Page 50 of Alice & Meg: Summer Vacation
I watched him for a second.The overly calm tone.The lack of outrage.The fact that he hadn’t found a single turtle, despite all of us practically sitting on them.
I squinted at him.“It’s you.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
Lo shifted in his chair.“What?No.”
“Babe,” I said slowly.“It’s you.You are the one who has been turtling up all week.”
“Yeah,” Alice chimed in.“And now that I think about it, every time someone’s found a turtle,you’vebeen conveniently not there.”
Cyn gasped.“Oh my god.Youplantedthe turtle in my bra.”
Lo’s eyebrows shot up.“Okay, that one was not me!”
Rigid raised his hand.“That one was me.”
Cyn rolled her eyes.“Could you refrain from turtling me?”
Rigid shrugged.“The little guy likes your boobs as much as I do.”
“Dear lord,” Cyn muttered.
I was still watching Lo.Everything was falling into place.“It’s you!”I shouted.
Lo cracked.He burst out laughing and held up his hands.“Okay, okay.Fine.It was me.All of them.Except Cyn’s bra turtle.”
“Why?”Greta demanded.
He wiped a tear from his eye.“Because it was funny!I saw them at the dollar store a few weeks ago, and it just came to me.”
“How many did you buy?” I asked.
He shrugged.“Hundred?”
“HUNDRED?”we all shouted.
“Maybe two hundred,” he added under his breath.
I just stared at him.
“You’ve been terrorizing us with turtles,” Cyn said slowly, “for days.”
Lo laughed harder.“It’s been thehighlightof my trip!”
Alice groaned.“I stepped on one in the bathroom this morning.”
“I stuck one in Wrecker’s saddlebag,” Lo said with a smirk.
Wrecker grunted.“Iknewthat wasn’t Greta.”
“Why?”I asked again, still trying to process.
“Because we always do this,” Lo said.“We come on these trips, we eat good food, we make memories.I just wanted to… add something dumb.Something we’ll laugh about next year.”
I stared at him, then slowly smiled.“Well, mission accomplished, you big dork.”
“Yeah,” Alice said, and picked up her drink.“Now we’ll be haunted by tiny plastic turtles forever.”
