significantly less tortured about mine,” Gretel said. Everett suppressed an eye roll.
Everett’s dad’s smile shone beneath his mustache.
“I’m making a comic about my childhood,” she said.
“You’re twelve,” Everett said.
Gretel raised her eyebrows. “And?”
Everett held up his hands in surrender. “Point taken.”
“I’m currently in the research stage,” Gretel said, and Everett watched his parents beam. No two people loved research more.
“I visited a vintage toy store today,” Gretel continued. “Colossal Toys. They have a lot of old stuff . . . Star Wars. GI Joes. Barbies.”
Everett’s mind flashed briefly to what he’d been working on last night. He’d emailed some ideas to Astrid, and he fought back the strong urge to pull his phone out of his pocket to check for a response.
“Everett?” his mother asked, and he realized they were all staring at him.
“Stop thinking about your own work for two seconds and answer our question,” Gretel said, frowning.
“What was the question?” he asked.
His mother smiled patiently, long used to his distractibility. “What was that cartoon you and Gretel used to watch when she was a baby? The one with the tiny man who rode a fox?”
“David the Gnome,” Everett said without hesitation, and Gretel pulled out a notebook and scribbled something down.
“Is that really going in your graphic novel?” Everett asked. “An old cartoon we used to watch?”
“Perhaps,” Gretel said with a sigh.
“But here’s the real question: what are you going to write about your dear old pops?” Everett’s dad leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head and his elbows splayed out.
“Absolutely nothing at all,” Gretel said, but she was smiling.
Everett’s dad pointed to his bandage. “You guys wanna see my gnarly burn?”
“NO!” everyone else shouted in unison.
“For God’s sake, Dave,” Everett’s mother muttered.
“This is, actually, going in the book,” Gretel said, her pencil scratching across her notebook.
Everett smiled and took another bite of falafel.
7
At one point in her life, believe it or not, Teddy had been a daredevil.
She didn’t remember using the training wheels on her bike—from the moment she started riding, all she wanted was to fly down a hill, hands up, no inhibitions. She climbed trees and fell out of them. She was the first to put her hand up in class, whether or not she knew the answer to the question. She would go anywhere, do anything, regardless of whether her parents wanted her to. In fact, as any rebellious child knows, sometimes it was the mere fact that they didn’t want her to do something that made her try in the first place.
It was one of those days, though, that had changed her life. She was going to the movies with her best friend, Vicki, a girl whom Teddy loved but also slightly judged for not having her joie de vivre. Vicki never wanted to do anything, Teddy had moaned to her sister, Sophia, that morning.
Sophia had smirked into her cereal bowl. “Not everybody can be hell on wheels, Teddy.”
And that was what Teddy felt like that day, riding her bike to the three-screen movie theater to meet up with Vicki, the wind blowing her hair and her feet pedaling harder, faster. She was twelve years old, she was hell on wheels, and she was going to see a movie she wasn’t permitted to watch.
Her parents and Vicki both thought she was going to see a movie about missing dogs who were trying to find their way back to their family. And this was, technically, true. But then she and Vicki were going to sneak into a horror movie that was playing on another screen. Of course, Vicki didn’t know this yet, but she’d go along with what Teddy wanted. She always did.
When the movie was almost over, Teddy leaned over to Vicki and whispered, “Okay, I have a plan. Let’s go.”
Vicki slowly turned to look at her, tears streaming down her face. “What?”
Teddy tried to tamp down her impatience. “Come on. We’re sneaking into the movie next door.”
“Blood Sacrifice?” Vicki squealed, and Teddy shushed her. The last thing they needed right now was someone complaining about them to an usher.
“But that’s an R-rated movie,” Vicki said, her tone of voice as scandalized as if Teddy had suggested they commit their own blood sacrifice. “We’re not even allowed to see PG-13 movies by ourselves. And this movie isn’t over! I want to know how it ends!”
Teddy rolled her eyes. “I mean, how do you think it ends? The animals find their way home.”
Vicki’s mouth dropped open. “Did you ruin the ending