Page 4 of The Tree of Spirits
“Not my finest hour,” I admitted, sighing. “Nor was it yours, Dante. Instead of just grabbing the flashlight, you bit off more than you could chew.”
“I remember that,” Mom said. “I found him in my workshop, grunting and growling as he tried to lift my big backup battery off the ground.”
“It was really heavy!” Dante protested. “And I was a pretty scrawny eleven-year-old.” He flexed an impressive bicep to show he wasn’t that scrawny kid anymore.
“It was heavy,” Mom agreed. “Which is why you should have had the common sense to go find an adult to help you.”
“Um, common sense? Dante?” I snorted. “You do realize that this is the same person who did a backflip off the roof?” I held up three fingers. “Three. Times.”
Dante took a moment to stick his tongue out at me before glancing back at Mom. “I didn’t ask you for help, Mom, because I knew you wouldn’t let me use the battery.”
“He’s right,” I told Mom. “He only wanted the battery so he could pull a prank on a bunch of our classmates.”
“And you and Nevada would have used it to give yourselves enough light to try out new hairstyles.”
“We have a lot more hair than you, Dante. We can’t just splash a bunch of water on our head and be done. Real styling takes time and, yes, light.”
He rolled his eyes. “Girls.”
“What sort of prank were you planning, Dante?” Mom questioned him. She’d never been one to get pulled off track.
“I was going to hook up the battery to the garage doors and make them continuously open and close. With the power out, the other kids would think the garage was haunted by ghosts,” Dante declared without a single shred of embarrassment. “Andit would have worked too if you hadn’t requisitioned the battery for your own purposes.”
“Requisitioned? Nice word!” I told him.
“Thanks! I’ve been building up my vocabulary so I can impress the Knights.”
“Do you think it will work?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But everyone respects a man with a big vocabulary.”
“I think you’re confusing ‘big vocabulary’ with ‘big mouth’.” I smirked at him. “And ‘man’ with ‘boy’.”
“And you’re confusing smart with smart-a?—”
“Ok, that’s enough,” Mom cut him off.
He folded his hands together and shot our mother a look of pure innocence.
“Yes, I didrequisitionthe battery,” she said. “To hook it up to the refrigerator so our food didn’t spoil. That is way more important than silly pranks.” Her gaze slid to me. “Or new hairstyles.”
“Yeah,” Dante and I agreed, our chests rumbling with laughter.
“Yo, Winters! Stop dawdling! We’re moving out!” my brother’s teammate Rhett called out.
“Well, that’s my cue,” Dante said, bowing to us as he backed up. “I will see you ladies later.”
Mom wrapped her arms around me and Dante, squeezing us to her. “Love you both.”
“Love you, Mom,” we told her.
Mom stepped back, but she hit us with a solid stare before she released our hands. “Aren’t you two going to tell each other that you love each other?”
“Na, because that wouldn’t be true.” Dante winked at me.
“And you taught us to always tell the truth,” I added, returning the wink.
“See you around, Sav.” Dante gave me a high-five, then jogged off to join his team.
