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After a surly look, he’d stomped to the fridge, jerked it open and poured himself a glass of Kool-Aid.
Isabel should have known something was up by the way the other three kids at the table studiously focused on their plates.
But she’d been distracted feeding Mariah.
Jacob had taken a swig of Kool-Aid—a big one—and it went spraying.
Brooklyn had promptly dissolved into giggles while Aaron and Storm gave him looks of faux disinterest, Storm even curling her nose. “Gross, man.”
Isabel had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing, because she suddenly realized why the big pitcher had remained untouched since Brooklyn had made the day before.
That devious little darling had done something. Her idea of payback to the boy she’d decided had been too mean to her friends.
Isabel would have to address it, but she’d do it in private. “Please clean up your mess,” she’d told him as he grabbed a glass of water and rinsed his mouth out.
Later, she discovered that Brooklyn had used salt instead of sugar—and she’d added some pickle juice.
Brooklyn had been told the spend the rest of the day in her room and she’d just nodded and smiled sunnily, happy with her own form of vengeance. The girl would be a force to reckon with once she was older.
Isabel had opted not to tell Jacob about the incident. For lunch, he’d come in while they were having burgers. There hadn’t been one for him and she’d pointed him to the fridge where there were hot dogs. “There’s also peanut butter and jelly if you’d prefer. I’m making meatloaf tonight. If you’d like any of that, I suggest you help clean up after lunch, since I had to clean up for you last night at dinner.”
She’d walked in on him sullenly scraping dishes and helping Storm load the dishwasher.
No kid ever went hungry in her house, but they all learned to pull their weight.
Frankly, she was surprised it had only taken a couple of meals for Jacob to get the point. As a reward, she’d made cookies along with the meatloaf. He’d eaten almost a half dozen on his own.
But he still couldn’t go a day without picking a fight with somebody.
Usually, it was Aaron, although he did seem to avoid calling the other boy a girl from what she could tell. Aaron, to give him credit, did a decent job of ignoring Jacob. It was something the younger teen was decent at—sadly, it was a skill that had been forced on him.
When she complimented him on his patience, Aaron had just told her, “It’s not patience. If I didn’t learn to ignore some of the assholes I meet, I’d never do anything but fight. All he wants to do is get a rise out of me. You learn to figure out the ones who really want to cause your problems and the ones who are just jackass kids or adults. He’s just a jackass.” Then he’d apologized for cussing, shooting a look around to make sure Brooklyn wasn’t around.
Now, as she and Brooklyn finished putting away the last of Brooklyn’s new school clothes, she listened to the music coming in through the window.
Booker hadn’t been able to come over today and Aaron was outside instead of in the garage, playing the acoustic guitar she’d picked up for him at a music store the last time she’d been in Bangor. It was a secondhand instrument, but the owner had told her it had plenty of good use still in it and it might work for somebody with smaller hands.
He sounded better, she thought. Notgood, exactly. But ... better.
As she handed the stack of folded t-shirts to Brooklyn, she smiled. “Alright, Brooksy. You’ve got your school clothes all good to go. Put these up and you can go get a snack.”
“Cookies?” The petite blonde child gave Isabel an angelic look.
“No.” Isabel kept her face stern. “You snuck donuts for breakfast. Eat some fruit. If you eat a good dinner, we’ll see about cookies after dinner.”
“You’re no fun.” With a glum sigh, Brooklyn carried her clothes over to the dresser and plopped them down, then dragged a drawer open.
“That’s me,” Isabel said easily.
As she headed out into the hall, the phone started ringing and she veered into the small home office to grab the landline she kept in there.
Irritation twisted her face into a grimace as she said hello and received nothing but quiet breathing as a response. She didn’t bother repeating her greeting again, just waited another five seconds and hung up.
It was getting to be a pattern, one almost every day for over a week, but nobody ever said anything.
It was probably Brant. He’d been mostly quiet since the last altercation with Aaron and his father had been conspicuously absent but she wouldn’t put it past the unhappy kid to be making crank calls just to annoy her—or maybe be doing it in hopes of getting Aaron on the line so he could pick on the kid.
The music outside the house had gone quiet. She jogged down the stairs to the landing and took a peek through the open window.
