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“I swear,” Auggie said. “Shaniyah hasn’t said anything to me about anything like that. Not even remotely. She was down the other day, you know, upset. But that was because she didn’t get a big scholarship she’d applied for. She didn’t tell me she was going to change her project, though.”
“Because if she had,” Emery said, “and you two were planning on playing Lone Ranger—”
“How could the two of them play Lone Ranger?” North asked. “Isn’t there just one Lone Ranger?”
“One of them is clearly Tonto—”
“We’re not doing anything of the sort,” Theo said. “Neither of us knows what Shaniyah is asking about, and we certainly didn’t have anything to do with it.”
The second floor rumbled with heavy steps and mock growls.
“Have you—” Auggie restarted. “It’s been a week.”
“Nothing,” John-Henry said.
“We have jobs, remember?” Emery said. “We’ve been working on it, but it’s going to take time.”
Theo looked at Jem and Tean.
“We’re still trying to run something down,” Jem said. “Anything, really, but we’ve been trying to work the wildlife trafficking side.”
“We haven’t made much progress,” Tean said.
“We haven’t made any progress. But we’re not giving up. And we’ve still got some time. Tean’s working remotely, and my job is flexible.”
“Our isn’t,” North said. “Some of us actually have to go to work.”
“I’m sure watching dentists get blown by their mistresses is an incredibly demanding calling,” Emery said.
“Look who’s talking,” North said. “Same job, bozo.”
“And it is hard, Emery,” Shaw said. “Sometimes they pull the curtains. And sometimes the dentists cry a little bit. And one time, one of them was—” Shaw mouthed,Getting a hummer. “—and his wig fell off. Oh my God, and one time my wig fell off! That was right after I fell on one of the mistresses.”
“How did you fall on a mistress?” John-Henry asked.
“Sure,” North said. “Great. Let’s all give him exactly what he wants.”
“I was wearing these polar bear feet—imitation!” The last part was a rushed assurance to Tean, whose eyes were huge. “And they were in this English basement—”
“What the fuck is an English basement?” Emery asked.
“I’ll pop popcorn,” North said. “We’ll be here all day.”
“—and it looked like she was doing something, you know, interesting, like, um, her technique, so I thought I should probably see with my spiritual eye—”
“He forgot the telephoto lens and humped his way right over the rail,” North said.
“While North was getting his banger mashed,” Shaw said with what might have been a note of vicarious pride.
“I was not—”
“He said this guy had hands that could crush walnuts.”
North’s face was turning a startling shade of purple.
“He couldn’t sit down for a week. Well, he couldn’t sit down front ways. That was before we were dating.”
“What does—” Emery began.
