Shine - Lauren Myracle [2]
Mama Sweetie chuckled, patting Patrick’s knee now instead of squeezing it. Patrick’s hand went to hers, and their fingers interlocked.
“There is no such place as Tasmania,” I pronounced, knowing no such thing. But good Lord, it sure did sound like a made-up name. I slipped off my flip-flops and poked Patrick with my toe. “Even if there was, how would we get money to get there?”
“We’d get jobs,” Patrick said.
I rolled my eyes. Jobs weren’t easy to come by in Black Creek, not for grown-ups and especially not for kids.
Undaunted, Patrick said, “Well, then we could invent something. Something good, and we’d save every penny and not spend it on junk, because God helps those who help themselves. Right, Mama Sweetie?”
She ruffled his wheat-colored hair. “One day, baby. Ain’t no need to rush.” Her gaze was proud, but tinged with sadness, because she knew that eventually Patrick would leave. What she didn’t know—what none of us knew—was that she would go first.
“Yeah, Patrick, stop rushing,” I teased. I captured his foot with both of mine, hooking one behind his ankle and curving the other over the top of his beat-up sneaker. “You’re staying with us forever and ever.”
Mama Sweetie smiled, because she loved me, too. Not like she loved Patrick, but she didn’t love anyone like she loved Patrick. Still, she hugged me every time she saw me, and sometimes she planted loud, wet smooches on my cheeks, forcing me to complain for the sake of my dignity. “Mama Sweetie!” I’d cry. “You better not have left lipstick on my cheek.”
Patrick saw through me. I knew from the way he’d grin. Some people were happiest when others were unhappy, but Patrick was the opposite. Plus, he knew my family as well as I knew Mama Sweetie. He knew my daddy was a drunk, and that my aunt Tildy was a fine and strong woman, but not one to dole out hugs and kisses.
Mama Sweetie nodded at my glass of lemonade, which I’d halfway drained. “Well, that Tasmanian Devil is a rascal, whatever he is. Spins around like a tornado and gets into every little thing he can.” She belly-laughed. “But you wouldn’t know nothing about that, would you, Cat?”
“Naw,” Patrick said, acting shocked. “Cat wouldn’t recognize a whirling dervish if she saw one. Not if she was looking straight in a mirror, even.”
I made a face at him, but I secretly took it as a compliment. Back then I was rascally. Why wouldn’t I be? The world was out there waiting to be explored—and not just waiting, but wanting to be explored. So why in heaven’s name shouldn’t I investigate every nook and cranny?
Anyway, my lemonade glass was better than his, which was decorated with a cartoon pig named Porky, and he was chubby and pink and wore a blue jacket and a red bowtie.
“Maybe I am a whirling whatever-you-called-me, but that’s better than being Porky the Pig,” I told him.
“Not the pig,” Patrick said, annoyingly unruffled. “Just Porky Pig, and I think you’re jealous ’cause I’ve got clothes on”—he lifted his piggy glass to prove it—“while you’re naked as a jaybird.”
“Naked as a Tasmanian Devil,” I said. “And I am most definitely not jealous, because I’d sure rather be naked than wearing that getup.” I giggled. “Good Lord, Patrick. Can you imagine if you showed up at school in an outfit like that?”
“Of course,” Patrick said, quirking one eyebrow in a way that drove me nuts. I’d spent hours trying to train my muscles to do that. “I would look debonair.”
“Ah, debonair,” I repeated, savoring the syllables. Patrick was a few months older than me and had already turned fourteen. He was gangly like a colt, but even so, he was debonair.
Not that I noticed, usually. He was Patrick. Mama Sweetie said we were kindred spirits. We were different from the rest of the kids in Black Creek, but we were different together, which made it all right. Whenever someone said we were weird, we said, “You just now figured that out?”
We were always getting into stuff. Always asking questions, always wanting to learn everything there was to know. Patrick and I loved reading—we passed our library books back and forth