The Romantics(31)

Piper folded her hands all official-like. “So we split into teams and do all the challenges and videotape the whole thing. And I’m going to be with Cara. We’ll be Team Para, like Piper plus Cara, or like paratroopers. See?” She held up one of the sheets. “I already put our name down.”

(If you’re wondering why Piper didn’t want to be with Sammy, allow me to explain. Of course, Piper adored Sammy. But her teacher had given a lesson on the importance of making new friends on Friday—thanks, in large part, to my urgings—and Piper liked to excel at anything her teacher suggested.)

“Are you sure?” Cara asked.

Piper cocked her head to the side. “You don’t want to be with me?”

It felt like the world froze. Like the kids in the background temporarily stopped eating their corn dogs, like the middle schooler working the slushy machine was paralyzed. Gael imagined even the giraffes in the distance ceasing to munch on leaves. Like everything stopped as he saw the deep look of hurt on Piper’s face.

Piper was an eight-year-old dealing with her parents’ divorce and an older brother who hadn’t exactly been there for her. She didn’t deserve to be hurt further.

Before Gael could try to smooth things over, Sammy swept in. “Don’t you want to be with me, Piper?”

A robust man in an Indiana Jones hat scooted past Sammy, and Gael wanted to jump out of his seat, push the guy out of the way, and give Sammy a hug. Here she was on an outing with a friend, and she was willing to sacrifice her whole afternoon just so Piper’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt.

“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Cara offered. The breeze from the open-air café messed with her ponytail. She pushed it forcefully back in place. Gael had to stop himself from glaring.

Piper’s bottom lip puffed out. “So you really don’t want to be on my team?” she asked Cara. “I know a lot about animals, and I’m really good at using the camera on the iPhone.”

Cara shrugged.

Gael couldn’t take it. “Of course she does.” It was one thing for him to tell his little sister to leave him alone, but for an outsider to do that made him, frankly, more than a little annoyed. As much as he’d wanted to spend the day with Cara, it wasn’t cool to do so at the expense of his sister’s feelings.

“Right,” Cara said forcefully. “Yeah. Of course I do.”

“So what should our team name be?” Sammy asked, trying to change the subject.

“Gammy?” Cara suggested bitterly. “You know, like Team Grandma.”

“I guess,” Sammy said. She seemed nonplussed with Cara’s obvious annoyance. “Gael?”

“Sure,” Gael said. By now, he just wanted to get out of the café and on with the silly game. He only prayed that Cara would abandon her bad attitude once she was actually doing the game with his sister.

That’s when Piper’s eyes lit up. “How about Samgael?”

Sammy giggled immediately. “Samgael Gamgee: Samwise’s black sheep of a cousin, up to his hobbit ears in gambling debts, hits the sauce a bit too much.”

Gael couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud. Cara, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get the joke. No surprise, he supposed, since she didn’t exactly like movies.

“I guess it’s sort of perfect,” Sammy said.

“Yeah,” Gael agreed. “I guess it sort of is.”





around the world in three tram stops


The teams split up to do the scavenger hunt, and Gael and Sammy hopped on the tram to their agreed-upon beginning point, the Cypress Swamp in North America.

Sammy looked over the sheet as they cruised past elephants chugging along in the distance. “Pretend to be a zoologist doing an important study. Shush anyone who tries to talk. Ooh, and lead the crowd in a rendition of ‘I Am the Walrus.’ Man, Piper didn’t hold back on this one.”

Gael laughed. “Piper doesn’t hold back on much of anything.”

Sammy laughed. “She certainly doesn’t, my friend. She certainly doesn’t.”

Gael fiddled with his jeans pocket. “Thanks for sticking up for her.”

Sammy smiled, and it was quiet for a moment between them, with only the sound of children laughing and the whir-whir of the bus’s hardworking engine.

“So in case you were wondering, I had no idea her friend was you,” Gael said. “I wouldn’t have tried to rope you into babysitting, I promise.”

“I believe you,” Sammy said. “Don’t worry. We’re hardly even friends, really, I just met her yesterday—ooh, look,” she squealed, interrupting herself. “There’s a baby elephant!”

Gael laughed. “I wouldn’t have expected you to go apeshit for baby animals.”

Sammy raised an eyebrow. “Name one person with a soul who doesn’t go apeshit for baby animals. They’re, like, animals who are tiny. Who are you, the devil?”

Gael shook his head. “I like them, too. Obviously. But your voice went about a million levels higher just then.”

Sammy crossed her arms. “Maybe you should question your ability to maintain an even tone of voice in the face of”—she smiled one of those weird upside-down smiles that little kids do when they’re excited—“BABY ELEPHANTS.”