Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“Hello,” he greeted everyone, walking over to Brad and offering him his hand. “Did you get a beer?”
“I didn’t,” he told Sam, clearly happy to see him from his cheerful tone.
“Well, I’ve got some good stuff in the small fridge in the laundry room. Let me get these going and then I’ll come yell out some names for you.”
“That would be great,” he said, watching, as we all were, as Sam crossed the yard to the small concrete slab where the grill was. When he was going to be cooking a long time, we moved it so smoke wouldn’t get into the house.
“Oh, oh,” Hannah said suddenly, and I noticed that all the candles were done, each one beautifully topped, and she had rushed to the railing and was watching her brother.
Kola had climbed up onto the piece of plywood that Jake had scaffolded between two of Sam’s twelve-foot ladders and gotten onto the swing that Jake and Harper were holding.
“What if the seat breaks?” Kay asked.
“No,” Hannah told him. “It’s Australian Buloke; that’s the hardest wood you can find.”
“Are you––”
“Jake can tell you what it is on the Janka scale if you—ohmygod!” she squeaked.
They let go and Kola sailed forward, fast, across our yard, over the Johnsons’ fence, deep into their yard, but missing their elm by quite a bit, and then back, over our yard and up high, so high, up to the same height as the three-story roof of the Teruya house on our right.
Kola whooped for joy, Jake was screaming, and Harper was laughing. Jeremy was on the ground watching, seemingly stunned from the way his hands were laced on top of his head. On the porch, Hannah was bouncing up and down before she flipped over the railing as her brother had done earlier, but with more flourish, and landed on her feet before she darted over to the ladder, clearly dying to go next.
Sam looked up, saw his son fly by, and then waved at Mr. Teruya, who was leaning out of his upstairs window. A lovely man, he and his wife had three daughters that Hannah babysat for. They paid her a small fortune as, during the pandemic, an on-call, trustworthy babysitter who loved kids and could teach them as well as entertain them, was worth their weight in gold.
“You’re not worried about the swing?” Anne asked me as Mira and Kayden went to join Hannah and the others.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Jake made that thing years ago, and he upgrades it whenever he thinks of a new tweak.”
“And we trust Jake?”
“Implicitly,” I said, watching Harper and Jake link arms to catch Kola as he swung back, and as he got off, Jake lifted Hannah and put her on, facing her for a second, staring into her eyes, her hand cupping his cheek before he moved and he and Harper pushed her off.
Kola trotted back across the yard, Jeremy behind him, and they climbed the stairs. Jeremy put a hand on Kola’s shoulder as they reached us.
“Fun?” I asked him.
“Yeah, that’s a rush,” he told me. “And Harper checked Jake’s math, so you know it’s good.”
“Harper’s going to be a mathematician?” Anne asked.
“A mechanical engineer,” Kola told her.
“And you’re going to be a doctor like me,” she said, smiling at him.
“I want to be a trauma surgeon, yes, ma’am.”
She was clearly dazzled by my son.
“Tell Dr. Holmes why the swing’s safe.”
“Oh,” he said, his dark blue eyes firing. “The ropes are climbing grade, ma’am, and there’s a secondary slack rope in the middle. That’s the curving piece between the regular two ropes, and that’s just in case something weird happens.”
“The ladders can’t stay there, though,” Jeremy chimed in.
“This is true,” Kola agreed, thought a moment, and then went to the railing. “You need a collapsible, removable launch ramp!”
Jake and Harper climbed down the ladders and ran over to the porch, both looking up at Kola, waiting on him.
“We need to be able to walk backwards up a ramp that needs to then either collapse down sideways like bleachers, or in half like a––”
“Ping-pong table,” Harper offered.
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Jake said, glancing at Harper.
“It could be aluminum, but it has to be high, and you don’t want it to tip over.”
“You’re sure that tree limb will hold her?” Kay asked Jake, watching Hannah.
“What?” Jake scoffed. “That is welded steel wrapped around the tree, and the arm is bolted to that. There’s no limb holding that swing.”
“Be nice,” Harper cautioned him just as Sam reached the two of them.
“Get my daughter down,” he told the boys, and they ran to do what he asked.
“Sam,” Anne said as he reached the porch, on a mission to get her husband a beer. “As a Catholic, how do you feel about your daughter being a witch?”
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “She’s a good witch.”