“Are you sure no one will notice that she’s gone?” My father at least seemed to understand the danger of Wilma’s plan. “If they think we kidnapped her you could be starting a war.”
“Tsk. Now you sound just like Tyton, but it’s not like anyone is going to notice if Devina is gone for a few days when her whole family is dead.”
“What do you mean, her whole family is dead?” When my dad looked to me for confirmation, I nodded.
“It was an epidemic. There were eight members in her family and she lost them all.”
My dad frowned and my mom raised both hands to her face. “Poor girl!”
A moment of quiet filled the kitchen before Wilma broke the silence. “Yeah, so you see: she can stay away for a day or two without anyone worrying about her.”
Shaking her head as if she wanted everything to fall into place and make sense, my mother put on a brave smile. “Well, in that case, why don’t we just keep her here as a bride for Tyton and make her part of our family?”
“No, Mom, she doesn’t like me.”
Placing an arm on my shoulder, my dad leaned in. “You shouldn’t take that personally. Everyone knows that Motlanders don’t like men.”
“It’s not her fault. She doesn’t know any better,” Wilma defended Devina.
“Don’t you worry, we’ll be nice to her,” our father assured Wilma while our mother wanted to hear more about Wilma’s plan to disguise Devina as a boy.
“Well, she’s little so we can’t dress her up like a man or people will wonder. I’m thinking a boy around twelve or thirteen.”
“Oh, why don’t we say that she’s – I mean he’s – a new worker on our lands.” My mother pointed to my dad. “If anyone asks, we could tell people he’s one of those troubled kids who benefits from a bit of practical work experience before they go back to school.”
Our dad thought about it. “But would we bring a worker to the tournament?”
“Just because we haven’t done it before doesn’t mean we can’t do it now. It’s our daughter getting married and we’re proud parents.”
“A troubled boy it is!” Wilma declared and that seemed to be it.
Not happy with the situation, I made a last instruction. “Just make sure that she wears a hoodie or a hat to cover her face.”
“We could try finding a fake beard.”
My mom rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a waffle, Wilma. When did you last see a twelve-year-old boy with a beard?”
“Okay, okay, but I’ll need to make her eyebrows bigger and bushier. Mom, you’ll help, won’t you?”
“Of course I will. I’m so excited to meet a real Motlander.”
With that settled, I walked over to my loft with the bottle in my hand that contained Devina’s letter to me. I’d already read her answer when Wilma first gave it to me, but I still pulled it out again and re-read it. It was almost amusing how adamant Devina was about Mark and Deidra not being based on us. If anything, it just told me that they were.
Her idea that I should write my own book seemed like a perfect opportunity to rile her up a little. I didn’t start my own book from scratch but built on what she had already created. My version of the story, however, was way more colorful and fun.
When I had written five pages, I read them through, corrected a few typos, and grinned. Yup, if she couldn’t put curse words into her book maybe she could make it steamy at least.
How I wished I could be there when she read it.
CHAPTER 15
Kama Sutra
Devina
My professor’s words from years ago kept resounding in my head.Good writing makes your blood boil, your head spin, or your pulse speed up. You may hate what you read, but if words can affect you that much, the author did well.
Tyton’s five pages did all of those things for me and yet it wasn’t great writing. He had run-on sentences, a loose relationship with commas, and he repeated the same word three times in a sentence.
