The kid wore pink overalls over a flowered T-shirt, little pink work boots, and had a hard hat—pink of course—over her spill of golden curls.
“Das! Pee-oddy!”
“‘Pee-oddy’？”
“She’s getting closer.” Peabody popped out, snatched Bella up for a hug and a toss.
Mavis bounced out—and Eve hoped she’d keep her hair that shade of purple for a while. Just in case. She wore a snug white tee that said NUMBER TWO! with an arrow pointing down at her tiny baby bump. Rather than work boots she wore blue skids with yellow, calf-skimming skin pants.
“You made it!” She all but flung herself into Eve’s arms. “We have grass!”
“Yeah, I see. It’s green and everything.”
“Come in, come see!” She grabbed Eve’s hand to drag her forward. “Roarke and McNab are here. They’re upstairs doing something with the security and the communication and entertainment and all that. The inspector’s coming in the morning.”
“Oh God! Are we ready?”
“Everybody says so. Right, Job Boss?”
Bella grinned, tapped her hard hat. “Oss!”
“Ba-ba-ba-boss.”
“Bababa! Oss!”
“We’ll keep working on that,” Mavis said as Bella laughed like a lunatic and leaped toward Eve.
She grabbed Eve’s face in both hands, babbled madly.
“She’s juiced up,” Mavis told her.
“When isn’t she?”
“She’s juiced because … Ta-da-de-da!”
Mavis spread out her arms, twirled in circles.
Eve noted some walls had come down and—better—all the hideous wallpaper in her sight line. Some walls apparently would go back up, and inside their framework lived the new guts that would run security and the rest.
“It looks bigger. It was already big.”
“Roomier, more open. It’ll be function city, too, when it’s done. We got more samples, Peabody.”
“I wanna see!”
Bella wiggled down to run, to lead the way through what Eve remembered as a labyrinth and now presented as—yeah, roomier, more open. And into what had been an ugly nightmare of a kitchen.
It seemed the gut job Roarke had deemed it had been accomplished. Most of the wall leading out to the now-cleared backyard was glass.
“They installed the accordion doors!”
Mavis did another dance. “Surprise! And check this!”
She tapped a code on her ’link, and the doors silently folded in and away. “It’ll be voice command, too, when it’s all done. Is that frosted or what?”
“Frost supreme,” Peabody agreed, and took Mavis’s hand. “We’re going to have the most fabulous gardens. I’ve got so many ideas.”
“And over there”—Mavis pointed—“Play Town. Ken, the secondary job boss after Bellamina who’s fallen hard for her, drew up this magomaniac play/adventure house. Roarke gave it the okay, so they’re going to build it.”
“Roarke?”
Mavis turned to Eve. “He’s Supervisor of All.”
“Ork,” Bella said, and sighed like a woman in love.
“Over here, that’ll be the hang-out area.” Mavis circled the kitchen. “And there, kind of a cozy place, like for breakfast, and back here … Roarke calls it a butler’s pantry. We’re not getting a butler, unless it’s Summerset.”
“He’s yours.”
Mavis spun to Eve with a laugh. “As if.”
“No, seriously. I’ll make him your housewarming present. I’m supposed to do that, right?” she asked Peabody. “Do the present thing?”
“Housewarming presents aren’t usually human beings.”
“We can have a debate on whether or not Summerset’s human, but either way, I’ll make an exception.”
“Someshit,” Bella announced, and Eve nodded at her.
“You got that right, kid.”
“Check these samples, Peabody, and give me your what-what. I got Trina’s, but I need more votes.”
“You guys do that. I’m going to find … Ork.” And escape from tile samples.
“Take the back stairs,” Mavis suggested. “We’re leaving them in. I’m digging deep on having back stairs.”
When Eve reached the second floor, she noted the absence of ugly wallpaper, and more walls down to studs.
And through the studs the colorful McNab working on a handheld, the towering Leonardo in what she supposed passed as work clothes in his world—the flowing blue-and-red-striped shirt over blue baggies—and Roarke, still in his king-of-the-business-world suit.