by Nic Saint
“Deal,” both Dooley and I said in unison.
I’d always liked Chase, and now I was liking him even more, if possible.
Chase stared at us. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “You little dudes can talk.”
“Of course we can talk,” said Dooley. “What do you take us for? Dumb animals?”
“That’s exactly what he takes us for, Dooley,” I said. “He just said so.”
“I know, but he was probably kidding, right? Weren’t you kidding, Chase?”
But the cop was shaking his head. “Holy crap. This is some weird shit right there.”
“I resent being called weird shit,” I told him.
I liked Odelia’s boyfriend, but not if he was going to start calling us names.
“Okay. Let’s try this again,” he said. “Max.”
“Yes, Chase?”
“Can you understand me?”
“Of course I can understand you. Now ask me a real question.”
“Holy mackerel. You cats can hear me! And talk back at me!”
I gulped and turned to Dooley. “Did we just reveal Odelia’s big secret?”
“I think we did,” said Dooley, looking equally stricken.
Chase then pressed his index finger to his lips. “Let’s keep this between us for now, you guys.” He then got up, and muttered, “Holy moly. This is big. This is, like, huge.”
Holy moly was right, and so was huge. Huge trouble. For us!
THE END
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Excerpt from Death in Suburbia (The Kellys Book 2)
Chapter One
“Scott! Get up! Time for breakfast!”
Scott groaned, opened one eye and saw that the day had already started without him. He didn’t mind. As far as he was concerned, the day could do whatever it wanted. So he closed his eyes again and tried to return to the dream he’d abandoned. The one where he was Han Solo and instead of having to endure that weird hairy ape as a traveling companion he conquered the universe with Emilia Clarke by his side. Now wouldn’t that be something!
But before he and lovely Emilia could board the Millennium Falcon, Mom’s voice pierced the fragile fabric of sleep once more—effectively ending his roseate dreamscape.
“Scott! Out of bed! Now!”
He threw back the comforter, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned. Checking his smartphone, he saw that his best friend Mike was still asleep. If he wasn’t he’d have sent him an update on his Pokemon Go conquests from last night. They might be twelve, but that didn’t mean Pokemon was beneath them now. Besides, with the new Harry Potter Pokemon coming out soon, they needed to work on their mad skillz.
Shuffling out of his room in the direction of the bathroom, he discovered the door locked. Dragging one hand through his shaggy mane, he pounded the door with the other.
“Go away, scuzz-ball!” his sister yelled from inside.
“You go away, snarf-face!” he yelled back.
“Don’t call your sister a snarf-face,” said his mother as she hurried past, cradling the baby in her arms.
“Why do you keep carrying Jacob everywhere?” he asked. “He’s old enough to walk.”
But Mom wasn’t listening. Instead, she was pounding down the stairs, still carrying Jacob as if his legs were too weak to carry him. At this rate, the toddler was never going to learn how to walk all by himself. Scott shook his head. Adults. They just never listened.
The door to the bathroom suddenly swung open and Maya appeared, a towel draped around her head and another one around her bony frame. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do you need the bathroom anyway? You wear the same grungy shirt three days in a row and you don’t even bother to deodorize those pathetic pits of yours.”
“I don’t need to deodorize my pits,” he said, moving past his sister. “My pits naturally smell like roses.”
“Nobody’s pits smell like roses. Especially yours, little brother.”
He squared off against Maya. Even though she was five years older than him, they were the same height. He’d gotten a growth spurt last year to the extent she had no right to call him ‘little brother’ anymore. “Are you dissing my pits?”
“I’m telling you that if you don’t start working on your personal hygiene no girl is ever going to want to go out with you.”
He laughed at this. “Who cares about girls?! All girls are stupid!”
“Have it your own way, freak. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
She stomped off, and he plodded into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Dee heard the door slam and yelled, “Don’t slam the door!”
