Page 31 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

Summer spits into the sink, frowns at me, and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “I did not hide them. I put them in better places.”

I fill a little cup and hand it to her to rinse with. “Okay. Well, why don’t you show us where these better places are. Or we can make it a game! Lucky and I can look for his shoes, and you can tell us if we’re getting close to finding them or not!”

She puts the cup down, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and huffs.

“Or…I can show you my room and all of the things I use to make perfume and you can help me mix together something that might help your dad sleep better at night. And then you can help me make dinner.”

Summer and Luckyhave now sniffed all fifty of my essential oil bottles, and after calmly explaining to Summer that no, I do not have more than I need because this is for my work and if she ever throws my things away I will be very, very mad, she and Lucky have narrowed the scents that they think will help their dad sleep down to spearmint, lemon, and rosemary. They’re all stimulants. But they’d smell great together!

“Why don’t you try this one again.” I open up the neroli oil. “Don’t you think this one’s nice?”

They both lean in to get a whiff.

“It smells like Grandma’s hands.”

“She probably has a soap or a lotion with this ingredient. I’m going to leave this one out for you to think about. How about this one?”

I open up the rose essential oil for them to sample again.

“I like it,” Lucky says.

“It’s too girly-foo-foo for daddy.”

“Well, he’s not going to put it on his skin. This is for burning in an essential oil burner in his room before bed, remember? We’ll put a little bit of water in a little soapstone bowl, add a few drops of these oils, and then we light a tealight candle under the bowl and it makes the room smell like the essential oils.”

“Why?”

“Because the heat from the candle warms up the oil and water, and that releases them into the air. That’s called evaporation.”

“But why does it make the room smell? Because of gas in his belly?”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “Sometimes. But this will make the room smell really good and help him to relax and fall asleep.”

I feel my phone vibrate in my back pocket.

“Why don’t you guys sample some more, and then we’ll decide on three of them before we start making dinner.”

I pull my phone out, and my heart skips a beat when I see a message from Shane.

SHANE: Have you set your own hair on fire and run away screaming yet?

ME: No, but I accidentally set the twins’ hair on fire. Is that okay?

SHANE: Yeah, just keep it down. Trying to sleep over here.

ME: Maybe put your phone away and try harder.

SHANE: I just wanted to say thanks. For explaining farts to us. For being here. You’re good with them.

ME: Well, now I just feel bad for burning their hair.

SHANE: Naw. It’ll grow back. Okay, I’m gonna go to sleep, but I have one question for you.

SHANE: What do you call a male cow who’s taking a nap?

ME: A bull dozer. Nico and I learned every dumb joke on the Internet. It was basically the only way we could communicate with each other when we were kids. So if you want to dazzle me with something I’ve never heard before, you’ll have to try harder.

The movingdots by his name appear immediately, continue to move for about twenty seconds, and I brace myself for some amazing dazzling thing that I’ve never heard before.