Savvy

by Ingrid Law

  ‘Hmph,’ Poppa humphed out loud, and Miss Mermaid snapped her tail. Poppa always pretended that he wasn’t fond of Will and Bobbi. I supposed he didn’t want to see us kids growing up all around him. But because of Miss Mermaid and because of my savvy, I always heard what Poppa was thinking and I knew that he was glad that we’d made friends – friends who knew all about our family’s extra-special know-how and liked us all the same.

  With Rocket moving away and Samson and Gypsy still years away from their own most important birthdays, things looked as though they might settle down and stay peaceful for a time. But I knew a secret – a secret that I wasn’t supposed to know yet – a secret that might make things get interesting again by winter.

  Just because Momma was perfect, that didn’t mean she couldn’t forget things sometimes. So when she was on the phone with Miss Rosemary earlier in the week, getting the perfect recipe for marshmallow pie, and all she could find was a pen but no paper, Momma forgot about ink and savvies and feelings and listening and she wrote that recipe right on the back of her hand. She wrote it in pretty red ink. Pretty, noisy, red ink.

  That was how I found out that Momma was thinking she might be pregnant and that a new little Beaumont was on its way. But that day on the porch swing, that day with its sunshine and its perfect cake, that wasn’t a day for spoiling secrets, so I kept my mouth shut and rocked, rocked, rocked in the swing with Poppa.

  If only my savvy worked in reverse, I thought again – and not for the last time. If only I could draw a smiling sun on the back of my hand, then everyone around me could know exactly how I felt, exactly how happy I was at that perfect moment.

  For just then things were quiet, and they’d stay quiet for a good long time. At least as good and long as it took Samson to turn thirteen…

  And who could guess what might happen then?