Page 52 of The Game Is Afoot

I move the Shrek headbands aside and shuffle around some papers on the coffee table, looking for a pen. I need to write all this down so I don’t forget it in the morning. But my gratitude journal is almost full, and I hate flipping the pages back and forth, anyway. I need to see it all laid out, everything I’ve learned so far. I need to see if there are connections I’m missing.

I grab some Shrek silhouettes and a few of the hearts Jack left behind and get to work.

Fourteen

“Is this…a murder board?”

My eyes slowly flutter open and my dad’s tall, lanky frame, standing over me, comes into focus. I must have fallen asleep on the living room couch last night, instead of making it to my bedroom. And my neck and back and hips and…well,everythingis very mad about it.

Dad’s whole face is pinched in confusion as he studies something over the fireplace. I wipe away the gunk on my lids and lashes and start to take in flashes of red and green. Now, what is that?

“A murder board? What’s a murder board?” Pearl calls from the kitchen, and I can hear the rustling of her coming to find out, Polly right there with her.

“Happy birthday, baby girl!” I call. “Uh, stay there! I’m going to make you your birthday pan—”

“Whoa!”

I sit up, a string of drool trailing from my cheek, and see what she sees: hearts and Shrek silhouettes taped up on the wall, with the rainbow yarn I used to hang the flying unicorns strungbetween them. And there are words written on the hearts and Shreks in my scratchy late-night handwriting that, okay, looks a little serial killer-y in the morning light.

Hank. Bethany. Dom.

Irene?

And other snatches of words related to the investigation:Visine, sodium nitrate, capri sun, sucking toes.

In all caps, drifting into Shrek’s horns, tentacles—whatever:WHAT DOES BETHANY’S CANCER HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?andHANK NEVER HELPS!andWHY DOES DETECTIVE BERRY HATE ME?

It looks…insane.

“No offense, Mommy,” Pearl says delicately. “But this wasn’t really my vision for the decorations.”

I hop up off the couch and my whole body screams in protest. “I know! I was just…experimenting. I’m gonna take it down.”

“Hold on. Wait a minute.” Dad is snapping pictures of my accidental murder board with his phone, but he’s also somehow turned on his flashlight in the process, so hopefully they don’t turn out.

“You’ve made some good progress here, Maves,” he says as I rip a couple of Shreks down—carefully, so I can look at them later. “But this one right here I have a question about—hey,hey!”

“Okay, this is boring! I’m ready for my birthday pancakes now! I want eight because I’m eight!”

—

The doorbell rings, and Pearlsqueals, hopping off my bed to run and answer it.

“Wait, you need to put lotion on,” I say, barely grabbing her arm in time.

“No one will see my legs!” She swishes the long rainbow dress that has been laid out on the chair in her room since Tuesday, proving her point.

“ButIwill know you’re ashy.”

She wrinkles her nose to let me know how much she cares about that and then wiggles free and takes off toward the door. And as soon as she opens it, squealing even louder when she sees Christine’s daughter Harlow, it’s like the day catapults forward in flashes and marvels and moments, until it’s all over and I don’t know how that happened but I know I feel both exhausted and overwhelmed with joy.

It’s the same what-is-time way I felt during the biggest days of my life: both graduations, our courthouse wedding, Pearl’s screaming entrance into the world. But the smaller days, too: an unexpected trip to Disneyland as a family because Corey’s friend could sign us in, a walk around the duck pond in the park when Pearl was two, drippy ice cream cones at sunset on the pier.

It’s like there’s so much good all at once, my mind can only process a little bit of it at a time. So then I’m rushing to catch up when the day is over, cataloguing everything I don’t want to forget.

After everyone’s gone and the house is as cleaned up as it’s going to get tonight and I’m lying in bed with Pearl curled up next to me, her face still a mess of chocolate frosting and glitter—that’s what I do.

There’s the truly impressive victory dance Dyvia did when she beat all the kids at pin the whatever on Shrek, beginning with the robot and ending with the worm.

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