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Fine. “Goodnight, Dona!”
“Hummmmm.” She hummed even louder as I walked into my room. The second I closed the door behind me, I remembered the look on Wyatt’s face when he said “I hate you.” It did not feel like Dona’s “I hate you.”
“Ugh!” I messed up my hair, stomping my feet. My head hurt. It had been hours since we’d come home, and Nana and Aunt Cora had stayed with us for a while. I loved Aunt Cora; she always told the best stories, getting up and making sounds and running around. It was fun. Nana painted pictures; Dona and Wyatt thought it was boring but I liked it. I knew they only wanted to keep us from remembering but I didn’t really care cause I was tired.
Knock.
“Come in.” I moved to the door when Sedric, Helen, and Nari all poked their heads in.
“We wanted to check if you are okay,” Nari spoke up since she was thirteen and the oldest. She was Uncle Neal and Aunt Mina’s daughter, but she didn’t look anything like Uncle. She was short like Aunt Mina, but her hair was super long. It used to touch the ground before she cut it, and now it stopped at her butt. Her skin was so pale she could never stay in the sun for too long and her eyes were so black. It was like staring at the sky with no moon or stars. It was dangerous to say that she was different; once on a Sunday while we were passing out bread at the soup kitchen someone called her a Chinkerbell. Uncle Neal lost it even though Nari and I didn’t know what a Chinkerbell was. Nobody told us either. He almost killed the guy, but Aunty Mina stopped him.
Sedric, on the other hand, looked just like Uncle Neal, except his eyes were brown. He was only six but he was already the same height as Wyatt. He loved football more than anything, so Uncle Neal took him out every weekend. I thought that was why he always beat us at arm wrestling contests.
“Earth to Ethan?” Helen grinned, waving her hand right in front of me. Her hair was pulled up into two big brown curly puffs on her head, kinda like Mickey Mouse ears. She was the exact same brown as Aunty Cora…well duh, she was Aunty Cora’s daughter. She was also a computer geek; she and Uncle Declan spent all their time working on computers.
“Nari, I think you should tell Uncle.” Helen grabbed the sides of my face. “Ethan doesn’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, Helen.” I smiled back.
She mushed my cheeks. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Can you let go of my face now?”
“He’s back.” She cheered, lifting her hands off my cheeks and into the air as she spun around. “Told you he was okay.”
“We have to check. You sure, Ethan? All the parents are freaking out,” Nari replied as Sedric came over to me.
“Freaking out?” My parents didn’t freak out.
“Yep!” Helen hopped, walking in circles and pushing her glasses up her nose. “Everyone is really sad about what happened. I was in class when it happened. Then the vice principal took us all into her office.”
“It was boring!” Sedric ran to my bed and jumped up and down. “But I hate class so I was happy.”
“Sedric, you can’t say that, people got hurt. And stop jumping on the bed!” Nari rushed to him but he just jumped to the other side.
“Na!” He stuck his tongue out at her, running in circles.
“Fine, hurt yourself. See if I care.” She threw her hands up. It was kind of funny because Uncle Neal did that too.
“Ethan.” Helen came over to me. Seeing her serious was weird, she and Dona were the same age, but Helen always felt older even when she joked around.
“What?
“Nothing, I just wanted to say your name seriously, like my mom did to my dad,” she joked.
“Helen! You scared me!”
“Ethan, you get scared?” Sedric stopped dead in his tracks and Nari caught him.
Shit.
“No, I mean…it’s an expression, Sedric.”
“An…ex…expres…sion?” He frowned, not getting it.
“I’ll explain later. Come on, we have to get back before Mom comes.” Nari took his hand and hooked hands with Helen, dragging them to the door. “Night, Ethan.”
“I wanna stay,” Sedric whined.
