Page 5 of The Surprise
It’s kind of funny watching them try to spin the round dial and play at the same time. Yesterday, Emery fell over while trying to spin the dial, knocking Whitney over in the process. Whitney berated her for a full five minutes.
And then they started over.
Because for Emery, the only thing scarier than being yelled at by Whitney is letting her down. Our family’s interesting.
“Sure,” Beth says. “I’ll play.”
“Me too,” I say.
Whitney’s jaw dangles and her eyes widen. “Wait. Ethan?”
I’m going to kill her. “I play sometimes.”
“Never. You play never,” Izzy says.
Apparently, I’m going to be sisterless soon. Will that be sad? Or will it be a community service? I grit my teeth. “I played last month. Remember?”
“Can you play with this many people?” Beth asks.
“You can,” Whitney says. “We get all set up, and then we all get individual color picks.”
“Who runs the spinner?” Beth asks.
“Me,” Maren says. “Because there’s no way I’m going to get all tangled up with you guys. Especially if Ethan’s playing. He’s so big that if he falls, he’ll smoosh you all into jelly.”
Do all my siblings and my cousins really hate me? Or are they just so naturally obnoxious that they can’t help it?
“Okay, let’s go.” Whitney shoves the spinner at Maren and smooths the board. “I’ll go first.”
Maren’s the worst possible person to have spin. She doesn’t really spin it randomly. She’ll look at the board and come up with strange colors that are impossible and flick it to land on those.
She’s one-third demon, I’m sure of it.
“Alright, yellow.” Maren purses her lips. “Who’s next?”
“Me,” Emery says.
Maren doesn’t even bother spinning. “Red.”
“Hey,” Izzy says. “You didn’t even spin it.”
“It’s a waste of time at the beginning. You just need to get on the mat.”
Izzy rolls her eyes. The only thing she hates more than being bossed around is being bossed around by Maren. “Fine. Me next.”
“Blue.” Maren looks like she’s planning something. That’s never good.
Emery’s standing on the far side, with Whitney facing her on the front of the mat. Izzy steps onto the blue dot on the far end, making them into a weird kind of isosceles triangle.
“You next,” Maren says, glaring at me. “Green.”
“I think you should start spinning it now,” Beth says.
All of us freeze. No one tells Queen Maren what to do. We expect her to rip Beth a new one or freak out and storm off.
But all Maren does is glare, look down at the spinner and flick it, shake it until it stops on green, and then say, drolly, “Green.”
Beth laughs.
