Munmun(66)

“Kitty, no one’s even talking to you,” said Daisy.

But Markfive glanced at Kitty and a thoughtbubble appeared above his head of, perhaps if I flirt with Kitty then Daisy will get jealous.

“Kitty, I would be honored to have you as a date to my dad’s awfull birthday,” said Markfive all smooth while Daisy tried to dislocate her eyeball.

“Ohmygod that’s fantastic, hey can we bring Warner too, it would be a real eyeopener for him, part of your schoolproject,” beamed Kitty even smoother.

“Uh, well sure I guess,” said Markfive.

“Try not to crash and kill everyone,” suggested Daisy.

“Ohmygod I would love to come, do you think I could come too,” Prayer asked me.

I took it to Kitty and she cringed a little and said, “You can ask Markfive I guess, but I think that’s pushing it.”

“Kitty doesn’t like me,” sorrowed Prayer back in our bedroom. “It’s okay, you just wait, I’ll make it to Balustrade one day onmyown, who will be laughing then.”

“You I guess,” I said, backing away from my crazy sis.

But I decided to push it and asked Markfive, he surprised me by being pumped.

“Oh hellyeah,” said Markfive. “Greatidea to bring your sis, she’s hilarious.”

So five of us drove up to Balustrade in his triplecar. Kitty rode in the frontseat and in the back Prayer and I were strapped in next to Lily, the mom of Markfive, a happy wicked pretty gumdrop in resplendent dresses, coppery hair waterfalling in every direction, burbling giggles like a fountain.

“Ohmygod, I love your hair so much, can it even be real,” marveled smooth Prayer to Lily.

“Haha no ofcourse not, anyway thank you, Blessing,” Lily said, she wasn’t great with names. Meanwhile Prayer beamed like, that’s my name allright, it’s Blessing.

“It’s true, Lily, you’re looking fantastic, this idiot Mark’s going to take one glance at you and then kill himself,” I said.

“I tell you what, you little morsel of muscle, he absolutely will if he sees me walking around with a stud like you,” she said.

“Mom, Warner, can you atleast not flirt right in front of me,” said Markfive.

“Can I just ask, which of your friends can I flirt with right in front of you,” sighed Lily.

The roads stopped tenmiles from Mark’s house, infact tenmiles from everyhouse, Balustrade had no internal roads. Instead the highwayexit emptied into a complex of hangars, parkingtowers, airstrips, bunkers, everywhere was teams of drivers scurrying around arranging the blimps and tanks, gunmen too.

MARK IS FIFTYFIVE BIRTHDAYPARTY sang the twinkling screens above one parkingtower, we zoomed inside to park and by the time we were out of our car one of Mark’s drivers had pulled up next to us in a golfcart to take us the last tenmiles over a biggolfcourse.

“Markfive, Lily, are you sure each of your guests will bring birthday happiness to Mark,” said the driver, staring at me and then Prayer.

“Who knows, I mean you never know who’s going to make him happy, yolo though basically,” said Markfive.

The driver continued to stare at us wordlessly, hoping to turn us around and throw us back down the road with sheer eyepower.

“One thing I have a hunch Mark will not love, is if his fifth and smartest son is disrespected by having his guests and friends turned away, just a hunch but maybe you’d agree,” suggested Lily.

In the golfcart I whispered to Markfive, is Mark not going to want me or Prayer at this party.

“Here’s what that was about,” explained Markfive. “Mark doesn’t like having people around whose voices he can’t hear super well. Basically anyone smaller than middlescale, he really has trouble hearing them, and he hates that because then he has to say what, and they have to repeat themselves, and it interrupts the otherwise smooth flow of his life. So, I guess if you have anything to say to him, please bellow it at the top of your lungs, but also feel free to just shut up, that would be fine too.”

“Speak your mind,” urged Lily, “I will protect you.” And she hugged me from the side, my head into the pillowy skin beneath her tits.

We crested over the eighteenth hole and looked down into the wide forest lipping the bay, five big clearings near the water, a bighome in the middle of each one.

Even if you think before you see bighomes, I know what they’re like, I’ve seen them on the news sometimes, nope, you have no idea, even looking at the realthing you don’t see them, your eyes refuse to eye them.

Each was hundreds of feet high and a halfmilewide, each was its own work of art. One was a chunk of glass cubes, one was a plantation. One was a lordoftherings castle of craggy boulders and one was a shintoeshrine, roofcorners curling up like dry leaves. And one was a pastel spannishvilla, home of Mark, right now swarms of drones are hanging birthdaybanners over it.

On the coast of a bay the size of a neighborhood, as big as Eat Almanac, all you had were five bighomes, although then through the trees you could see little villages around each bighome, the homes of the staffing middles.

Prayer was speechless, soundless, eyes and mouth ohing like a fish.

“I guess this is the town of Balustrade,” I asked stupidly.

“Oh, this is just the southernmost tip,” said Markfive. “It continues north like this about a hundredmiles.”