Read Me, My Elf & I for Free Online Page B

and the animals. How many people are in your family?”
    “I have two younger sisters,” Mercedes tells me. “Plus my grandparents live in the apartment next to ours so they’re always at our place.”
    “That’s how it is where we’re from. I miss my grandmother so much.”
    Mercedes rolls her eyes. “Just more people to get up in your business,” she says, but somehow I don’t believe she means it.
    “How about you?” I ask Ari. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
    “None,” he says.
    “None?” I’m as incredulous about his family as he is about mine. “What do you mean none?”
    “I’m an only child.”
    Such a thing is unheard of in Alverland. “That’s so sad,” I say. “Aren’t you lonely?”
    “Heck no,” says Ari. “It’s great. No competition. I get whatever I want.”
    “Wow,” I say, considering the possibility of life without all my brothers and sisters.
    “Do you have anything normal to eat, that doesn’t taste like that?” Mercedes asks, pointing to the boysenberries.
    I grab three pears and a bowl of almonds from the counter. “Do you like goat’s milk?” Ari visibly blanches and Mercedes twists her face into a look of disgust.
    “What are you guys? Health nuts?” Mercedes asks.
    “Do you have any coffee?” asks Ari.
    “Iced tea?” I offer, and thankfully they both accept. I don’t mention that it’s made from slippery elm bark and hawthorne leaves. “Come on,” I say, pouring each of them a glass. “There’s a back staircase. We can go up to my room where it’s quiet.”
    Just then my mom pushes through the kitchen door, calling, “Zephyr!” She nearly bumps into us. “Oh, there you are.” She wraps her arms around me and starts mauling me as if I’m some little kid who’s been lost in the woods for three days. “How was your day? Did you get lost this time? Were people nicer to you? Did you have any trouble? Do you still want to go back? Aunt Flora called today, Briar misses you. And who’s this?”
    I peel myself away from her, embarrassed by all the elfin affection. My mom’s going to have to tone it down now that we’re not in Alverland anymore. I introduce Ari and Mercedes and my mother exclaims, “You made friends!” as if I’m a total idiot who would never manage to hold a conversation, let alone befriend another person.
    Ari holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Addler. I’m a huge fan of your husband’s work.”
    Instead of shaking his hand like a normal person, my mom pulls Ari into a hug. “Oh, that’s so very kind of you. Drake will be so delighted to hear that. You’ll have to come back and spend some time with us when he’s home.” Ari blushes crimson. Mercedes giggles behind her hand. “And please call me Aurora.”
    “Mom,” I say. “Come on. Let him go. Not everybody hugs everybody else around here.”
    She releases him. “Oh, right. Sorry. I get carried away.” At that moment a yowl erupts from the living room and my mom bolts back out the kitchen door. I catch a glimpse of Poppy sprawled on the floor in the middle of Bramble’s empty boxes. The bunny is limping across the room and the cat is clawing its way up the side of the bookshelf to Poppy’s abandoned nest, where one of the sparrows has managed to reach.
    “Is everybody where you’re from like this?” Ari asks.
    “Like what?” I ask, panic-stricken because I knew this was a mistake. Now my new friends will run screaming for the door or, worse, they’ll get suspicious about who we really are.
    “Let’s just put it this way,” Mercedes says. “I don’t know anybody else who has bunnies, birds, and naked babies running around, who all dress alike and drink goat’s milk. It’s like you’re in some kind of weird cult or something.”
    “Shut up, Mercy,” Ari says. “That’s just rude. I could say the same about your house.”
    “We don’t drink goat’s milk,” Mercedes says with a snort.
    “No, but you eat tamales wrapped