“Hard to tell,” Helen said. “Avery beat me last time, but this one’s a nail-biter.”
“She thinks it’s boring as shit, but she’s being nice,” Avery said. “Isn’t that right, Helen?”
“Indeed it is, Little Kreskin, indeed it is. And after this, we’re moving on to Slap Jack. You won’t like that one because I slap hard.”
Luke looked around, and felt a sudden stab of concern. It bloomed a squadron of ghostly dots in front of his eyes, there and then gone. “Where’s Kalisha? They didn’t—”
“No, no, they didn’t take her anywhere. She’s just having a shower.”
“Luke likes her,” Avery announced. “He likes her a lot.”
“Avery?”
“What, Helen?”
“Some things are better not discussed.”
“Why?”
“Because Y’s a crooked letter and can’t be made straight.” She looked away suddenly. She ran a hand through her tu-tone hair, perhaps to hide her trembling mouth. If so, it didn’t work.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked.
“Why don’t you just ask Little Kreskin? He sees all, he knows all.”
“She got a thermometer jammed up her butt,” Avery said.
“Oh,” Luke said.
“Right,” Helen said. “How fucking degrading is that?”
“Demeaning,” Luke said.
“But also delightful and delicious,” Helen said, and then they were both laughing. Helen did it with tears standing in her eyes, but laughing was laughing, and being able to do it in here was a treasure.
“I don’t get it,” Avery said. “How is getting a thermometer up your butt delightful and delicious?”
“It’s delicious if you lick it when it comes out,” Luke said, and then they were all howling.
Helen whacked the table, sending the cards flying. “Oh God I’m peeing myself, gross, don’t look!” And she went running, almost knocking George over as he came outside, noshing a peanut butter cup.
“What’s her deal?” George asked.
“Peed herself,” Avery said matter-of-factly. “I peed my bed last night, so I can relate.”
“Thank you for sharing that,” Luke said, smiling. “Go over and play HORSE with Nicky and New Kid.”
“Are you crazy? They’re too big, and Harry already pushed me down once.”
“Then go jump on the trampoline.”
“I’m bored of it.”
“Go jump on it, anyway. I want to talk to George.”
“About the lights? What lights?”
The kid, Luke thought, was fucking eerie. “Go jump, Avester. Show me a couple of forward rolls.”
“And try not to break your neck,” George said. “But if you do, I’ll sing ‘You Are So Beautiful’ at your funeral.”
Avery looked at George fixedly for a moment or two, then said, “But you hate that song.”
“Yes,” George said. “Yes, I do. Saying what I did is called satire. Or maybe irony. I always get those two things mixed up. Go on, now. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it.”
They watched him trudge to the trampoline.
“That kid is ten and except for the ESP shit acts like he’s six,” George said. “How fucked up is that?”
“Pretty fucked up. How old are you, George?”
“Thirteen,” George said, sounding morose. “But these days I feel a hundred. Listen, Luke, they say our parents are okay. Do you believe that?”
It was a delicate question. At last Luke said, “Not . . . exactly.”
“If you could find out for sure, would you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not me,” George said. “I’ve got enough on my plate already. Finding out they were . . . you know . . . that would break me. But I can’t help wondering. Like all the time.”
I could find out for you, Luke thought. I could find out for both of us. He almost leaned forward and whispered it in George’s ear. Then he thought of George saying he had enough on his plate already. “Listen, that eye thing—you had it?”
“Sure. Everyone has it. Just like everyone gets the thermometer up the ass, and the EEG and the EKG and the MRI and the XYZ and the blood tests and the reflex tests and all the other wonderful things you have in store, Lukey.”
Luke thought about asking if George had gone on seeing the dots after the projector was off and decided not to. “Did you have a seizure? Because I did.”
“Nah. They did sit me down at a table, and the asshole doc with the mustache did some card tricks.”
“You mean asking you what was on them.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean. I thought they were Rhine cards, pretty much had to be. I got tested on those a couple of years before I wound up in this charming hole of hell. This was after my parents figured out I really could move things around sometimes if I looked at