I Stepped Out From Between
can’t play water polo like everybody else- Thank god for vinyl upholstery.
- creepy carnival music
- a plaster model of the Eiffel Tower
- I’ve got the waders on
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I stepped out from between the sisters so I could keep an eye on them both. “Look, you’re not getting me onto that couch, not even getting me into the petting zoo, until you tell me what you want.” I left “and probably not even then” unsaid.
Cleopatra tsked. “Jack lamented that his son can’t play water polo like everybody else. That you have to be the big-time spy.”
Esmerelda said, “Oh, that makes more sense now. I thought he meant that his son rode a horse into the pool.”
I didn’t think my father even knew about that incident, but maybe not all of my nosy spy genes had come from Mother.
“This is a very important matter,” Cleopatra said. “And if you join us on that couch we promise we’ll explain the whole thing.” Esmerelda nodded.
Promises from these two were probably worthless, but they looked sincere. I let them lead me through the turnstile and past the ducklings to the strangest sofa I’d ever seen.
Esmerelda said, “It’s a challenge to find suitable furniture for what is basically a preschool barnyard. Thank god for vinyl upholstery.”
The sofa was indeed covered in vinyl — old LPs and 45s overlapping like fish scales. The records were all creepy carnival music, and they’d been heat-treated to warp them into shape. A turntable rested in the shelf halfway up a plaster model of the Eiffel Tower, waiting for someone to pull apart the seat cushions.
It was a surprisingly comfortable couch.
“Okay,” began Cleopatra. “Here’s the situation…”
She stopped speaking because we suddenly were not alone. The entire brood and all their mothers were trooping into the petting zoo. The infants seemed to recognize the place, from the way they looked all around and reached their chubby arms toward the animals. I heard Isolde’s voice saying, “I can be in charge of the goat pit today. I’ve got the waders on already.”
bonus points for using them in order