Cold Cereal (The Cold Cereal Saga) (8 page)

“That new boy, Scott—I think he thinks the games are kinda … weird. Kinda mean.”

Emily swallowed hard so she could speak. “Mean?”

“Yeah. The idea of Mr. Wilson making us compete against each other.”

“What did
you
say?”

Erno opened a little bag of gummi shapes. “I didn’t say anything really.”

They were quiet for a while, eating candy. Erno broke the silence.

“Where on Earth do you think Mr. Wilson found gummis shaped like the Greek alphabet?”

“I think he made them himself,” Emily answered. “He does things like that, because he loves us so much.”

They were quiet again. Then Emily rose, leaving Erno with the bag.

“I think a lot of kids aren’t fortunate enough to have a dad who invents games for them,” she said as she marched up the stairs.

By Veterans Day the Ovothopter was videoed as far west as Denver. Both Emily and the National Weather Service agreed that the egg would probably come down somewhere in the Rockies, and that it wasn’t worth the effort to go see if it had broken or not.

CHILD ONE

G-g-gosh, what a spooky old forest.

CHILD TWO

Look, a castle! Maybe we can stay the night.

{The castle portcullis rises}

ALL THREE CHILDREN

It’s Kookie! The coconut vampire!

KOOKIE

I’m loco for coco!

CHILD THREE

And tomorrow morning we’ll enjoy the delicious taste of KoKoLumps!

Part of this nutritious breakfast!

CHILD ONE

Don’t let him get our KoKoLumps!

CHILD TWO

Look! The sun’s coming up!

ROOSTER

Coco-doodle-doo!

{Kookie crumbles to ash.}

KOOKIE

Ai ai ai! Curse you kids!

CHILD THREE

Crazy Kookie—vampires don’t eat breakfast!

CHILD THREE

KoKoLumps—another good cereal from the good folks at Goodco! There’s a Little Bit of Magic in Every Box!

“Lucky,” said Polly at breakfast. It was a Tuesday, the last school day before Thanksgiving break. And for Scott it was barely a school day at all.

“Maybe in a few years you’ll have Ms. Egami for homeroom,” he answered. “Maybe she’ll take
your
class to New York.”

“Ms. Egami,” Polly sang. “Oh
Ms. Egami
, I
love
you. If only I were older, and not such a dork.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey,” said their mother as she entered the kitchen. “Don’t tell your sister to shut up.”

“But she called me a dork—”

“Maybe if you listened to her more she wouldn’t have to get your attention that way. And don’t call your brother a dork.”

Polly said, “
Sor
ry are you going to go out with Coach Steve again? He asked me to ask you after soccer practice, but he told me not to tell you he asked.”

Mom gave a wincey little head bob. “I don’t know. He’s a very nice man.”

“And good at soccer.”

“That’s not as important to me as it is to you, honey. Honestly, there’s no point thinking about it now—we’ll see when I’m back from Antarctica.”

Goodco was sending Mom on a scientific expedition. To Antarctica. Something to do with optical anomalies and strange waveforms—Scott didn’t really catch most of it, nor understand what, if anything, it had to do with breakfast cereal.

“They should make a kids’ book about us,” said Polly. “They should call it
Too Many Daddies
.”

Scott smiled weakly and stared into his oatmeal. Why did everybody always want to talk about everything?

“Coach Steve isn’t your daddy,” said Mom.

“It could be a lift-the-flap book. Daddy number one is on the television. Daddy number two is in the station wagon, driving away. Daddy number three is honking from the curb so he doesn’t have to ring the doorbell and talk to us.”

“Oh, come on—do you mean Tim? I only went out with him twice.”

“I’m going to go,” said Scott, rising so quickly that the table shook. “Sorry,” he added, and patted his napkin against a trickle of milk that had hiccupped over the side of his bowl.

“It’s earlier than usual,” said Mom.

“Yeah, but the field trip, remember? It’s today. We’re supposed to be on the bus and ready to go by—”

“Right, right.”

“And I’ll need a ride because we won’t be back until four thirty—”

“I know,” said Mom. “I’m on it. See you then.”

There had been a lot of daddies. There was Daddy number one, Scott and Polly’s real father, but he’d left when Scott was five. They hadn’t seen him in years—not in person, at any rate. Afterward Mom remarried, divorced, and dated other men, some seriously, some not. Scott knew that other members of the family talked about her. There’d been talk as far back as her first wedding.

A lot was made of the fact that she’d caught her own bridal bouquet. Picture her with her back to the bridesmaids and other single women, covering her eyes anyway, throwing the bouquet high—maybe too high—over her shoulder. Then the half-funny, half-serious shuffling of ladies’ feet, the just-kidding-but-not-really contact of elbows against ribs as each woman vied to catch the
bundle and therefore maybe—who knows?—be the next to marry. But as Mom turned to watch the flowers fall, a gust of wind howled through the courtyard like the ghost of weddings future and buffeted the bouquet back into her open hands.

Mom had laughed then; everyone laughed. Mom waved the roses for the crowd and laughed, but she didn’t throw them again. She kept the bouquet.