Page 36 of You've Got Hate Mail
They’re ten and eleven years older than me. I was an unexpected surprise.
Sometimes clearly not a good one.
“Why do we have to wash our hands?” Lav asks me while she’s standing on tiptoes to reach the kitchen sink, where I’m squirting soap on her hands.
“To keep the germs out of the food.”
Yep.
I havegotthis.
The old Cricket is back. I just needed a kinda sorta decent night of sleep and time making new friends with people who are unbelievably kind.
I hope they’ll be my new friends. That we’ll stay in touch after I get over my newfound terror of showers and find a new job and get back to my real life.
Today, I’ll show them that I’m not actually too much.
That I’m a competent person who can get her shit together.
“Meow,” Lavender says.
“You’re right. Germsarelike microscopic dragons. Some are good dragons, and some are bad dragons, but we want to keep all of the dragons out of the muffin mix.”
“Purrrrr.”
“Microscopic means so small that you can only see it with a microscope.”
“I know what micropospic means.I askedhow there can be good dragons.”
I hand her a clean towel to wipe her hands, then pull a chair over to the counter by the mixer. “Here. You can stand on this so you can see everything.”
She’s tall for her age, but she’s also not tall enough to see inside the mixer bowl without help yet.
“That’s not an answer, Cricket,” she says.
I suck in my cheeks so I don’t smile at her sassitude. “Does your dad say that to you a lot?”
“No, Ms. Emerson does.”
“Who’s Ms. Emerson?”
“You answer my question, I’ll answer yours, lady.Meow.”
I rummage in the cabinets, easily locating flour and sugar and baking powder and salt. “It’ll take a while to explain the great dragon war of 1385, and I might forget I asked who Ms. Emerson was by then, and I’ll be sad to not know more about you.”
It’s pretty easy to guess she’ll be a teacher or a babysitter.
Lavender’s big hazel eyes get even bigger. “There was a dragon war?” she whispers reverently.
“It was something. That’s when the dragons got split into good dragons and bad dragons. The good dragons wanted to use their fire-breathing powers to help heat people’s homes and cook their food, but the bad dragons wanted to burn it all down. They thought their fire gave them power to rule the earth.”
“Did the bad dragons murder all of the good dragons?” The way her eyes get even wider—am I crossing a line?
Will she have nightmares about dragon murder?
Crap.
“Ginny?” I call.