Not that it would do much good. Her kids were at the stage where they’d stopped listening to anything she or Tom said. She remembered just in time not to frown. She was turning forty next year, and she could almost feel the collagen in her face breaking down as that fateful birthday drew closer. Likewise, she tried not to smile too much either, or pucker her lips. She darted a quick look in the hallway mirror. The woman who looked back at her was fair-haired, light-skinned, and quite beautiful. She also had dark rings under her eyes that hadn’t been there when she was her lookalike daughter’s age. Ugh.
Inadvertently, she’d put Jacob down. The toddler was looking up at her, then gave her a cheerful smile. “Mommy!” he cried, then held out his arms. “Carry!”
Scott’s words hadn’t missed their effect, though. Her son was right. The days of lugging the little tyke all over the place were over. In Dee’s defense, though, she only carried him up and down the stairs these days, and only when she was in a hurry. “Go to the kitchen,” she said encouragingly. “Go and find Daddy.”
“Daddy!” Jacob said, and lo and behold, he moved off at an awkward wobble in the general direction of the kitchen.
As she followed him at a little distance, Dee smiled. He was such a lively, cheerful little dude. Never gave his mom and dad any trouble at all. Unlike Scott, who’d been a real cryer, and Maya, who’d been a restless kid. Looked like third time was the charm after all.
Behind her, Ralph came trotting down the stairs, his nails clicking funnily on the steps. The family Goldendoodle was a late riser, too, and proved it by plopping down on his heinie and yawning widely. He then barked once and followed Dee into the kitchen, where he proceeded to hover over his food bowl and give it a tentative sniff before digging in.
Meanwhile Dee’s husband of twenty years, Tom Kelly, was juggling a skillet and a glass bowl of pancake batter, creating the perfect morning treat. A pot of coffee stood spreading its wonderful aroma through the kitchen and the table was already set for six. Dee’s mom Caroline was presiding over the breakfast nook, preparing the kids’ lunches.
“Mom,” said Dee as she hoisted Jacob into his seat, “I told you. Maya doesn’t need you to pack her a school lunch. She grabs whatever from the cafeteria.” Or the Starbucks around the corner.
“I don’t mind,” said Mom as she added an apple to the lunch box. “Besides, the stuff they offer at schools these days is not healthy. Just a steaming pile of junk food. Unfit for man or beast.”
“They have a healthy alternative,” she said as she outfitted her youngest with a bib.
“You know kids. When they have a choice between a greasy burger or a plate of veggies they’ll take the burger every time. Honestly, Dee, how hard is it to prepare a healthy and nutritious lunch?”
“Not hard at all. Problem is she won’t eat it. I can tell you that right now. She’ll dump it in the trash first chance she gets.”
“No, she won’t. Not when her grammy put that extra-special ingredient in there. Love,” she explained.
“Love or no love—she’ll trash it. Just you wait and see.”
Dee’s mom stubbornly pursed her lips. “No, she won’t. My angel wouldn’t do
that to a lunch her own grammy packed. Nuh-uh.”
Dee wanted to explain that Maya had stopped being an angel a long time ago but decided this was a battle she was never going to win.
“Honey,” said her husband, setting down a plate of pancakes. “Can you try one? I have a feeling I forgot to add something but I don’t know what it is.”
Dee forked a pancake and took a bite. She grimaced. “You forgot the sugar, hon.”
“Dang it,” Tom murmured. “Knew I’d left something out.”
Dee shared a smile with her mother. Tom really was the absent-minded professor incarnate. Not only was he a real-life professor—in economics, not chemistry—but he was as scatterbrained as they came.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Tom,” said Mom. “We’ll just add more jam.” And to show them she meant business, she spooned a generous helping of strawberry jam onto her pancake and transferred it into her mouth. Talk about your healthy alternative.
“Kids!” Tom bellowed at the foot of the stairs. “If you don’t get down here right now we’re all gonna be late for school!” He darted a quick look at his wife. “And the gallery!”
“I don’t know why you keep going to that place,” said Mom as she added a granola bar to Scott’s lunchbox. “You hired that nice girl—what’s-her-name—I wanna say Trixie?”
