“This is very, very cool,” Liam said. He was kneeling beside Amelia in front of Zebra’s aquarium, watching the snake twist and coil in slow circles. “He’s going to do it now? For sure?”
“Yup,” Duke said. “Good timing, huh? Okay. There he goes. See his head starting to come out?”
“Roshni better get in here, or she’s going to miss it,” Liam said.
“It won’t happen that fast,” Duke said.
When they’d first arrived, Roshni had wandered around the reptile room, looking at everything. Her first favorite, she’d declared, was the frog, Nate, who she insisted really did look like a ripe red tomato. Her second favorite was the little bearded dragon, Apollo. Then, before Amelia could warn her, she’d walked right up to Bill’s cage. The iguana crashed against the bars with a ferocious snap of his jaws. Roshni had screamed and leaped backward. Thanks for the warning, Amelia, she’d said, as if it were Amelia’s fault.
She had scooted back to the living room, where Amelia could hear her talking to Gabriella. Now Amelia opened the door and shouted, “He’s doing it, Roshni!”
“Can I bring the bunny?” Roshni called back.
“No,” Duke said. “It’s way too hot in here.”
When Roshni came into the room, Liam glanced up. “I hope you’re not going to talk the whole time.”
“Who’s talking now?” Roshni said.
Amelia ignored them. Zebra was slipping out of his old grayish-white skin. It’s like he’s sliding out of a sleeping bag in slow motion, she thought. A sleeping bag made out of delicate cobwebs.
They watched in silence as the snake coiled around and around the aquarium, his whole head and then his body emerging until finally he had left the old skin behind.
“He’s done,” Liam said. “Wow. That was fantastic.”
“One of these days I’m going to make a video of that and put it on YouTube,” Duke said. He reached into the aquarium and carefully picked up the discarded skin. “One of you guys want this?”
Liam looked at Amelia. “Go ahead,” she said. She would have liked it, but she could tell Liam wanted it even more.
“Oh boy, thanks,” Liam said. “This is great.”
“I’ll get you an old margarine tub to put it in,” Duke said. “This is a good one. You don’t always get it in one piece.”
Amelia admired Zebra’s gleaming new black-and-white skin and then went in search of Roshni, who had disappeared again.
She found Roshni curled up at one end of the couch, cradling Georgia, and Gabriella at the other end, clipping coupons from a printed sheet.
“Omigod, Georgia is so cute,” Roshni said. “I’m going to ask my mom if I can adopt her.” She stroked the bunny’s soft ears. “Hey, Georgia, would you like to come and live with me?”
Liam came into the living room, holding the margarine container carefully. “I gotta go now. Are you coming, Roshni?”
“Yeah, okay.” Roshni nestled the bunny beside Gabriella and stood up.
“Gabriella’s going to give us a free pedicure tomorrow,” she said to Amelia. “To celebrate school being over.”
“Really?” Amelia had painted her fingernails once (it had all chipped off in a few days, and the color had been way too orange), but she had never done her toes. A real pedicure sounded amazing.
Gabriella shrugged. “I have no work tomorrow. Again. So it is something for me to do. You can have one too, Liam, if you want.”
Liam went red. “No way. Come on, Roshni. I’ve got to get home.”
“Okay, okay.” Roshni paused. “Purple. With gold sparkles. Can you do that, Gabriella?”
Liam shoved her out the door.
When they had gone, Amelia crouched beside the gecko’s tank. Mary had a smiley face like Apollo’s, but her eyes were different. They were big and round, like two marbles. “So what happened to Mary’s tail exactly?”
“It fell off,” Duke said. “Stress. She got out of her cage and hid under a couch for a week before someone found her.”
“Will it grow back again?”
“Nope.”
Mary’s pink tongue darted out and swiped the surface of one of her eyes. “Hey,” Amelia said. “What’s she doing? She just licked her eye!”
“That’s an eyeball kiss,” Duke said. “She doesn’t have any eyelids, so that’s how she keeps them clean and hydrated. You can give her a drink if you want.”
Mary didn’t drink out of a bowl but licked droplets off leaves instead. Amelia got the spray bottle from the kitchen and lifted the wire-mesh lid of the tank. She carefully sprayed the plastic foliage.
Mary didn’t move.
“I don’t think she’s thirsty.”
“She’ll drink later, when you’re not watching her,” Duke said. “Why don’t you take Winston outside for a while?”
“Can I? Really?”
“Sure. Just take him out on the grass and let him walk around. It’s good for him.”
Duke trusted her. Amelia glowed.