Page 64 of Playing for Keeps

Shit. I hadn’t meant to leave him out.

“So, what’s your favorite animal?” I asked him as we watched a pacing tiger.

Jonathan stared at the ground, his thinking face on. “Probably a giraffe. I like how graceful they are.”

“Do you know that giraffes have blue tongues?” Theo said.

“Do they?” I said.

Theo nodded sagely. “I learned about it in a book Nan gave me. And polar bears have black skin.” His face was so earnest and even though he looked so much like Ethan, I could suddenly see what Ethan had meant about Theo taking after me. My nickname had been Professor, after all.

Before I could respond, he skipped off to get closer to the tiger.

“People’s tongues can turn blue too if they eat lots of blueberries.” Ethan slid a sneaky look at me.

I chuckled. “Shit, you’re trying to retraumatize me with that?”

Jonathan smiled but it was slightly stiff. “What happened?”

“We were in Wanaka and Luke gorged himself on two whole containers of blueberries,” Ethan said. “About two hours later, he had to run to the bathroom thirteen times.”

“Which Ethan handily counted for me,” I said.

“Hey, what are friends for?”

We grinned at each other.

Jonathan coughed.

Damn. I’d done it again.

“Japan has some amazing animals.” I grabbed Jonathan’s hand. “Tell Ethan your story about finding that snake under the bathmat.”

Jonathan gave a half smile. “I think you’ve pretty much just told the story.”

Ethan gave a theatrical shiver. “I’m so glad we don’t have any snakes in New Zealand.”

Theo wandered back over to us.

“Hey Theo, do you know why snakes are so hard to fool?” Ethan said.

“Why?”

“They have no legs to pull.”

Theo just looked at him.

“Come on, that joke’shissterical,” Ethan said.

I laughed. “God, you really are the king of dad jokes.”

Ethan grinned at me. “I do my best.”

Orana Park was enormous and as we made our way past the yaks, Theo started to flag.

“My feet are sore,” he whined.

One of his shoelaces was coming undone and Ethan crouched down to do it up. “What do you reckon we take Uncle Luke and Uncle Jonathan to the café when we get back to the entrance? Do you think they deserve an ice cream for the fact they’ve walked all this way without complaining?”