Free Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen by Glen Huser

she has with all her trips in it. The Wrinkle Queen has a cellphone! Life is so unfair.
    â€œAsk for a smoking room,” she says, “and I like something with a view of the bay. Here, let me talk to the desk clerk. I know the room I want.”
    When she’s on the phone, she doesn’t sound like she’s a million years old. She sounds like she’s used to having people listen to her and doing what she says.
    The trip to Holt Renfrew will have to wait for a few days. I have a final tomorrow. English. I’ll need to studya bit but it’s actually my best subject. Math is the killer but it’s two days down the line. Shirl has my exam schedule taped to the fridge door and insists on doing the dishes tonight. But Herb is out with his bowling league so I offer to keep an eye on Lizzie and Lyle while they have their baths.
    â€œWhere’s Dad?” Lyle pouts.
    â€œIn jail,” I say.
    â€œJail?” Lizzie is twirling around with a bath towel cape but this stops her. “He’s not in jail.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I pour a capful of shampoo for Lyle.
    â€œHow do you know?” Lizzie fires back.
    â€œBecause I had him arrested.”
    â€œDid not.”
    â€œDid too.”
    No wonder Herb escapes to bowling once a week. Of course, once they’re in their pajamas they beg for a story.
    â€œAll right,” I say. “The name of this story is
Great Expectations
.” And I begin to tell them about Pip’s trip into the graveyard to see his parents’ grave when he runs into the escaped convict.
    â€œWhat’s a caped convict?” Lyle asks.
    â€œIt’s someone who was in jail but ran away.”
    â€œLike Dad?”
    â€œThat’s right,” I say, “but he’s not escaped. He’s locked up until ten o’clock tonight. Then they’ll let him out and you’ll see him at breakfast tomorrow morning.”
    Miss Whipple has given us a study sheet. Item number one tells us to review a novel we’ve studied in class during literature circles. I fish
Great Expectations
out of my backpack and reread a couple of my favorite parts. I like Estella the best. I bet she would have had a perfect fashion sense. Beautiful. Moving through the world with everyone paying attention to her. And not having to really do anything except be nice to a crazy old woman with lots of money.

14
    Waiting for Skinnybones. She phoned my cell this morning to tell me the letters are ready and she’d be over by three. It’s four now.
    I think of Byron off on his holiday. He came to see me before heading to the airport. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and some kind of baggy khaki shorts with bulging pockets, and sandals.
    â€œNow, you’re sure you have everything you need, Auntie?” he gushed. He’d brought me a bag of toiletries, shopping from a list I’d given him. Even made a special trip to get me a carton of cigarillos. Better to have too many than too few.
    â€œI should stop at the office and let them know where to contact me in case of emergency.”
    â€œOh, no!” I startled him, grabbing his hand. “I’ve already told them you’ll be gone, and I wrote down thenames and numbers of your hotels when the travel agent got your package ready. Didn’t want you to be bothered, dear, with all the getting ready you’ve had to do.”
    For a minute I thought he was going to shed a tear, but he gulped and gave me a hug.
    â€œLove you, Auntie.”
    Never in his life has Byron said he loved me. I think he was as surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth as I was. Until he was about seven, he used to run and hide whenever I visited my brother. Not that I minded. He was a slow, stuttering child with a perpetually runny nose and a whiny, plaintive voice.
    â€œHave a wonderful trip,” I said. I walked him to the front door, afraid he might stop in at the office at the last minute.
    That