Brian’s face contorts.
“This was during the war, yeah?” asks PapaDum. “You must have been hungry.”
“Not on Sausage Day,” says Grumps, stabbing his trowel into the dirt.
*
Brian insists on wearing her fire truck to The Wizard of Oz because it’s like a drive-in.
“More like a walk-in,” says Sic.
The show’s in the park around the corner, with a big white sheet hung over a wall for a screen, starting about 8:20 so the last rays of the sun don’t get in the audience’s eyes.
PopCorn immediately joins the drumming circle that’s formed under the big walnut tree. CardaMom spreads out the black-and-red raven blanket, and PapaDum serves up his homemade mint tea from one big flask and chocolate milk from another. People are buying beers from coolers and cooking hot dogs and skewers over a fire pit. It all smells so good, Sumac feels hungry even though she had curried-salmon-on-a-plank an hour ago. A music video comes on, and kids and some adults are already jumping around.
A guy pushes a cart with Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty painted on the side, handing out slices of watermelon. “Eleven over here,” calls Catalpa.
CardaMom makes a slapping gesture at her. “We can share,” she tells him.
He’s got huge black plugs in his earlobes and a shaved head with two buns on top. “No probs, no sweat, big whoop, eleven it is.”
“Actually, sorry, twelve,” says Sumac. “We used to be eleven, but now our grandfather lives with us too.” Little by little, she supposes, Grumps is going to turn into a Lottery too.
“The full dozen, cool,” says the watermelon guy, nodding.
Like eggs, thinks Sumac, or months, or roses.
Now the MGM lion is roaring on the screen and the violins are soaring from the speakers hidden in the bushes. Brian says it’s too louderer, so Grumps fits his hands over her ears.
Having him at Camelottery is not exactly cool, Sumac thinks. More like a complicated cat’s cradle that keeps getting snagged till you figure it out. But still, in the end, big whoop.
*
The next morning Brian’s fire truck’s lost — because she fell asleep before Dorothy even met the Munchkins, and PapaDum carried her home hours later, and each Lottery thought somebody else was in charge of the truck. She’s crying her eyes out and asking to go back to the park to check again “in case the robber be sorry and druv it back.”
Sic’s trying to comfort her with a long yarn about a family of raccoons dragging it behind a bush to raise their seven babies in.
“No use bawling,” says Grumps with a snort.
Brian goes puce.
Sumac remembers exactly why she’s disliked this old man from day one.
“Plenty more cardboard where that came from,” he tells Brian. “What would you say to a Spitfire?”
“What a spitfire?”
Sumac stiffens: Doesn’t it mean a girl with a bad temper?
“Only the pride of the Royal Air Force, best single-seater fighter plane ever made,” says Grumps.
Brian’s eyes light up.
Today’s the August full moon, so most of the Lotterys are getting ready for Rakhi. Sumac and Catalpa decorate the special threads for tying on their brothers while PapaDum struggles with the chocolate truffles. He’s trying to roll some in cocoa, some in nuts, some in cinnamon, some in coconut, but they keep sticking to his hands because of the heat, and Topaz is twining round his legs mewing for a snack.
“Can I make some?” Aspen wanders in from outside, shiny with sunblock and sweat.
“Which,” asks PapaDum, “truffles or Rakhi threads?”
“Both.”
“Not at the same time!” they all chime together.
PapaDum straightens up with a grunt. “These need to go back in the refrigerator for a while.”
“Then I’ll do threads,” says Aspen.
“Why not?” Sumac makes herself say it.
But Aspen’s mooched off already with a “back in a minute,” so that’s good; she’ll forget all about it.
“Three brothers, multiplied by four sisters,” murmurs Catalpa, “that’s twelve.”
“Actually,” says PapaDum, “a woman can tie one around the wrist of any man she considers a sort of brother for life, so your moms could have another four, to tie on me and PopCorn.”
“Fine,” says Catalpa, “keep us slaving away all day.”
Braiding threads, Sumac gazes out the window. Grumps is lifting Brian into the Spitfire they’ve spent all morning making out of boxes; her little legs thrash with
excitement. (Sic is sprawled nearby to keep an eye on them, with that fat book called Cryptonomicon he’s read so often it’s broken in half.) The finishing touch is a propeller — made of wire hangers and packing tape and attached to the nose. Grumps bends and spins it. “What about Grumps?” she asks. “He doesn’t have a sister.”
“He has two of them, actually, but they live in Glasgow and New Zealand,” says PapaDum.
“Let’s call him a sort-of-brother too, then,” Sumac suggests.