“I’d charge extra.” Blue’s right behind him, swigging from a water bottle. He gives me one look, snorts, glares at Wendy, and continues down the hall.
“Guys,” I hiss, bugging my eyes as best I can from behind the mask at Wendy. “Don’t begross.”
Wendy pivots around. “What’s gross?”
“Oh, uh—this feels kind of gross, I mean.” I point to the mask on my face with the mask on my finger. “Is it supposed to feel gross?”
“Not…exactly,” Wendy says. “It’s supposed to feel soothing.”
“Oh, so it wouldn’t bother you if I gotyouall goopy?” I extend a finger toward her.
“Ew, no!” Wendy pushes away across the couch.
Over by the island, Pan looks up from his phone and points at me. “Game. Friday night. You good?”
“Huh?” I turn to him so fast the mask slides off my face a little. “Oh, sure. Can do.”
“Perfect.” Pan gives me a salute with his phone hand and heads for the stairs. As soon as he’s gone, I go back to Wendy. “I’m nottechnicallytouching you,” I say, keeping my finger a good few inches away like I used to do with Kit when we were kids. “See?”
“Stawwwwp!” She cracks up.
“I’m not touching you!” I say. Then I wiggle my finger around for good measure and put on my best alien voice. “E.T. phone home.”
Wendy frowns behind her own mask. “Um, what?”
I frown, too. “What do you mean what?”
“I mean, what are you talking about?”
I blink. “E.T.,” I say. “The alien. You know, with the finger? He’s all slimy.”
Wendy blinks too. “I donotknow what you are talking about,” she says.
“Oh come on,” I say, as the stairs squeak with the sound of someone coming up: Kit, this time, holding an apple. “Everyoneknows E.T.! Like—bro.” I flag Kit down. “Back me up here. E.T., the slimy little brown guy? That movie’s a classic, right?”
Kit looks at the face mask, opens his mouth, closes it, and then frowns. “E.T. is not slimy.”
“Huh?” I say. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, on what planet is that thing slimy?” Kit says. “And don’t say Earth.” He bites into his apple and leans against a barstool. “Trust me, I spend a lot of time looking at skin, and that guy is not slimy.”
I shake my head so hard that the mask almost slides off of it for the second time. “No. Absolutely not. He’s an extraterrestrial. An alien. Aliens have…alien goo or whatever. They’re wet and slimy.” I look at Wendy. “You’ve got to back me up here.”
She gives me an exasperated sigh. “I told you, I’ve never seen it. I don’t even like alien movies.”
“I mean, it’s not analienalien movie, exactly. But you’ve gotta see E.T.” I don’t really like alien movies either. If I’m being honest, the reason I like it is that it’s just easy to find. Like, I know the letters. I can search for it. I can find it. And I liked how it’s all about kids saving the day and stuff. It was one of those DVDs that just always seemed to be wherever we were, so I’ve seen it, I don’t know, maybe twenty times.
There is another set of footsteps from the hallway—but not Blue this time. Thank God. I’m glad to see it’s Tink.
“Yo, Tink,” I call. “Can you?—”
“Can you settle a very dumb argument for us?” Kit finishes for me. “E.T. If you touched him, would he be wet, or dry?”
Tink stops, like he has to think about what we’re saying.
“The alien,” I remind him. “From the movie.”
“Uh…” Tink scratches the back of his head, and I realize that I’m still wearing all this stuff and look kind of ridiculous,because when he looks my way, he smiles a little. Or half-smiles, really.
