I’M SITTING ON the sofa with Bando in my lap, Grandma right next to me. Lamont is in an armchair facing us. We’re all sipping tea, like this is a completely normal get-together. But it’s not. Not at all.
It’s a good thing Grandma collects cast-off clothes in her spare time. She managed to find a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for Lamont that almost fit. His fancy tux jacket and pants are hanging from a hook in the bathroom. His shirt is soaking in the sink. I’m hoping that soap is really strong.
“So, how do you two know each other?” asks Grandma.
There’s no easy way to answer that question. I decide to start at the beginning.
“Okay, Grandma, a lot of this is going to sound strange.” I take a deep breath and then release it. “Right. Here we go. About a week ago, I got a letter at school. From a lawyer.” Grandma’s head tilts and her eyebrows lift.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I didn’t murder anyone.”
Lamont just sits there sipping his tea.
“I went to the lawyer’s office today and he told me that somebody had left me some kind of inheritance from somebody’s will.”
“An inheritance.” Grandma repeats the word carefully. She looks at Lamont.
“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I never even made out a will.”
Now I launch into the whole story, talking fast. The warehouse. Fletcher. The lab. Lamont waking up. Him asking about Margo. The fact that Lamont has basically been in a coma since 1937. I leave out the stuff about the Shadow for now. I mean, enough is enough.
Grandma listens to everything. Very polite. At the end, I expect her to flip out, or say she doesn’t understand, or that she’s confused, or that she thinks it’s all a big joke. Instead, she just nods.
As if this weren’t strange to her at all.
“We should eat,” she says.