“Mm? Why do you say that?”
“June was doing his laundry, like getting ready for his return.”
“No,Iwas doing his laundry,” says Meer, rubbing his eyes. “I just finally got around to it, is all.”
“Oh.” I can hear the disappointment in my own voice.
“I’m laundry boy,” says Meer. “I’m just not diligent.”
“So he’s not due back.”
Meer plops a pillow over his face and talks from underneath. “No, Matilda. He hasn’t called me or texted me or emailed me. Or my mom.”
“Not once? All this time?”
“Same as every time you ask.”
I haven’t asked in ages. “Really?”
Meer takes the pillow off his face. “That’s the hundred-percent truth I just told you. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Okay. Don’t be annoyed. I just thought the wrong thing.”
“Why are you even awake? It’s very early.”
“I didn’t sleep.”
“And why are you gettingmeup?” asks Meer, staggering to his feet and pulling his hair off his neck, gathering it with an elastic from his wrist. He disappears into his closet, and I can hear him rummaging for clothes to wear.
“Have you seen the painting that just sold?Prince of Denmark?”
“Of course,” says Meer, still in his walk-in closet. “I posed for it. Then it got shipped off to the gallery.”
“I found a sketchbook of Kingsley’s,” I say. “From this summer.It had a date on it.”
“He was here most of May and June,” says Meer. “He alwayshas a sketchbook. He always puts the date. I can’t find my other shoe.”
“Yeah, but he was drawing in Sharpie. Like you do. Meer, can you come back out? I’m trying to talk to you about something important.”
He reappears, wearing board shorts and a T-shirt, hopping on one foot as he shoves a socked foot into a sneaker. “Here now. What aboutPrince of Denmark?”
I take a deep breath and look him in the eye. “Have you been doing Kingsley’s art?”
“What? No. What do you even mean?”
“In the sketchbook I found, it wasn’t just that he was drawing in Sharpie. Anyone can do that. It was that he drew something I told you about. The piranha plant from the video game. Remember?”
I hand Meer the sketchbook. He sits down on the mattress and flips through it, stopping when he gets to the Sharpie pictures. “Ha. I told him for years that Sharpies are awesome for drawing! He always said real artists use soft materials like charcoal and oil paints. But look—he tried the Sharpie.”
“Turn forward.”
Meer gets to the piranha plant.
“Kingsley can’t possibly know about that level inHaunted Mansion,” I explain. “So there’s no way he could have drawn this.”
“Hm.”
“So I’m asking you, Meer, if you drew it.”
