“This is interesting,” Liam said.
He was sitting cross-legged on the grass in Roshni’s backyard, surrounded by a sea of newspaper. Roshni and Amelia lay on towels in their bikinis. They were supposed to be working on their tans, but Roshni’s skin was brown anyway, and Amelia thought it was unfair to compare her tan to Roshni’s.
Roshni had parked herself for the day. She had a stack of Star and People magazines, a water bottle and a bag of chocolate-chip cookies. Amelia tried to sneak peeks at her watch. The backs of her knees were burning, and she really wanted to go home.
Zebra was probably shedding his skin right now, and she was missing it. His eyes had turned blue on Friday, and today was Sunday. And Duke had said she could help clean cages today. She’d only come over to Roshni’s because she couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough when Roshni phoned her that morning. Roshni was bossy, and Amelia had been half asleep. She’d promised herself she’d just stay for a little while.
Liam had showed up on his bike half an hour ago, with today’s Vancouver Sun under his rat trap. Great. She had only two friends, and one of them read junk celebrity magazines, while the other read newspapers. She was the only normal one. She rolled over on her back and watched a puffy white cloud drift across the blue sky.
“Very interesting,” Liam repeated from behind the newspaper.
“Okay, what is it?” Amelia propped herself up on her elbow. There was no point hoping Liam would go away. He could be as persistent as a mosquito.
“This is an article about lying,” Liam said. “Famous liars in history, like ex-president Clinton, and how to tell if someone is lying and stuff like that. Here’s a picture of Lance Armstrong. The slime.”
“Who’s Lance Armstrong?” Roshni said from the depths of her magazine.
“Roshni,” Liam said, “where have you been? Do you live under a rock or something? You really need to watch the news once in a while. And I don’t mean Entertainment Tonight. Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times, and he’s admitted he used drugs. He’s been lying about it forever.”
“Oh,” Roshni said.
“On average, people tell at least two lies a day, every day of their lives,” Liam read.
“I don’t,” Roshni said.
“Ha! That’s probably a lie right there!” Liam kept reading. “Daily life deception, on the little-white-lies scale, is necessary for good social relationships. Imagine a world where everyone told the truth. It would soon spiral into chaos—”
Roshni groaned.
“Do you want to hear the rest?” Liam said a bit huffily.
“Keep going,” Amelia said. Was keeping a secret the same as lying? “Read the part about how you tell if someone is lying.”
“Okay. Liars stare too long and too hard. They blink twice as frequently as truth-tellers. They are more likely to raise their eyebrows. They smirk when they’re trying to look sad. They use increased speech hesitations like ums and ers—”
“We get the picture.” Roshni pulled her bikini strap down on her shoulder to check her tan. “Amelia, will you come with me to the Lougheed Mall after school tomorrow? I’m allowed to get some new jeans.”
“Tomorrow?” Amelia had already missed most of the day with the animals.
She almost blurted out her secret, but then she changed her mind. Liam wouldn’t give it away, but Roshni would probably spill the beans accidentally to Amelia’s mom. That’s what Roshni was like.
Roshni was staring at her.
“I’m going to the dentist tomorrow,” Amelia said.
A lie. It just popped out.
“I thought you said your appointment was on Tuesday.”
“I have two appointments.” Second lie. She’d also lied to her mom that morning. When Diane said she was going to go downstairs to ask Duke if he knew anything about fixing lawn mowers, Amelia had told her Duke had a headache and was resting. So she was up to three lies already. Above the average. What kind of person did that make her?
Amelia displayed her jagged tooth to Roshni. “It’s going to take at least two appointments to fix.” She paused. “Maybe more.”
She tried not to blink, and she forced her eyebrows to behave themselves. Had she said um or er? She wasn’t sure. Her cheeks felt on fire.
Roshni turned back to her magazine. “If you say so.”
