But Mouse. Something’s slunk away in him, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
‘I’m happy just to stay here, guys. Unless … someone wants to come too.’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Maybe.’ Oh, love. The nub of him. He’s grown extremely comfortable with his boundary of ‘no’ that he’s surrounded himself with over the years. Someone’s always going to help him out and that thinking has built up like a shell now encasing him; fear has become a leash on his life. You’ve facilitated it. So of course he’s happy right now to sit tight, safe, while everyone else figures out what to do next. But now this. A sister all pushy before him, his nerve-rash revving into life under her steely gaze, already claiming his cheeks, vining him, down, down, his neck, chest. It’s a sorry sight.
‘I want to go too.’ His brother, loud into the shardy quiet.
‘No. You’re too obvious together.’
‘I can’t do it by myself,’ Mouse whispers. No, he can’t. And in that vast churning silence he rubs his arms where Soli yanked him from under the bed but her face does not change, she will win this. He stares at the speedy bruises on his skin, the yellow petals already on his flesh and Tidge’s hand finds his shoulder, always there for him. Motl told them once that the difference with them is that there are yes-sayers and no-sayers and people who say yes are rewarded by the adventure they go on and people who say no are rewarded by their feeling of safety, and neither is better than the other, it’s just the way they are. And they always have to respect the other’s choice; they have to be their brother’s protector and must never forget it.
‘We all have to do this.’ Soli, iron in her voice. The one who doesn’t get weakness or maybe she does, too much. She spins Mouse around and propels him out.
‘You were adopted. I think you should know, in case I don’t come back.’
Soli’s hands drop. ‘I am not.’ But a voice that believes it.
‘Dad said so. I found the birth certificate in his drawer and I wasn’t allowed to tell you.’
A new, electric quiet. Soli’s paleness. Her mouth she forgot to shut. Mouse steps back. Pebbled now by the enormity of what he’s unleashed. The taste of his meanness sour in his mouth.
‘Get out,’ Soli says finally.
‘No, you weren’t, I made it up.’ Mouse laughs too loud. Trying to spool back the situation.
‘Get out. We don’t want you here. We don’t need you. You’re never any help.’
He frowns and rolls in his lips. Rooted, panicky, to the spot.
‘And walk like you belong,’ Soli says with a furious shove. ‘Not that you belong anywhere.’
He had that coming. But there’s the huge, glittery sting of it nonetheless. It’s in his face.
Change, impermanence, is a characteristic of life.