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My mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Ass,” I spit, laughing as I pulled the pillow out from under his head and smacked him in the face with it in one smooth motion.
“I was joking,” Rumi yelled as I left the room. “Mostly joking!”
By the time I got home, my grandparents had already left for the night and Bird was sitting at the kitchen table with a chemistry textbook open in front of him.
“Baby brother,” I sang, dropping my backpack on the floor. “Whatcha doing?”
“Homework,” he replied, tossing his pencil on the table. “This girl Haley was talking to me during fourth period, so I didn’t get to finish it at school.”
“Poor Bird.” I ruffled his hair on my way to the fridge. “Was she pretty?”
“She’s alright,” he said with a huff. “But not worth having to do homework at home.”
“You realize the irony in that, right?” I said, pulling out some hotdogs and milk.
“Homework is for losers that can’t finish their stuff at school.”
“Homework is for doing at home.”
“Homework fucking sucks and I hate it,” he snapped.
“Whoa.”
“Sorry,” he grumbled, picking his pencil back up. “Pop was pissy with Nana and I’m pretty sure that she didn’t even want to go tonight but she went anyway so she didn’t piss him off more.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “And I was stuck out here because I didn’t finish this chemistry assignment at school and I don’t have a desk in my room where I can actually work.”
“Why don’t we get you a little lap desk thing?” I asked, starting dinner. “Then you can just sit on your bed.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He was quiet for a few moments. “What the heck is wrong with Pop lately? He’s being a jerk.”
“I don’t know, bud.” I’d been wondering the same thing. He hadn’t snapped at me again since the night I’d gotten home late from Rumi’s, but he hadn’t exactly been his normal self either.
“He wasn’t happy that you weren’t here when they left.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re eleven years old. You can hang by yourself for a while.”
“Obviously,” Bird muttered.
“Just give him some space,” I advised, sitting down across from him while I waited for the water on the stove to boil. “He’ll snap out of whatever is going on.”
“I hope so. Nana was pretty rattled.”
A small frizzle of alarm ran down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug, pulling his notebook closer. “She just seemed weird, like she was tiptoeing around or something.”
“Did anything else happen?” I tried to keep my voice even, but something in it must have alerted Bird, because his eyes jerked up to mean mine.
“Like what?” he asked suspiciously.
“Anything,” I said, waving my hand like it was no big deal. “Did they get into a fight or something?”
“Nope.” He relaxed back in the chair. “Pop was just in a shitty mood, grumbling and bitching about everything until they walked out the door.”
