Page 70 of But For You

Her eyes got huge.

“No,” I told her, then looked at him. “And no. We don’t go around hosing people down with water guns. It’s rude.”

“But what if a person is a witch?” Kola wanted to know.

“Some witches are good,” Hannah chimed in. “Glinda wouldn’t have melted.”

“How do you know?” my son asked her.

“She flew in a bubble, and bubbles are wet when they pop.”

“You float in a bubble,” he corrected her.

“She floated in a bubble,” Hannah amended. “But they are wet.”

He nodded. “Okay. So, then only bad witches melt with water.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, then you should shoot everyone you think is a bad witch with your water gun,” he told his sister.

“No.” I was adamant. “None of that.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Kola told me, which was one of his uncle Dane’s overused expressions. “We could figure things out much quicker if you just let Hannah use her water gun one time.”

I turned to Hannah. “Do you even have your water gun here?”

Hannah nodded. “Yeah, Uncle Dane brought it for me.”

Of course he had, but for what reason? Why in the world would my brother have taken the time to pack her Super Soaker? The man was so odd sometimes.

“What did you say about the zombies?” Hannah said to her brother as she cuddled with me.

They had obviously been engaged in some sort of discussion while I was talking with Dane earlier, and it was now being revisited.

“When?”

“I asked you if they could push buttons.”

He shook his head. “Oh yeah, and, no, they can’t, only on accident.”

She nodded. “What about climbing ladders?”

“No, they have stiff legs. You hafta bend your knees.”

She nodded, clearly accepting his expert testimony on this subject.

“Pa?”

“Yes, my son,” I said seriously.

“If dinosaurs turned into birds and apes turned into humans, what did fish turn into?”

I really needed Sam home; he could do this for hours, speculation and hypothesis. I was no good at it. “I dunno. What do you think?”

Kola looked at his sister to make sure her voice was heard and included. He never answered one of his own questions without her getting to chime in.

“Big fish?” Hannah offered.