“But?”
“But something’s going on here. Obviously.” He waves vaguely around the cafeteria. “There has to be some explanation. And I couldn’t think of one. Well, of another one.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. The fact of us. Our irrefutability.
“I wanted you to be wrong. I wanted to prove you were wrong. My dad can be a jerk, but mostly he’s okay. But my grandfather. I mean he is my grandfather, but he’s pretty mean. He’s kind of hostile. And … rude. But everyone always does what he says without asking any questions. That’s kind of his thing actually. Authority and respect and all that. Anyway, I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said.” He raises his eyes to meet mine. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
It’s such a cheesy line. I feel blood rushing to my face like I’ve been turned upside down, but I’m not embarrassed for me; I’m embarrassed for him. It’s not my fault I’m so jaded. （If she weren’t grinning like a demented clown and kicking me under the table, Petra would say “disentranced.”） It’s his fault. Or at least it’s his family’s fault. So I’ll be forgiven for being too worldly-wise to fall for his romantic-comedy schtick. I’ll be forgiven for being overly critical of his diction like what was important about his sentiment was word choice. I’ll even be forgiven for being kind of grossed out by his earnestness.
But in the high court of celestial judgment, when I go before whoever evaluates souls in the end, I’ll be condemned anyway for the thought that bubbles to the top of this stew of squeamishness: I can use this. I can use him. If he can’t stop thinking about me, if he wants me to know he can’t stop thinking about me, I can get him to do what I want. I can get him to find what we need.
“Prove it,” I say.
“That you’re on my mind?”
“That you’re on our side.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but your grandfather being a jerk isn’t proof of anything. We already knew that. Get us something that matters, something we can use. Help us find whatever your dad and your grandfather don’t want us to find.”
I’m not proud of this willingness to manipulate him, but times were desperate, I will testify before the soul tribunal, and the lawsuit needed me, and being cruel doesn’t count if you’re the wronged party. I will introduce into evidence all my mother and Russell haven’t been allowed to and all they haven’t been able to find.
And even if the soul tribunal isn’t swayed by my logic, I still like my chances. I’ve learned not to have that much faith in the justice system anyway.
Two
Mirabel is having a good day today, so she came to school with us instead of studying at work with Mama. She meets me after the bell rings, and I say let us go home, and she says let us wait for Mab to be done with tutoring, and I say what if someone comes to the library, and she says we can do palm reading so I say okay because I like palm reading. She does not mean telling each other’s fortunes by looking at the lines on our hands because that is just pretend. She means a game we invented together when we were little. How it works is I close my eyes and hold out my palm, and Mirabel uses her finger to draw a picture on it, and I read what the picture is, and then she uses her finger to erase and draws another. Why I like this game is it is peaceful and soothing with only a little bit of touching, and Mirabel, unlike everyone else in the entire world, is always soft with her fingers. Why Mirabel likes this game is she is as good at it as anyone.
We play in the hallway outside the tutoring room. Mirabel starts easy. “Rainbow,” I guess, and I know I am right because she erases it to draw another.
She draws a face so I know it is a person, and then that person gets lots of hair so I know it is Mama even though the face is smiling and Mama usually is not.
She erases, and the next one is easy. Three lines straight up and down. “Us!” I say. Mirabel squeezes my finger. I squeeze her finger back.
She taps on my palm many times for rain which means green which is an adjective which is an advanced level of this game because most players can only do nouns. （It is more accurate to say most players would only be able to do nouns because there are no other players.） （That is just how it is when you invent your own game.）
Then I hear Mirabel gasp.
I look up from my palm to her face right away. “Why did you gasp, Three?”
She draws lots of squiggles.
“Snake, worm, string,” I guess. “The letter S,” I guess. “Skunk smell. Slippery road. Approximately. Sin x.”