Page 22 of Mother Pucker

They all look at each other, no one making a peep.

Cortney gets up, getting the kids’ attention. He has an easy way of doing that, given he’s their fun baseball star uncle. “Well, I was going to take everyone out for ice cream,” he looks at me pointedly, “and sugar-free frozen yogurt for Kai. But I guess I won’t be doing that since you guys aren’t fessing up to whatever it is you’re up to.”

I swallow the fear of Kai eating something frozen during this time of year when the weather is getting colder. He could catch a cold, not to mention the food coloring that goes into most frozen yogurts . . .

“Well, Colette wanted to–” Winnie starts, her finger pointing to the other side of the bar where the twins are.

“It wasn’t just my idea!” Colette defends herself quickly.

“Well, you did help,” Kai adds accusingly. “You held the hairdryer to the back of the makeup thingy to warm up the glue behind the mirror so it would become unstuck.”

“Yeah, andyoutook the mirrors out!” Phoebe adds, pointing an accusing finger at Kai.

“Girls–” Delia tries to get her twins’ attention.

“But I didn’t do all of them,” Kai argues. “Phoebe did the most–”

“Kai?” My shock is evident on my face. Is this the same rule-abiding kid I raised all these years? “You were a part of this?”

“You’re a tattletale!” Phoebe adds, giving Kai the stink-eye. “We agreed not to tell the moms!”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Kai’s lip trembles with guilt. “I told them it wasn’t a good idea–”

“It was a brilliant idea! We only act on brilliant ideas, not dumb ones.” Colette’s brows scrunch together in annoyance.

“Okay, okay,” Delia tries again. “Can someone tell me what exactly was the brilliance behind heating up a bunch of our makeup compacts and ungluing the mirrors from them?”

“Phoebe and Colette wanted to make periscopes.”

Delia, Dylan, and I look at each other in confusion.

“Periscopes?” I ask.

“Yes,” Phoebe starts, and I can already tell this is going to be one of her sassy responses. “A periscope is an instrument that allows you to observe over, around, or through an object that prevents direct line-of-sight observation.” She huffs out a breath, irritated by my raised brows and my apparent simple-mindedness. “In layman’s terms–so you understand–periscopes let you look around walls and corners.”

“Phoebe, we’re all aware of what periscopes are.” Delia gets on her knees and wraps her hands around her daughter’s wrists gently. “What we want to know iswhyyou were making them?”

“We wanted a way to look up the chimney for the times Junior leaves her babies to find more food,” Colette answers. “We wanted to watch her come in and out, so we made periscopes using the mirrors we got from your makeup compacts.”

As if the raccoons know we’re talking about them, scratching sounds drift from inside the chimney and we all turn to look at them suspiciously.

Before anything more can be said, the twins hustle off, telling their mom they’ll be back with their new gadgets. I take the time to speak with Kai. Winnie seems to be the least culpable, since she didn’t take part in any of this.

“Kai-bear, can you explain why you wouldn’t tell me about this plan before you decided to break my things?”

Kai’s chin wobbles as he holds back his tears. “I just . . . I just wanted to make something cool with my friends. I wanted to be part of the team.”

Ah.

I sigh, understanding more than he’s telling me. “Does this have something to do with the skating classes and the hockey team?”

He looks up at me, hope swirling inside his irises, but stays silent.

“I was going to tell you last night when you came to my room, but you fell asleep before I could.” My eyes glide over him gently. “I’m okay with enrolling you in skating classes–”

Kai lunges at me before I can finish, wrapping his arms around me. “Thank you, Mom! Thank you so much!”

I smile through the anxiety creeping up my chest. “Yes. And guess what?”

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