“Roshni’s mad at me,” Amelia said, kneeling beside Winston’s pen. “And I really miss Starla.” Tears pushed against the backs of her eyes, and her nose stuffed up. It caught her off guard. She usually tried hard not to think about her old best friend. At least, she had since their last phone call, when Starla had only talked for two minutes and then said she was going to a movie with Amber. Amber, who had been their sworn enemy all through grades four and five.
Amelia swiped at her eyes. “Roshni ignored me all day. It sucks.” She sighed. “Let’s change the subject. Do you know you’re a sulcata tortoise? I asked Duke. I googled it last night. It’s pretty neat, really.”
Winston waded through the hay, heading toward a shallow bowl of water. Amelia loved watching his stubby legs move in and out of his shell.
“You come from the edge of the Sahara Desert. Well, not you, but maybe your mother or your grandmother. You came from a pet store, I guess.”
Amelia didn’t want to make Winston feel sad. “But hey, deserts aren’t all that great. There are lots of prickly cactuses. And Duke said that if it’s hot again tomorrow and not too breezy, I can take you outside on the grass for a while.”
Winston opened and closed his eyes.
Amelia remembered something else the article she’d found online had said. Sulcata tortoises cannot be allowed to get chilled and wet.
There’d been a lot about respiratory illness. It sounded really bad. Did Winston look the same as yesterday? What was she supposed to even look for? Amelia got up carefully. She’d scorched the back of her knees at Roshni’s yesterday, and it hurt to move quickly. She’d ask Duke.
Duke was lying on the couch in the living room with a laptop on his stomach, talking on his phone. “Yeah, we’re getting low. Just some mice left…Okay, ten fuzzies, ten pups, a dozen hoppers and fifteen jumbos…Next week. Great.”
“What’s that all about?” Amelia said.
“An order for frozen rats. They come in different sizes.”
Was Duke kidding? “Fuzzies?”
“They’re the smallest. Like your pinkie. They’re just babies.”
“For the snakes, right?”
“Right.”
Amelia sighed. Was she really feeling sorry for dead rats? It was a bit confusing when just last night Zak had been sitting on her shoulder, nibbling her ear.
“Do you think Winston’s okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. I just checked him a little while ago.”
Amelia lowered herself into a saggy armchair. Duke passed her his laptop so she could see the photos he was uploading to his website. She thought the name of the website, Duke’s Den, was perfect. There was a great photo of the ferrets piled in their hammock, one of the bearded dragon, Apollo, grinning at the camera and one of Bill scowling through the bars of his cage.
She heard the shower in the bathroom shut off. A few minutes later Gabriella came out, wearing shorts and a tank top, her hair wrapped in a white towel. “Hey, Amelia. I have Rocky Road ice cream. Two-for-one coupon. You can get everybody some while I comb my hair.”
Amelia chatted to Beaker while she got out three bowls and spoons. The carton of ice cream was near the front of the freezer, surrounded by the baggies of frozen mice.
She carried the bowls into the living room. Duke balanced his bowl in front of his laptop and took bites while he typed.
Amelia could hear Gabriella in the bedroom, talking to someone on her phone. She was taking a long time. Her bowl of ice cream was melting into a puddle, and Amelia was wondering if she should stick it in the fridge when Gabriella came into the living room.
“That was the salon! They are cutting me back. They only want me three days a week.”
“What?” Duke stopped typing. “Crap! They can’t do that!”
“They just did.” Gabriella pushed Duke’s feet off the end of the couch and sank down. “Now what are we going to do?”
She buried her face in her hands. “Merde!”
She looked up. “Oops. That is not a good word for you to hear, Amelia. Promise me you won’t say it.”
“I promise.”
Amelia took the ice-cream bowls into the kitchen and poured Gabriella’s soupy ice cream down the sink.
“Beaker. Beaker. Beaker,” Beaker said softly.
“I’m going now,” Amelia called out, but no one answered her. She let herself out the door. She could hear Duke and Gabriella fighting about what vet bill they should pay first. Gabriella was crying.