Kingdom Keepers III(38)
No one coming.
He walked out, in no particular hurry, his feet and fingers beginning to tingle again. The song stayed in his head, the image of her in his mind.
He felt safe. He felt good.
He felt totally confused.
17
“HOW DID YOU SLEEP, sweetheart?” Finn’s mother asked him the next morning.
In the midst of cooking pancakes and bacon, she had her hair pinned up with what looked like a chopstick, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows, and her right hand on the wrong end of a spatula, scraping some burned stuff off the blade with a determined red fingernail.
“Okay, I guess,” Finn replied. His knees ached, his head felt fat, and he was beyond thirsty. He swilled down a glass of orange juice and went to the fridge to pour himself another.
“Anything fun going on at school today?”
“No.”
“There must be something.”
“No. It’s boring. Same as always.”
“But you like school.”
“Sometimes.”
“Then let’s make today one of those times!” she said brightly.
He could have bitten her. She came out with lines like this that didn’t even sound like her. She was probably reading another book like Parenting Your Teenage Monster or Be-Teen the Terror. She tended to quote whatever advice she was getting, whether from a friend, a book, or a podcast.
“You lose any more weight, Mom, and you’re going to disappear.”
“I’m just keeping fit. Fit is it!”
She flipped the pancake.
“Not too long on that side, okay?” The up-facing side was the color of coffee grounds. She was an okay cook most of the time, though she could trash the entire kitchen just making peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches. There was currently not an open square inch on the countertop, unless you counted the half acre of spilled pancake flour, or the used teabag with Lake Earl Grey surrounding it.
“Disney sent us a letter about the DHIs being installed on the cruise ships. They’re still working on that.”
“That would be pretty good,” Finn said.
“That would be very good,” she corrected. “For your college fund especially.”
“You know Wayne?” Finn said.
“Yes?”
“He’s missing.” The words came out of Finn’s mouth and he wondered exactly where he’d thought he was going with this.
“Missing?”
“Never mind.” He wished there were a rewind button for real life, like Adam Sandler’s in Click. He could have put it to good use.
“Missing, how?” she said.
“As in no one can find him.”
“There’s no reason to be fresh, young man.”
She delivered the pancakes. He considered asking her for a jackhammer but worried she might send him to school with no breakfast at all.
“That’s none of your concern,” she said quickly, her mind jumping to the obvious next step.
“I know.”
“Finn?”
“I know, Mother. I get it.”
“Tell me you won’t get involved in something like that.”
“Something like what?”
“Don’t avoid the question.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said, trying to move her away from the promise. He wouldn’t lie to his parents. He would, and could, stretch the truth to the cosmic edge of reality, but not tell an outright lie.
“Should I call someone?” she asked. “About Wayne I mean?”
“I don’t know. Who would you call?”
“I’m asking you.”
“No clue.”
“But you’re worried about him.”
“I like the old dude,” he said. “I figure he’s just taken a vacation or something. Maybe he’s on one of the cruise ships trying to set us up, like you said. Maybe that’s all it is. If he was on one of those ships we’d never know about it.”
“Well then, I helped solve it!” she said in a cheery but creepy voice. She was watching way too much Desperate Housewives; she was beginning to sound like those women.
“Whatever,” he said.
“You haven’t brought Amanda by in a long time.”
He’d brought her by exactly once, and one time she’d come on her own.
“So?”
“So, you’re welcome to do so anytime you want. We could have her over for dinner?”
To eat hardtack? “No, thanks.”
“Or for a movie or something.”
“Yeah, right.”
The pancakes tasted pretty good given that he had to break an outside shell to eat them.
“How are they?” his mother asked, hovering.
“Ummm,” he said through a full mouth, avoiding the second outright lie of the morning.