He considered me, then nodded. I crawled, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t supposed to get my pretty dress dirty.
“You have something pink in your hair,” the boy said. He touched it and quickly drew back. “It’s sticky!”
“Cotton candy,” I said, nodding.
“It’s on your face, too. You have chocolate on your dress.”
I looked down, where I had wiped my hand across the top of my dress and left streaks of brown finger marks. It was much too late to worry about crawling, then. “This is a good party,” I commented. I compared it to my last birthday. We were supposed to go to a movie, my mom and I, but she had fallen asleep for most of the day. When she had woken up, she had remembered, and we had gone for a fancy dinner with slimy fish that still had eyes and little cakes with bitter chocolate inside that oozed out like gross goop when you cut into them. My mom had gotten really mad and said I didn’t appreciate the finer things when I said I liked burgers and cupcakes better.
“You’re a very messy, sloppy little girl,” the boy said to me, eyeing my dress.
“I’m not little! I’m five.”
“Well, you’re much smaller than I am. I’m nearly eleven. I will be in ten months.” He stared at me. “I know who you are. You’re Evie. You’re my dad’s old wife’s daughter.”
“We’re related,” I concluded, licking my sticky fingers.
The boy made a face, pursing his lips and wrinkling his nose. “No, we’re not. We have different moms and dads. But my dad, Graham, used to be married to your mom, Annora, until he divorced her.” He got very businesslike. “You and I are at Lara’s birthday party because Annora is her mom and Graham is her dad. First Graham was married to Annora, and they had Lara, then he married my mom, and I was born. Then Annora had you later.” He made another face at me, like he had taken a sip of bitter, nasty coffee. “We’re both half-siblings with Lara, but we’re not related to each other. My dad explained it all to me a few times.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I had stopped listening a while ago, because I was more focused on breaking open pink fortune cookies. They each had a little note with writing inside but I wasn’t a reader yet. I pointed out some letters I knew, the E for Evie, me, the A for Annora, my mom.
The boy grabbed it from me. “You can’t read it? It says, ‘Happy Sweet Sixteen, Lara!’ You’re not very smart and you’re a very dirty little girl.”
So I hit him in the nose. Oops, he was a bleeder. It dripped all over his fancy shirt and his fancy tie. His face turned white when he saw the splattered red drops, his eyeballs rolled back in his head, and he was out like a light. I recognized this state; I’d seen my mom the same way. Uh oh.
I crawled out from under the table and went for help. I may have stopped for some more cake along the way.
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