Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(53)

“Ella.” Holly pointed at Struggle. “Get that out of Struggle’s mouth.”

Struggle wagged her tail, a stuffed green dinosaur hanging from her mouth.

The dinosaur, one of the kindergarten classroom “pets” this year, had traveled home in Ella’s backpack to live with her family for the week as part of an ongoing first-semester homework assignment about emotions and using a thesaurus to describe those emotions. Strict instructions made the assignment very clear: no computers. The children had to use an actual physical thesaurus and sit down with a grown-up to receive help sorting through the printed index of a reference book while discussing their feelings.

Then, together as a family, they had to make a poster illustrating how their family expressed that emotion in healthy ways.

Then, around their drawing, photograph, or whatever, they had to record all the synonyms they found in the thesaurus for that particular emotion onto the poster board.

No problem.

Except, Holly wasn’t fully unpacked yet. Had no idea where to look for (as the assignment called it) their “family thesaurus,” hadn’t seen or used an actual thesaurus in years, and suspected they didn’t even own one in the first place.

“Struggle! Drop that.” Holly clapped from the kitchen. “Ella, take it out of her mouth.”

Miss Bently’s dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Thesaurus, ruled over the herd of take-home dinosaurs that, a lot like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, all had names. One was named Sleepy, another Surprised, another Hungry, and so on. Lucky for the Banks family, the dinosaur Ella brought home was Happy. Happy should be an easy emotion to describe during the first week of kindergarten, right?

“Struggle!” Ella leaned over to swat Struggle on the snout. “Let. Go. Of. Happy! Mmmmom!”

Holly walked over with a stern “No!” and shook a finger. “Bad dog.”

Struggle lowered her head, pulled her ears back, and then, reluctantly, released Happy into Holly’s hand.

Holly handed the dinosaur back to Ella. “You have to keep Happy out of reach of Struggle. Struggle grabs hold of things and doesn’t let go. You know this, Ella—that’s how she got her name.” Holly pointed to a nearby rubber cog. “Git your cog, Struggle. Git your cog.”

Ella tucked Happy into the neck of her shirt, began dancing to an episode of My Little Pony, but the TV kept flicking on and off. It had been doing this for days. Holly took the remote, pressed a few buttons. “I’ll call the cable guy, Ella. He’ll fix it.” Tossing the remote onto the couch. “Ella, honey? Don’t stand so close to the television. It’s bad for your eyes.”

Ella spun around, squinting. “What?”

“It’s bad for your eyes.”

Back in the kitchen, Holly checked the meatloaf. Called the cable company.

“Primm Cable,” a man answered.

“I need someone to come out to check my TV. We keep losing our signal. Is Caleb available? Young guy? Maybe midtwenties?”

“That’s me. I’m Caleb. Happy to help. What’s your address?”

“Twelve Petunia Lane.”

“Film school mom?”

“That’s me.” Nice to be remembered.

“I’m booked for the rest of the day, but I’ll come out late tomorrow morning. What seems to be the problem?”

“We keep losing the signal for the Hub Network, and my daughter likes watching—”

“My Little Pony.”

“Right. My Little Pony.” Holly cleared her throat. “I hate that cable is moving toward company-owned networks. It’s so . . . I don’t know. Commercial.” See? I went to film school. I’m cool. I’m hip. I know about these things.

“You haven’t traveled to Area 51 lately, have you? Nineteen forty-seven Roswell UFO incident?”

“In Nevada?” Holly tucked a finger in the ear opposite the phone. “Are you serious? I just moved from there. Boulder City.” She waited for a response, but it never came. So she asked, “Government cover-up?” Still no response. “I don’t understand,” she told him. “Hello? Are you still there? What does this have to do with my cable connection?”

“You tell me.”

“Wait. What?” This is so bizarre. “I’m confused.”

“That’s what they all say . . .”

“I’m not following you.”

“Someone might be following you,” he warned.

“What?”

“Just kidding! Have you decided anything about the Wilhelm Klaus?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Maybe there’s a three-minute film you can dig up from your portfolio to submit,” Caleb suggested. “You went to film school.”

“I did. Go to film school,” Holly said. “But I’ve been, um . . . busy. Doing stuff. You know, lots of things. Over the years. Like children’s literacy . . . and immunizations—art. We do lots of art. In crayons. Science things like museums . . . of science. And developmental! Those things. Like bikes and stuff.” Her voice wandered off. “Busy things. That moms do. You know, because it’s important. And tough! Boy, oh boy, is motherhood a tough job.” She needed to shift focus. “So. You have a YouTube channel?”