Page 65 of We Fell Apart
“But how come Basil?”
“We need a pretentious one to counterbalance Sunshine.” I point to a duckling. “How’s Cotton Ball? To go with Malt Ball.”
“Should they all be named Ball? Like Cotton Ball, Malt Ball, Hair Ball?” suggests Meer. “Oh, Bowling. And um, let’s see, Fire.”
“Is Ball their last name?”
“No. Middle. Their last name is Sugawara. If you take an animal to the vet, they write your last name as the animal’s.”
“So is it Puddleglum Sugawara or Puddleglum Cello?”
“She’s Cooper-Lee. So now we have Cotton, Malt, Hair, Bowling, and Fire.” Meer is pointing at poultry, assigning names as they toddle around. “Do you like Volley?”
“Meh.”
“Oh, Foot!”
“Foot is good.”
“This one is Foot.”
“How ’bout Sour?” I say.
“Sour Ball. Yup. That’s seven balls. Eight if we use Volley,” says Meer. “Oh wait, let’s chuck Volley and do Masquerade instead. You can be Masquerade Ball,” he says to the bird with the long neck. “You’ll like that, won’t you? It suits you really well.” He looks up at me. “And then Sunshine Ball and Basil Ball Fluffington Webster. Is that good with you?”
“Just Basil Ball Webster is better.”
“Oh my god, it makes no sense,” says Meer, collapsing in giggles. “I love it all so much.”
Glum’s ears are on alert. She stares at us through the glass.
43
Tatum and Iare in an unspoken, awkward truce,
pretending we never kissed,
pretending we’re not looking at each other,
pretending neither of us is angry.
Over the next few days, with that going on, the four of us try to build a hutch for Meer’s poultry.
It turns out to be hard. None of us has any skill with tools. The supplies are expensive, and Brock rolls his eyes as he puts down his credit card.
We put the hinges on wrong.
We haven’t bought enough chicken wire.
Our supports tip inward because they’re not anchored or not even, or something.
The roof won’t go on the way we thought it would.
After four days of trying, we give up. Meer decides to let the chickens keep living in the lounge, even though Tatum thinks it’s a bad idea.
He can’t help but be charmed by them when he visits them in the pool house, though. He sits on the floor, long legs tucked under him, and memorizes their names. Foot and Cotton seem to like him, especially.
The days are strangely empty once we abandon our hutch project. We go clamming again one day and pickle cucumbers another.We have a poker game at the picnic table using buttons for chips. We play Scrabble and drink beer.
