“It’s a funny house,” she said shaking her head,
“It’s a pick-up-sticks house.”
Sunny laughed. “You’re crazy.”
Dec smiled and nodded. It was kind of crazy. He might have to build a model to show how it worked. He could borrow some of his father’s tools, but he would do the work up at his grandfather’s workshop in the basement of the big house. He would do this on his own, in his own way. That was the shape of the future.
“Are you going to live in that stick house?” Sunny asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Will you build me a house, Deckly?” she asked.
“You bet. What kind of a house do you want?”
She thought and thought. Then she smiled a very rascally smile. “I want a house that tastes like watermelon juice,” she said and burst out laughing.
Legs
DEC SAT WITH Ezra on the lawn outside the school. “Ran is totalled,” said Ezra. “You owe me three dollars and twenty-seven cents, which is what the insurance guy says it’s worth.”
“I’ll buy you lunch,” said Dec.
“Deal,” said Ezra. But neither of them moved. It was too beautiful to imagine going indoors. Ezra had decided to write his exams without studying at all, just for the fun of it. Dec had just aced history.
“How are things at Camelot?” said Ezra.
Dec shrugged. “Pretty wild,” he said. “Birdie’s planting an awful lot of petunias and Dad’s started to gear up for the Battle of Gettysburg.”
“The twentieth-century thing didn’t take?”
Dec shook his head. “Too close for comfort, I guess.”
He was just about to ask Ezra more about the apartment he had found that weekend in Montreal, when he noticed Vivien across the quad. Ezra saw her, too.
“Hey, Viv,” he called.
She waved and started walking towards them, but was intercepted en route by the inseparable Melody Fong and Martin McNair. They looked pretty excited about something.
“Probably just proved mathematically why sunshine makes your socks fall down,” said Ezra.
“Does it?” asked Dec.
“Well, Martin’s socks, anyway.”
Dec glanced at Martin’s socks. But as interesting as they were, his eyes wandered back to Vivien. She wasn’t wearing socks. She was wearing pink Birkenstocks and a flowing Indian cotton shift.
“Hey, look,” said Dec. “Vivien’s got legs!”
She looked his way and waved again. It was one of those I’ll-be-there-soon looks, a don’t-go-away look.
He nodded. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not for the moment. These days, time seemed a roomier place than he ever remembered it.
“Hmmm,” said Ezra. “Do I sense some chemistry happening here?”
“Chemistry’s my worst subject,” said Dec, but he smiled.
Vivien arrived at last and plopped down beside them. “I found this totally cool book at the second-hand store,” she said. “The Esquire Handbook for Hosts.” She took it from her backpack and opened it. “There’s this list at the back, ‘365 Excuses for a Party.’ You want to know what we’re celebrating today?”
“I already know,” said Dec, smiling. “The world has ended. But hey, there’s another one!”
A Thief in the House of Memory Page 15