Eliza and Her Monsters(34)

Wallace finishes reading the Children of Hypnos series on the second day of winter break. I know, because I get this text:

I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOU RIGHT AWAY ARE YOU BUSY

I am lying on my bed holding Davy like a body pillow and watching reruns of Dog Days. So I say no, I’m not doing anything right now, but wow, it’s too cold to go outside and my bedroom is too warm. Wallace says that’s fine, he’ll come to me.

Which means he’s coming to my house.

He’s coming to my house right now.

I fall off my bed, startling Davy bad enough that he falls off too. Then I scramble up to begin detaching my pen display from my computer. It’s too expensive for a normal high-school student, and way too advanced a piece of technology for someone who supposedly just does fan art she never posts online. Unfortunately, it’s also too big to hide in a drawer, and beneath my bed is a war zone of childhood toys. I put it carefully in the corner of my closet and toss some old sweatshirts over the top of it.

Then I scan through my desktop and make sure there aren’t any Monstrous Sea comic pages sitting out in the open. I sign out of my LadyConstellation account on the forums and into the MirkerLurker account. Tear down all the sticky notes on my monitor relating to what pages I need to get done and what plot points I need to work into the story, and I throw those in the closet with the pen display. Davy climbs back up on the bed and watches me like when am I going to come back and hold him like a stuffed animal again?

I throw the door open and hurry downstairs.

“Mom.”

“What, honey?” Mom asks. She’s in the living room, simultaneously planking and looking at a catalog of carpet swatches. She calls this “home decor calisthenics,” and she is a champion. She once redid the entire kitchen while doing pull-ups on the bar across the door to the front hallway.

“We don’t have anything to do today, right?”

“Sully and Church have practice later. Are you still available to take them?”

She says it like I have a choice. “I . . . well . . . what time is that at?”

“Four. Why?” She finally looks up. “Is something else happening today?”

“Um. Is it okay if Wallace comes over?”

She’s up and at the door in a second. Excitement fills her eyes, but that could be left over from the plank. “Of course. Does he want lunch? I can make lunch. Will you be spending the time in your room?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Is he coming now? Is that what you’re wearing?”

I look down. I’m wearing a T-shirt from one of Dad’s intramural baseball teams, so it’s about five sizes too big; a pair of ragged Harlem Globetrotters sweatpants, rolled up to just below my knees; and my thickest, warmest pair of socks. The socks are made out of Wookiee fur or something.

“And you should probably take a shower, don’t you think?” Mom says. “Your hair is a little greasy.”

I wish she wouldn’t point it out, but also she’s right. I rush upstairs, lock myself in the bathroom, and hop into the shower. I don’t know where Wallace lives, but it usually takes him fifteen minutes to get here. I’ve already spent ten of those, and I shower in five, and as I’m wrapping my hair up in a towel and pulling on a slightly better-fitting pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and my Wookiee socks, the doorbell rings.

“Eliza! Wallace is here!”

I shove the Wookiee socks back on my feet, and when I get to the top of the stairs, Mom is letting Wallace in through the front door.

“Hi there,” she says in her normal voice, holding out her hand for him to shake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! I’m Eliza’s mom.”

Wallace says something back, but it’s so quiet I can’t hear it. I’m surprised he said anything to her at all. Mom must be satisfied, because she turns around and smiles at me with her eyebrows raised. “Have fun, you two! I’ll get some lunch ready.”

She disappears into the kitchen. Wallace glances up at me. He’s wearing jeans, a sweater, and a fat brown corduroy jacket. All four Children of Hypnos books are tucked under one thick arm.

I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “You can come up to my room, if you want.”

Wallace climbs the stairs. I remember the towel wrapped around my hair and rip it off, chucking it back into the bathroom. I might as well embrace the drowned-rat look, because that’s as good as it’s getting today. At least I’ll smell nice.

Wallace stops beside me, holds up the fourth Children of Hypnos book—the one with a battle axe on the cover—and says softly, “You are joking.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was a little worried about that. Okay, come on. . . .”

I bring him to my room. Inside, Davy sits up on the bed, tail thumping against the wall.

“You have a dog?” Wallace forgets the books and stands by the bed for Davy to sniff him. Half a second later they’re cuddling on the bed, and Davy is doing his best to climb into Wallace’s lap.

I glance around the room to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I have a lot of Monstrous Sea stuff lying around, but all of it could’ve been bought by a fan. I turn down the volume on the television but don’t turn it completely off—I can’t handle Wallace being in my room without Dog Days to back me up. “That’s Davy. If he gets annoying, shove him onto the floor.”