Page 7 of The Surprise
I stifle my laugh. Izzy hates being laughed at—actually, most people probably hate it, but for Izzy, it’s like trapping a black cat firecracker in a bottle. The insides explode, the glass fills with smoke, and then everything turns black.
It’s bad all around.
“It needs that extra word.” Izzy lifts her chin and her eyes slew sideways. “But whatever.”
“Whitney, red.” Maren looks practically angelic.
Whitney bends over and drops a hand next to Emery’s on a red dot. That was ridiculously easy. Maybe Maren really is spinning it.
“Emery, blue.”
Maren’s little sister sticks her foot between both of Whitney’s to touch a blue dot. Pretty painless, still.
“Why didn’t they just move their feet?” Beth’s understandably confused. With families as big as ours, we gave up on traditional Twister rules years ago.
“You have to keep three things down at all times,” I say. “So now it’s about to get much more interesting. We have to hit the right color, but we can only lift one thing in favor of something else.”
“And you can have more than one person on the same dot,” Whitney says. “But if either of you falls off the color, or if your elbows or knees touch the mat, or if you fall, you’re out.”
Beth’s brow furrows.
“Izzy, green.”
“Are you actually spinning these?” Izzy asks. “Because—”
“I saw her,” Emery says.
No one questions Emery, because she and Maren don’t often agree.
Izzy compresses her lips and crouches down, sliding her arm past my leg to reach the green dot between Beth and me.
“You better be careful,” I say.
“Or what?” Izzy bumps me, shoving me up closer to Beth.
My heart races, and I can’t remember why I was threatening her.
“Ethan, green.”
“But he’s already on green,” Beth says.
“I have to find another green dot,” I say, already crouching down like Spiderman, looking for a way to snake my arm past Izzy and Beth to reach a green dot. It puts my face right next to Beth’s hip, but I manage it.
And I’m thinking nice thoughts about Maren, for once.
Beth has a very nice hip, and I could stare down the length of her thigh all day. It’s nice to have an excuse.
“Stop drooling,” Maren says, “or I’ll kick you out.”
And now equilibrium is restored. I hate her again.
“Beth,” Maren says nonchalantly, as if she didn’t just attack me and make me feel like an idiot, “red.”
There’s no way she’s spinning this.
No.
Way.