“Holly,” Dee corrected her mother, then tucked a small piece of apple into Jacob’s mouth. He happily munched down on it, half the apple soon dribbling down his chin. “And the reason I keep going is because it’s my gallery, Mom. I’m the one in charge.”
“Sounds to me like this Trixie person is on top of things.”
“Holly. And she is on top of things. But I still have to be there to handle stuff like acquisitions, communicating with the artists and collectors, setting up exhibitions…”
Mom was waving her hand. “Trixie can handle all of that stuff.” She gestured to Jacob. “What she can’t do is take care of your baby. That is something only you can do. Raising your kid. A few short years from now all three of your babies will be gone and that gallery will still be there waiting for you to run it. Not that I mind babysitting my grandchild,” she quickly added when Dee opened her mouth to respond. “In fact I love it. But a mother leaving her child at home all day?” She shrugged. “It’s just not right.”
“Do you think I want to be in Seattle when I could be here at home with Jacob?”
“Oh, I know, sweetie,” said her mother, reaching over to pinch her cheek as if she was the toddler, not Jacob. “But actions speak louder than words, so get your priorities straight, all right? And I’m sure Tom will back me up on this—won’t you, Tom?”
Tom looked up from his study of the bowl of leftover pancake batter, a confused look on his face. At forty-eight, he actually managed to look younger than his wife, who was almost a decade his junior. How he did this, Dee did not know. “Mh?” said Tom.
“Do you or don’t you agree that your wife should be home with her child instead of gallivanting around with a bunch of wannabe artists?” said Mom, enunciating clearly and distinctly as if addressing a three-year-old.
Tom’s eyes shifted to Dee. “Um…”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Mom said, throwing up her hands.
“You know, if you want to stay home I’m sure we can arrange something,” said Tom. “I mean financially we can definitely manage, so…”
“Look, I love my job, all right? I worked hard to set up that gallery and I can’t afford to abandon it when it’s still finding its feet. People who visit the Dee Kelly Gallery expect to find Dee Kelly there to greet them, not a salaried second-in-command. Besides, I’m just working mornings right now.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Tom soothingly, then moved over to peck a quick kiss to her brow.
“Looks like we’ve been vetoed, little man,” said Mom, tucking a piece of pancake into Jacob’s mouth.
The toddler happily gobbled up the treat, then cackled loudly. “Want more!” he yelled.
“Looks like we’re getting new neighbors,” said Scott, slouching into the kitchen, then draping his limp frame across a chair as if he were a bag of bones instead of a real boy.
“New neighbors?” asked Tom. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s a moving truck backing up the driveway as we speak.”
All eyes moved to the window, which offered a great view of the house next door. Scott was right. A truck was backing up the neighboring driveway, two burly movers instructing the driver with word and gesture.
“Huh,” said Tom. “I didn’t even know the house had been sold.”
Maya waltzed into the kitchen, her eyes glued to her smartphone. “You guys, did you know that Gwen Stefani is having another baby? Isn’t she, like, a thousand years old or something?”
Tom looked offended. “Gwen Stefani is my age,” he said.
“Yeah, well, newsflash, Dad,” said Maya. “You’re old, too.”
“We’re getting new neighbors,” Scott announced. “I hope they have a dog.”
Maya’s eyes snapped to the window. “Neighbors?” When she noticed the moving van, her jaw fell. “Are you kidding me right now?” She turned to her mother. “Mom—I told you we should have gotten those curtains up. Now what am I going to do?”
Scott grinned. “Relax, fuzz-face. Nobody’s gonna look through your window.”
“Shut up. Mom! I need curtains ASAP!”
“A girl needs her privacy,” Dee’s mom agreed.
“Dad!” Maya cried plaintively. “I can’t have a bunch of hormonal teenagers spying on me!”
“You won’t, darling,” said Tom. “I’ll get you those curtains. And you, Scott.”
