Free All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon Page B

that’s the problem: he’s gotten so old and tired that things don’t make him curious anymore, and that makes him grumpy and sad. I decide to find him a present that will make him curious again, something more special than Dexter could ever dream of. “Can I go to the bank?” I ask Mom.
    â€œNot today,” she says. “You have all those loonies in your jar.”
    â€œThat’s my pirate treasure,” I complain. Dexter snorts. “You snorted,” I tell her.
    â€œTeeth,” Mom says, pointing.
    In the bathroom, I squeeze gel paste onto my toothbrush and brush slowly, trying to stare up into the tube. Could an ancient god fit into there? When he turns back into his actual self, would he be all goopy and blue? I know—after all that witch business back at Halloween—there are no such thing as gods and goddesses and magic powers really, but it’s still interesting to think about the possibilities. Then Mom and Dex start calling me at the same time. I rinse and gargle and spit and pee and flush and wash my hands and stomp into my shoes and grab my ski jacket and race over to the front door. Then I’m dizzy.
    â€œI get to sit in the front,” Dexter says.
    â€œMommy,” I say. My head feels prickly.
    â€œI was ready first,” Dexter says.
    â€œI’m sick,” I say. Cleverly: “I might puke on the back of your neck.”
    â€œDon’t say puke,” Mom says.
    â€œIt’s just a word,” I say. Dexter gets to sit in front.
    The drive to the mall is as familiar as cheese. It’s so familiar it makes me sleepy. I know every house and tree. The little purple school that isn’t my school because it doesn’t have enough French, even though it’s closer to home. Wong’s corner store. The big woods, called Mundy Park, where Dad and I sometimes go for a walk.
    Once we saw rabbits in the woods, but when I got excited they ran away. The windshield wipers suck and slurp at the raindrops that pepper the windscreen. I lean my head back against the head pad in the back seat and wonder about the lives of rabbits. Closing my eyes feels like letting go of a helium balloon. Once I think I hear Mom say, “Ssh, she’s asleep,” and I wonder who she’s talking about.
    When we get to the mall I sit up and say, “I want a rabbit.”
    â€œAnd I want a parking spot,” Mom says. “You girls help me look.”
    We drive around the rooftop part and the underground part that echoes, but every space is taken. Cars looking for spaces are going slowly and people are running to and from their parked cars, holding plastic bags over their heads, trying not to get wet. I feel hot. “Mommy,” I say, and then I yawn.
    â€œThere,” Dexter says, stabbing a finger at the windscreen. Ahead of us, a van is backing out of a spot.
    â€œYes!” I say.
    â€œNo,” Mom says, because it’s a wheelchair spot— we see the white and blue symbol of a wheelchair painted on the ground as we drive by. A couple of spaces later she brakes when she sees a couple loading up their station wagon. They smile and wave at us to show they’re leaving as soon as they’ve packed all their shopping away.
    Dexter jiggles up and down in her seat impatiently. Mom catches my eye in the rearview mirror and grins. Dexter is extremely weird about the mall. She loves it. It makes her happier than anything else in the world, and she wants to go there every day. She knows each store and what things she wants from each store. She knows what’s a good deal and where you can get a better deal. She knows what food you can get at each of the fast-food counters in the food court and where the elevators are and where to get the best haircut and which stores have mirrors in the change rooms and which don’t. She’s a mall expert.
    â€œNow,” Mom says, but just as the station wagon backs out, a sports car