Free Always Florence by Muriel Jensen Page B

watched in amazement as Sandy’s gaze softened. She said nothing, but smiled into Hunter’s eyes.
    It surprised Nate that the girls didn’t seem frightened of Hunter, despite his full Frankenstein makeup, complete with a large bolt sticking out of his head.
    “Ah...” Hunter dragged his eyes away from Sandy and looked around for another subject. He found it in the little fairies that had alighted on Nate’s arms. “How come you have two of those,” he asked, “and I don’t have any?”
    “Clearly, I’m more important. Actually, they’re just on loan. I think my purpose here is to provide them with an aerial view. You want one?”
    Sheamus walked up to the group, the photo session over, and looked puzzled at the sight of Nate holding Sandy’s daughters. “We aren’t keeping them, are we?”
    “No. Here you go, Hunt. Have both. Girls, how about you let Uncle Frankenstein show you around?”
    The amenable pair leaned out of his arms toward Hunter without complaint.
    “We were about to join the dancing, Hunter,” Sandy told him. “Want to come?”
    He looked pleadingly at Nate, who ignored him.
    “Do I have to dance?” Hunter asked worriedly.
    “No.”
    “Then, yes. See you tomorrow, Nate.” He followed her across the room, his arms filled with her children. It was a good look for him, Nate thought.
    “Okay.” He put a hand on Sheamus’s shoulder and glanced around for Dylan. “Where’s your brother?”
    “He and a couple of his friends were gonna get some punch.”
    As Nate looked toward the refreshment table at the other side of the room, he heard a sudden, eerie whooshing noise that was immediately followed by the eruption of a green geyser shooting toward the ceiling. There were cries and screams and a great scattering of children and adults before the geyser collapsed as dramatically as it had risen, drenching everyone nearby.
    Nate saw three boys run for the door, one of them a very familiar Iron Man.
    He pushed his way through the crowd and reached the table just in time to see the principal of Astor School and the mayor soaked from head to toe in green slime. One of the bad words he’d fought so hard to control in the past few months slipped out. Sheamus, wide-eyed and glued to his side, blinked up at him. “Uncle Nate!”
    Nate did the mayor’s personal taxes, and he didn’t really know the principal, but he’d had a conversation with her about the boys right after the accident. She’d been kind and caring. Right now she maintained the carriage of a royal personage—despite the fact that she was green.
    “I’m...so sorry,” he said. He looked around frantically for something to help them wipe the slimy stuff off, just as several people ran from the kitchen with a stack of towels.
    A woman Nate recognized as the mother of one of Dylan’s friends held his nephew by the arm in one hand and a vampire by his cape in the other. A concerned mummy followed them, looking around furtively, as though considering escape. In the end, he chose to stay with his friends.
    Nate met Dylan’s eyes. Then, in a gesture of deliberate defiance, his nephew pulled off his headpiece and glared at him. Every word that came to Nate’s lips should not be used around children, so he remained silent as the principal stepped forward.
    She slanted a scolding look at the boys.
    “Are you all right, Mrs. Trumble?” the mayor asked as he wiped his face.
    “Oh, yes, Mr. Mayor. I can’t tell you how many times the Mentos−Diet Coke experiment has crossed my path. Nucleation never seems to get old for children.” Then she added a little more severely, “But I think someone’s allowances should pay for dry-cleaning the mayor’s suit and my dress.”
    The other parents involved, Steve and Judy Berg, a couple in their forties that Nate had met at an open house, and Kristy Moss, a single mother and the one who’d caught the boys, nodded their approval.
    “Good. And now I think the boys should clean this up.”