“I don’t need no curtains,” said Scott, shoving his fifth pancake into his mouth, this one drowning in syrup. “Unlike my sister, I got nothing to hide.” Even with his mouth full of pancake, he managed a smirk, earning him a vicious scowl from Maya.
Dee’s eyes happened to wander over to the clock on the kitchen wall. When she saw what time it was, she jolted into action. “You guys, we have to get moving. Scott—thank your grandmother for preparing your lunch—you, too, Maya. Chop, chop! Let’s go, Kellys!”
Within five minutes, they were all racing for the exit, Dee after giving Baby Jacob a smacking kiss on the sticky cheek and promising her mother she’d be home in a couple of hours. And then they were off, leaving the kitchen a mess and Caroline shaking her head at the hullabaloo a family of five could create.
Dee then stuck her head back in. “Love you, Mom,” she said. “Wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Get out of here, you,” said Caroline. Then, when Dee directed a dazzling smile at her, added grudgingly, “I love you, too. Now better get going, or Trixie will be pissed.”
Chapter Two
Scott took his bike from the garage and waved to Mike, who was staring at the moving van.
“Hey, buddy,” said Scott as he rode up to his friend.
“You’re getting new neighbors,” Mike said, showing his keen powers of observation.
“Yeah. I hope they’ve got a dog.”
“A dog? A girl, you mean.”
“Girl? What girl?”
“A girl our age! A girl you can fall in love with—moon over while you’re staring out of your window while she’s staring out of hers.” He’d pressed his hands to his chest and was looking up at the sky. “A girl so pretty you’ll write her poems and sing her songs of love.”
Scott eyed his friend with an expression of abject horror on his freckled face. “Are you crazy? Who needs girls?!”
“We do,” said Mike as he craned his neck to catch a glimpse of whoever was moving in next door.
It shouldn’t have surprised Scott that his friend felt this way. Mike was something of a dork. With his braces and his glasses he looked like one, too. Not that it bothered Scott. Mike had been his buddy ever since the Kellys moved from Medina to Issaquah where they now lived.
Changing neighborhoods had been tough, but not as tough as changing schools. Making new friends had been an iffy proposition at first, and it was only when he and Mike had bonded over their shared ability to squirt orange juice out of their noses that things had started looking up again. Now they were inseparable.
“I like girls,” Mike said reverently. “I like Maggie Cooper.”
“Who’s Maggie Cooper?”
“She’s only the prettiest girl in school. Hair like spun gold. Eyes like Alaskan lakes. A nose like…” He frowned, his poetic prowess momentarily deserting him. “A nose like, um…”
“Yeah, yeah. I get the picture,” said Scott, who, unlike Mike, didn’t worship at the feet of girls—even if their hair was like spun gold—whatever spun gold was. “Let’s get going, buddy. We’re gonna be late.”
As they rode off on their bikes, the two friends briefly looked back, Mike to see if his friend had just acquired a girl-next-door who could melt his barnacled heart, and Scott to try and catch a glimpse of the dog he hoped these mysterious new neighbors had brought.
Maya’s boyfriend was already sitting in his Ford Mustang, parked at the curb, the motor rumbling impressively. The car was a junker Mark’s dad had gotten him for his sixteenth birthday but it still worked fine enough. Mark had painted it bright orange with pink stripes in deference to Maya, knowing they were her favorite colors. Maya owned her own car, a pink Mini Cooper, but Mark refused to be seen dead in the thing. Apart from that minor character flaw, the stocky Mark Dean, self-proclaimed football jock, was a surprisingly kind-hearted soul. And as the son of a lumber mill tycoon, he was also comfortably well-off. Not that that mattered a great deal to Maya, whose dad wasn’t exactly a pauper either.
“You’ve got new neighbors,” said Mark as Maya slid into the seat.
“Yeah—I hope they’re nice. Not like the ones we had in Medina.”
The house where they’d lived had been partially blown up in a home invasion gone wrong. Luckily the Kelly clan had escaped the ordeal unscathed, but they’d still opted to sell the house and relocate to a part of town that wouldn’t be a constant reminder of that fateful night.