Landon woke with a headache and butterflies in his stomach, but knew that with his mom, if there wasn’t any vomit or temperature, you were going to school. His mom was a fanatic about school attendance.
“Ninety percent of success is just showing up,” she’d say.
So he did his thing in the bathroom, tugged on the khaki shorts and new strawberry-colored Izod shirt his mom had laid out for him, and clomped down the stairs. His dad sat bent over his computer in the great room. Landon waved as he passed into the kitchen, but his father was lost in his writing. Landon’s mom was speaking to him, but he didn’t hear a thing. He read her lips.
“Where are your ears, Landon?”
He shook his head, thought he might actually throw up from nerves, and returned to his bedroom for the ears. When he got back, Genevieve was at the table, halfway through her pancakes, and looking worried herself.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She put her fork down and cleared her plate. “Let’s do this, okay?”
Landon forced a chuckle. “That’s a little dramatic. We’re not going into battle, Genevieve.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you’re not.”
Landon picked at his own pancakes, cleared his plate from the table, and went to say good-bye to his dad. Landon had to tap his father three times before his fingers stopped dancing on the keyboard. He looked up, blinking. “Oh, hey, buddy. Wow. In a zone. Ready for school?”
“I guess so.”
“Hey.” His dad put his hands on Landon’s shoulders. He nodded toward his computer before looking deep into Landon’s eyes. “Nodnal is fighting the dragon right now. That’s the scene I’m on. His hair and eyebrows have been roasted off his head. He’s bleeding from his nose and his sword is broken. The dragon is crashing down on top of him, and do you know what’s gonna happen?”
Landon watched his father’s eyebrow creep up into an arch on his forehead.
“He’s gonna be crushed?” Landon didn’t see how it could go any other way.
His father’s lips quivered into a small smile. “No, Landon. Nodnal dives to the ground with his sword like this.”
Landon’s dad gripped the handle of his pretend sword, one hand on top of the other like a baseball bat. “The broken sword is straight up, like a post. The dragon comes down with all his weight and impales his heart, just a nick, on the jagged tip. On reflexes alone, the dragon jumps up and away, trips, falls flat on his back . . . and dies.”
Landon simply stared. After a few moments, he said, “This is real life, Dad.”
“I know it is.” His father mussed Landon’s hair. “But happy endings abound. Where do you think happy endings came from, buddy? Real life. Go get yourself one.”
Landon’s dad turned back toward his screen and went to work.
Landon walked out the door. Genevieve was waiting for him in the driveway. She wore a short Abercrombie dress with a matching dark blue ribbon to hold back her thick hair from her face.
Landon took a deep breath and let it loose. “Ready?”
“Not yet.” Genevieve shook her head. “Mom said for us to wait. She’s going with us before she goes to the train station.”
“Oh, boy.”
Genevieve bit her lip. “Yup. She better not do anything crazy.”
Their mom came out of the garage, heading their way with her briefcase strap over her shoulder. Her mouth was stretched as thin as a paper cut. “Okay, kids. First day of school in Bronxville. Thought I’d have a little chat with the principal. Ready?”
The word “chat” told them that their mom was ready for a fight. Landon and Genevieve exchanged a look.
She was already past them, headed directly for the middle school.