Page 67 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
“That’s cool. Maybe I should try that.”
“If it works for you. So, do you want it?”
“Yeah, if it’s chill with you. I want to hang here a bit longer, but I’m all slept out.”
I nodded. I knew that annoyed people, and I had several teachers who would tell me to use my words, but neither Max nor Miss Jeannie were like that.
“Sounds good. Eva, will you get your toys and put them next to Max?” I didn’t think anyone would steal them, not in our family, but I was worried about someone tripping over them, since a lot of the kids were now swarming Olivia because our cousin Jahmoni had managed to herd her into a corner.
“Yeah!”
Eva busied herself with doing that, and I went to the open doorway of the room, looking around for Daddy. He’d been asked to help with something having to do with the ground earlier that morning, which was what led to Miss Jeannie offering to watch us, and us navigating her to the main cabin so that our Auntie Ana could help us. He returned about half an hour ago, but when he saw we were all occupied, one of the great-uncles spirited him away, no doubt for some catch-up time. Or to be a busybody. It really was a toss-up with the elders.
Still, I couldn’t believe our luck. Everything was going so perfectly, it felt like it was meant to be.
Like, maybe my mommy was helping.
I missed her so much sometimes. It hurt. For a long time, there were only three people in the world who understood me—Eva, Daddy, and Mommy—so losing one-third of my support system had been hard, even with my mom preparing me for three years. She never told me I was too mature for my age or that I was using weird words, and she also never told me that I was acting too immature either, which some folks did. It was like people had this dichotomy in their head where if you were smart, you had to be more like an adult, no kid stuff allowed.
“Ready!” Eva exclaimed as she skidded to a stop next to me.
I’d kinda gotten stuck in my brain again. Not exactly new. I always liked turning things this way and that within my mind, staring at them from different perspectives, testing them against different theories. Maybe that was why I understood Eva’s own reluctance to communicate with outside people. Sometimes, the world inside our heads was so much nicer than the one outside of it.
“Okay, let’s go. Daddy is probably in one of the lounges or the library.”
“Let’s find him!”
“Let’s find him,” I echoed. I’d noticed all the way back when she was just two years old that she was always delighted when people repeated her verbatim. I didn’t totally get why, but I didn’t need to. If it made my sister happy, I liked doing it.
The two of us headed off, which was probably a good thing since some of the adults were eyeing Eva’s hair. The puffs atop her head were definitely slacking a little, but she was so tender-headed that I only trusted Daddy to do her hair. I wasn’t afraid to tell other adults no, but it was nice not to have to go through the hassle.
“Do you think this is gonna work?” Eva asked as we walked through the main dining hall.
“Shhh.”
Confusion crossed her face, but when I gave her a meaningful look, it clicked.
“Oh.” She held a finger up to her lips and I gave her another nod.
“Yeah, exactly.”
She was quiet for the rest of her walk, but that wasn’t unusual. It didn’t take us long to find Daddy. He was in one of the studies, a quiet place where a lot of elders hung out when they needed a break. Unsurprisingly, the relative who had whisked him off was out cold in one of the comfortable seats, snoring heavily with a blanket in his lap that I knew my father had put there.
Daddy really was so kind. I wanted to be more like him when I grew up. I didn’t think I was a mean kid, but I didn’t have the warmth that either of my parents did. I was working on it, but it would be a lot easier if people didn’t have the capacity to be soannoying.
“Hey,” I murmured quietly, not wanting to rouse our snoozing elder.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” my dad said, tearing his gaze away from the window. I peered out of the glass to try to guess what he was looking at, and I wasn’t exactly shocked to see that it was the path Miss Jeannie and Auntie Ana would have walked by to get to the old playground, which was exactly where our plan needed them to be. “How’s it going? Did you need a break from the other kids?”
“Max had to take a nap,” I fibbed. I wasn’t a huge fan of lying, but I had evaluated the situation, and I believed that it would be prudent to reach our goals. And surely a little bit of fibbing was okay if it was for agood cause, right? Like a really,reallygood cause.
“Yeah, he did seem pretty tired. Maybe you girls can encourage him to take it easy for the rest of today and tomorrow? We don’t want him knocked out for Christmas Day.”
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yeah!” Eva echoed, reaching for my hand. I took it of course.
“Really? How so?”
