No Passengers Beyond This Point(7)
“Mouse should stay with you,” she says.
My mother winces. “I know,” she admits, “but I don’t like her around your cousins and their music.”
“You’re sending us off to live with a strange relative because you’re worried about a few bad words?” India asks. “It’s not like she hasn’t heard them before.”
“India, I’m doing the best I can here,” my mom tells her.
“I just don’t think this decision makes sense,” India reasons.
“Mouse drives Uncle Tito up a tree with all her questions,” my mom whispers.
“Uncle Tito is an adult and he can’t deal with her. How are we supposed to?”
“She’s your sister, India,” Mom says as she slams the hatchback closed a final time.
Mouse appears at the back door. She looks at India and my mother. “It’s me again, Bing . . . isn’t it?”
The hardest thing is saying good-bye to Henry. Henry is like the Christmas tree at Christmas. The birthday cake on your birthday and trick-or-treating on Halloween . . . we love her that much.
After she takes us to the airport, my mother will come back and pick Henry up along with our last loads of stuff. I know she will . . . but Henry doesn’t. Henry goes into stealth mode. She slinks out the door and makes a mad dash for the car.
We try and get her back in the house the usual way, filling our pockets with Milk-Bones, but she lies on her back with her paws up and refuses to move. My mother gets the leftover Chinese—her last splurge—and dribbles the beef with broccoli in a path from the car to the house, but Henry doesn’t fall for it.
The only thing that works is when all four of us lock the car door and walk back into the house as if we’re coming home again. Then when Henry follows us, my mom quick shuts her inside. The last thing I see as we drive away is Henry’s big brown eyes watching through the front window of our ex-house.
CHAPTER 4
AIRPORT EXPLOSION
Ever since I found out they kicked Pluto out of the planets, I have not been feeling so sure about a lot of things.
If they can decide Pluto is not a planet all of a sudden like that, things are not being run the right way up top. Pluto is a planet in My Solar System on page one, page six, and all of chapter three.
My brother, Finn, who has no pimples, says that’s because Pluto is a dwarf star, but Finn is wrong about this. Finn is wrong about a lot of things, but I keep quiet about how many. He is a nice big brother and I don’t want to ruin him.
My sister, India, is fourteen and she’s only nice when Mommy makes her. India says when she gets her driver’s permit, she will attach a leash to my belt loop and make me run behind the car.
India and Mommy are way ahead of Finn and me. Neither of them is paying any attention because they are talking a lot. They probably haven’t read the airport signs. Mommy says I am the official sign reader in the family. I want to go back and make sure I understand the one about liquids. 3:1:1: three liquids, one ounce, one bag, but Finn is pulling me along by my blue corduroy belt loop. He says I took too long reading the monitor about the flights coming and the flights going, and now we’re late.
India is ahead of Mommy. India likes to be first. She’s a big hog about it too. They are up front in the line near the conveyor belt.
“Shoes off, put them in the bin,” Mommy says. She’s not flying today on account of she likes her sixth graders better than us.
“Finn,” I whisper. “We have a problem here.”
“Mom!” Finn calls to our mom, who is walking through the metal detector. “Mouse has to go to the bathroom.”
“All right, you people, I’ve got a flight to catch,” a man with green socks growls. His black roller bag bumps my blue bag in not a nice way.
“Can you wait?” Mommy asks from the land on the other side of the metal detector.
“I DON’T HAVE TO GO!” I shout so she will hear.
Mom’s cheeks turn pink. “Come on then.” She mouths the words and waves me on.
“Take your shoes off,” Finn says.
I pull on his arm and he bends his knees so I can whisper in his ear. “Someone might steal my money.”
Finn whisks the hair out of his eyes faster than usual, which means I am making him nervous. “Just take your shoes off. No one cares about your dimes.”
I don’t like to make Finn nervous. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to take all the underpants and socks out of my suitcase and put in my special mints and soda explosion ingredients and my baking soda and vinegar volcano. But Mom said I have to make a good expression for Uncle Red. A volcano makes a good expression, that’s for sure.