what that means, but it sounds positive and Iâll take all the positive I can get. I mean, itâs Vegas. Who wouldnât be excited about moving to Vegas?â
âCassi, Vega â¦,â I said.
âYes, but your sisters will come around. Theyâll see. You get it. This is an adventure, right, Arcturus?â
âRight, but, Dad, I was asking about the lights in Vegas, because as we all know, bright lights can â¦â
He clapped his hands again and hopped on his toes a little bit. âYes, bright lights! Like Christmas all the time!â He paced a couple steps, then turned and paced back, tugging at his hair tufts with each step. âAn adventure! Banana bread! Christmas all year round! Iâll just have to convince them.â
âNo, I wasnât suggesting ⦠I was wondering if the lights would make it hard to â¦â
âYou are very smart, Arcturus. Very smart indeed. Theyâll come around. I just have to make them see. This is best for all of us.â
Just then, there was the sound of a door slamming upstairs, followed by more wailingâCassi and Vega together, in two-part harmony.
He snapped his fingers, excitedly, paced past me, patting my shoulder twice as he went by. âThanks, son,â he said.
âYouâre welcome,â I said, then followed him across theliving room. âBut, Dad, I was actually a little worried that the lights in Vegas might make it kind of hard to â¦â
He gestured over his shoulder as he hightailed it toward the stairs. âWeâll talk more about our Vegas adventure later, Arty,â he called, and then disappeared.
â⦠see the sky,â I finished after heâd gone.
6
The Rocket Ship of Doom
When I rang Trippâs doorbell, I heard a tumbling sound from inside the house, and then the door was pulled open to reveal Tripp rubbing his backside with both hands.
âI fell down the stairs,â he said, although I noticed him cast an accusing glance over his shoulder toward his older brother, Heave, who stood at the top of the stairs with a wicked grin on his face. Heave shrugged, which is usually the job of Trippâs oldest brother, Shrugg, but at the moment Shrugg was racing through the living room after Chase, wearing only a pair of tightie whities and screaming something about paybacks. Tripp edged through the door and closed the chaos in behind him. âWhatâs up?â he asked.
âRocket ship,â I replied.
Trippâs eyebrows went up. âWe havenât been there since Priyaâs mom made her take swimming lessons in fourth grade,â he whispered.
He was right. Otherwise known as the Great Deep End Freakout. We really hadnât been to the rocket ship in ages.
The rocket ship was an ancient play structure on our elementary school playground. It was made out of recycled tractor tires and was so old, Dad once told me that Grandpa Muliphein helped build it when my dad was in elementary school back in the 1980s. Over the years, the school had built a real playground around it, with fancy monkey bars and tunnel systems and, of course, the aforementioned infamous tornado slide. But even though we had all the fancy stuff, the school never got rid of the tire rocket ship, and every spring Dad would go out there with little cans of paint and repaint it, white and gray and blue, with windows that reflected a marbled moon.
Nobody ever played in the rocket ship.
Except Tripp, Priya, and me. We spent more hours than I could count inside those tires, nasally talking into our cupped hands: â
Crrr
, Houston, we have Mars in sight, I repeat, we have Mars in sight, over,
Crrr. Crrr
, ten-four, Bald Eagle, you may land whenever you feel like it, over,
Crrr. Crrr
, that would be now, Houston, Iâve been in this rocket for six months and I really have to pee, over,
Crrr
.â
And then weâd giggle until we really did have to pee. And once Tripp