Page 70 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
I follow Bella and the dog into the warm house. Ian is at the coffee table drawing. Cartoons are on the TV.
“Hey, buddy,” I say.
“Hi,” he says, standing up.
“What’re you guys watching?”
Bella hits pause. “It’s a Barbie Christmas movie.”
“It was her choice,” says Ian. “I’m not really even watching it.”
“Boys can watch Barbie now,” Bella tells him. “The movie with all the singingelevatedBarbie and made itfeministandironic.”
I laugh because she struggled through some of those words and because I know they came from Grace. “No argument here,” I say. “Barbie rocks.”
I ask Ian what he’s drawing. He looks down at his pad and squeezes his forehead. It looks like just doodles—elephants, like the sketch at the Walters, a few interlocking candy canes, more mice. “I worked on some stuff at my grandma and grandpa’s,” he says. “But…I don’t even know. It’s hard to come up with good art.”
“I know, buddy,” I say. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.”
He comes with me into the kitchen where we find Bella and Harry Styles standing over the trap.
“There’s six of them!” says Bella.
“Whoa,” I say, shuddering again, “that really is a bunch.”
The kids’ nanny is here. She’s maybe in her early sixties. She’s wearing a purple scarf and long cardigan over a black T-shirt, and she doesn’t look nearly as excited about the mice as Bella does.
“Hi, I’m Nadine,” she says. “You’re the mouse man, huh?”
I shake her hand. “That’s me. Hi, I’m Henry.”
She looks down at the trap, which wriggles with life. “This was your idea, then? Giving them a little apartment here in the kitchen?”
“Yeah. Maybe not my best.”
“Mhm,” she says.
“Ian said he thinks it’s a mousefamily,” says Bella, poking the trap.
“Kinda looks like it,” says Ian.
I crouch and pat Harry Styles’s head as I take a look. There’s no way to tell, but I get his point. Two mice stand at the front of the cage while the others hide behind them, like kids would, and since I’m all in now on personifying these creepy little things, my heart sinks for them.
“You wanna take them to the stream?” Ian says. “I’ll get my coat.”
I look out the window at trees swaying in the cold wind.
“You know what, buddy? Maybe I’ll handle this one. How about you hang back?”
“It’s really cold out,” Bella says. “I took Harry Styles to the bathroom before and it made my face hurt.”
“The mice have little fur coats, though,” I say, trying.
“You could watch the rest of Barbie with us if you want,” says Bella. “Take them to the stream after. Maybe it’ll be warmer then. It still has thirty-seven minutes left.”
Nadine and I exchange a look. If anything, it’ll be colder in thirty-seven minutes.
