Ultimate Courage (True Heroes #2)(31)
Boom turned to her with wide eyes. “Really? Will it work during the day at school?”
Good question.
Elisa wrinkled her nose. “Depends on how bright your classroom is and how many windows there are. If you turn off the classroom lights, you might be able to see it, but the teacher would have to let you pull all the blinds to block light coming in from the windows, too.”
“I don’t think Miss Patrick would let me take the time to do that during my presentation.” Boom began to worry at her bottom lip with her fingers. Her lips were chapped, and Elisa had noticed Boom putting on lip balm before they went into the store, but the girl hadn’t reapplied since. Maybe Boom only remembered when they were going into a place and not when her lips actually felt dry. “There’s a lot of kids in the class, and our presentations should be short and almost speak for themselves.”
Miss Patrick must give those instructions fairly consistently. Boom had fallen into a sing-song sort of cadence when she’d recalled the teacher’s words. To Elisa, it meant the child was repeating something she heard all the time.
“Not a bad point.” Elisa didn’t want to undermine the teacher’s instructions. She closed the trunk and held out her hand to Boom. “Are you feeling up to going back into the store? Maybe we’ll find something inspiring if we walk inside again.”
Boom gave her a big smile. “I’m okay. Totally.”
Elisa returned the smile. Really, Boom made it easy. Still, the girl was starting to look a little glassy-eyed. Elisa had better come up with an epiphany quickly and get Boom back to the kennels before she ran out of energy.
Besides, Alex might get worried.
The thought of Boom’s father brought on a few mental images. He’d stood out during class, even from far away. He cut a great figure against the backdrop of the grassy fields and trees lining the perimeter of the property. Even in the new button-up shirt, his built body was clearly noticeable. He filled out the fabric with a solid chest, broad shoulders, and even his biceps were noticeable inside the sleeves. When he’d started running with the rest of his class in the morning, Elisa had snuck more than a couple of looks out the window. Alex, standing, was a sight to see. Alex in motion was worth several minutes of staring and drooling. Then, the fabric of his shirt and pants moved and the musculature underneath was even more impressive. It didn’t take much of a mental leap to imagine muscles rippling under deliciously bare skin.
With an effort, Elisa wrenched her brain back around to the task at hand. Science projects and standing out from the crowd.
“Do you really think the other projects will be that much more different?” Elisa fished for some clues as to what Boom’s teacher might be comparing Boom’s work to. “What sorts of things do the other kids put together?”
Boom’s normally bright expression dimmed somewhat, and the girl looked down at the floor, her short blond hair falling forward to conceal part of her face. Elisa wondered if Boom’s hair would darken as she got older. Despite summer highlights from being out in the sun all day, Alex’s hair was a darker brown and probably almost black in winter. “Well, there were lots of different things. Glitter and stickers, and one girl even had oil paints because her mom does paintings to sell in New Hope.”
“Ah.” Elisa cursed herself for bursting the girl’s happy mood. It had to be tough for her and for Alex to go day to day without her mother. No way was Elisa going to ask about the mother, either. Definitely had to be a difficult topic. “Well, it sounds like your teacher likes to see texture and creativity in your projects.”
Crafts had been some of Elisa’s favorite hobbies once upon a time. She’d loved scrapbooking, working with different papers of various weights and printed with colorful patterns. But it’d be too obvious to get space-themed paper or stickers. Others would’ve done it. Boom was looking for something different.
Elisa’s gaze fell on a nearby sales rack. “Have you ever done origami?”
Boom scrunched up her face. “Ori-what?”
“Origami.” Elisa led her over to the rack and picked up a packet of square paper, colored in soft swirls of white and gold. It had a shimmery, pearlescent quality to it. “You fold fine paper in complex patterns to make different kinds of shapes. The Japanese do it. They make paper cranes and frogs and flowers, all kinds of things. I know there’s a pattern to fold the paper into a sort of ball or balloon and we could attach it to your board in all the places where you’re showing Pluto in orbit or in its place with the other planets of the solar system. Then we could take LED lights and put them inside the paper balls to make them light up with a battery. So it’ll be different from just the lights and more unusual.”
“Oh, I’ve seen the kids in some of the anime shows do the cranes and the stars.” Boom beamed at her, the previous melancholy evaporated. “That sounds cool!”
Relief washed through her. It wouldn’t cost Alex too much more, either. There were some fun sets of blinking LED earrings on sale over by the register that’d make installing them inside the origami planets easy. “Then we’ve got a plan.”
They grabbed the rest of their supplies and headed for the register. In a few minutes, they were ready to head out and Elisa glanced out the glass doors of the store. She’d left her car parked in front of Revolution MMA a few storefronts down in the same shopping center. She wondered if she should check on it while she was here.