” he declares.

“It’s so bad,” Rylee says. She’s so distracted by how bad it is that her cat sneaks a lick of the ice cream. It’s evidently quite cold on his tongue because he makes a strange face that makes Rylee laugh even harder. “En would have found it so funny.”

And then her happiness plummets and she licks her ice cream in misery.

“Marcus, read again,” I urge, and since Rylee is close to tears, Marcus seems to realize that getting picked on about his reading is significantly better than dealing with tears.

He hurries over and retrieves the book which he resumes reading. It makes her smile, but I think her sadness is outweighing it. When she’s done with her ice cream, she returns to squeezing the cat who has recovered from his ice cream escapades.

A knock on the door makes Marcus quickly close the book with a “Finally,” even though I was quite enjoying The Adventures of Batman and Chain-smoker .

The door opens and Claude peeks in. “I heard that someone was feeling a little down, and when I feel down, you know what I like to do?”

“Look at yourself in the mirror?” Rylee guesses.

This makes Alexei laugh as Claude slowly looks over his shoulder at him. “You don’t need to laugh so hard.”

Alexei shrugs. “What? It was funny. The girl’s got some jokes… although is it a joke if it’s true?”

“I assumed he didn’t have any mirrors, which is why he dresses that way,” Marcus says.

Claude shifts his glower to his brother, who is looking quite proud of himself. “Ha. Ha. Funny. I only look at myself to make sure my outfit is perfect—which it always is. Anyway . When I’m feeling down, I like to dress up! So I went to the store and I bought you the cutest outfits!”

He dumps enough bags on the ground to fill up the room as I question how long he was shopping for and… what this poor child is going to be put through.

“I’ve always wanted a kid to dress,” Claude announces. “Alexei, can we have a baby?”

“You realize that you have to do more than just dress them, right? You have to feed them, and then they cry, and then when you’re removing their diaper they wait until a clean one is on to dirty that one.

And they wait until you’re ready to go somewhere to spit up on you so you have to rush around to get changed.

Imagine your clothes. Imagine that on your clothes. ”

Claude contemplates this for about ten seconds before turning to me. “Why don’t you two have a child? I would absolutely love a little niece or nephew, and I would dress them and they’d be so cute.”

“Why don’t you try it out on Rylee here first and we’ll see how that goes,” I say.

“And then you’ll think about it? Aw. Make sure they’re cute.”

“Why have a child when Claude already acts like one?” Marcus asks.

“Ha. Ha. Marcus, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’d love to put little light-up booties on your horse too. I braided flowers into Alexei’s horse’s tail, and they looked so darling, and then your horse came over and ate them.”

“Sounds like he did a good job, then,” Marcus says.

“Funny.” He pulls out the first dress and Rylee cocks her head.

“Did you murder an innocent peacock?” she asks.

“No! Peacocks shed their feathers, which were then made into this dress. Isn’t it lovely?

It’s lovely,” he says, which means we no longer get an opinion as he comes at her with the dress.

He just plops it over her head and melts the moment he sees it, even though it looks ridiculous with her sweats and unicorn shirt on under it.

“Oh my goodness. You are precious.”

Rylee doesn’t seem certain about this. “Finn… Finn, save me.”

Ignoring this, Claude coos, “I just can’t. You’re just the cutest! I have another. It’s even better.”

Rylee looks concerned. “Finn, I’ve turned into a bird.”

I grin at her. “You have. You’re a very pretty bird.”

Claude comes at her with another bag. “I got this to match,” he says as he slides a hat with feathers on it onto the cat’s head. The cat doesn’t care. He’s pleased to be touched, but boy does that make Rylee happy.

I can see all of her worries evaporate. And when I look at Marcus, I can see the disbelief on his face over the fact that he didn’t even have to read a damn word. All he had to do was put a hat on the cat.

“THIS IS SO CUTE. I love it so much! We match! Finn! We match!”

“I thought you didn’t like the dress?” I tease.

“We maaaatch ,” she says as she scoops her cat up.

I felt like inviting Claude’s help was a bit questionable, but clearly he did a good job. I give him a thumbs-up and he’s all smiles.

“I told you to just buy the cat clothes,” Alexei says.

“But they’re cuter if they match,” Claude decides.

Rylee rushes for me. “I need your phone. I bet if we send En cat pictures he’ll come home. He’s going to love them so much.”

I hand her my phone as she proceeds to roll around on the floor to get every angle of the cat.

Once Orin gets home, it wasn’t long before Alexei, who’d gone back to the department, called and asked us to meet him at the council hall where we now stand.