Monday morning. Kitchen School. Maps out. My dad has his boring black coffee. Poppy has her colored pencils. Sequoia has his almond milk. I have my dreams. It was a good weekend. With the football game. And the rush of winning. And Nico. But now Nico is back at school across the street and I’m stuck here with my family, talking about geography and places in the world.
“If you could step outside and go anywhere you wanted, right this very second, where would it be?” Poppy asks as her purple pencil hovers over a map of the world.
Sequoia’s thinking hard as my mom comes in from the garden and plunks her cardboard box of herbs on the counter.
“Not the farmers market,” I mutter.
“Oh! Oh! I know! The Middle Ages!” Sequoia shouts.
“Duh. Real places,” Poppy says. “That we can go to now.”
“I think the Middle Ages sounds interesting,” my mom says, sorting out bundles.
“This is the problem with Kitchen School,” I say. “I’m supposed to be talking all serious about going to Singapore or something, and instead I’m here with a second grader who wants to go on some fantasy time-travel trip.”
“June,” my dad admonishes. “Tone.”
“Okay, fine.” I fold my hands on the table like a serious student and look at my brother. “Why do you want to go to the Middle Ages?”
“Dragons.” He crosses his arms, all proud of himself.
Poppy slams her purple pencil down. “There weren’t actual dragons in the Middle Ages.”
“How do you know? You weren’t there!” Sequoia shouts.
Poppy picks up her pencil again and points it at him. “I know because I’m alive in the world. And I pay attention when Dad tells us history stuff. Dragons are something people made up to scare each other so everyone would stay in line.”
“Not to mention they gave chest-pounding dude bros an excuse to go off on big adventures all in the name of slaying,” I add. I bet Teddy and those friends of his from the party would’ve fallen all over themselves to slay dragons.
“That’s not true,” Sequoia insists.
Poppy tosses an exasperated look at him. “What really happened is dinosaur bones were showing up all over the place and nobody knew what they were. So bam! They made up dragons.”
My dad smiles triumphantly. “That’s one theory,” he says. “Does anyone remember others?”
“Something about the Bible,” I mumble. “Dragons were Satan.”
“Gold star,” my dad says.
I twirl my finger next to my head. “Whoop-de-do.”
“Oh, June, honestly,” my mom says, shaking out some herbs. “Don’t be such a teenager.”
“News flash! I am a teenager. I’m sixteen years old. I can’t exactly not be sixteen years old. Therefore, I can’t not be a teenager.”
My whole family starts laughing.
“What?” I say.
“You’re so literal,” Poppy says.
“Literally,” my dad says, and everyone cracks up again.
I push my chair back from the table. “Fine. I’m going to recess.”
Sequoia rolls his eyes. “We don’t have recess.”
“No kidding,” Poppy says, looking up from her map to watch me sit down again. “Now she’s being the opposite of literal. Ironic. Or sarcastic? Which one is it, Mom?”
My mom studies me. “She’s being Juniper. That’s what she’s being. Acting like she’s a caged bird and we’ve clipped her wings.”
“If we were in the Middle Ages, you could go out and slay dragons,” Sequoia tells me. “To have an adventure. And be a hero.”
“You know,” my mom says, “we had Vikings in our family on Grandma’s side. Do you think our ancestors were dragon slayers?”
Sequoia rubs his hands together. “Ooh.” His gaze wanders dreamily to the ceiling, like he’s imagining all of it.
“I think it’s in our blood,” my mom continues. “To get out there and conquer the world.” She looks at me. “I understand you more than you think I do, Juniper Jade.”
“We both do, Junebug,” my dad says, and winks at me. I wiggle uncomfortably in my chair. “After all, your mom and I did pack up an old Toyota and drive ourselves to Woodstock with only twenty dollars each. Yet somehow we made it through by innovation and perseverance.”
“Please no. Not the Woodstock stories,” Poppy moans.
“Wannabe Woodstock,” I correct.
“The rains were great that day,” Poppy begins like she’s narrating an epic poem.
“And the mudslides even greater,” I finish.
“Oh, you two,” my mom says. “You know you wish you could’ve been there.”
“Um, no,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” my dad says. “It’s basically like that Coachella thing you want to go to now.”
My mom stops with the herbs and sidles up to my dad, who is still sitting in his teacher chair. He puts his arm around her waist and pulls her closer. He doesn’t think about it. He just does it automatically. Because they have this unspoken way about them. It’s their history, I guess. The years together. The Wannabe Woodstock stories and living unconventionally and driving a beat-up Toyota into the sunset. Then getting married and having kids and teaching them about dragons in the kitchen.
I feel tears prick the corners of my eyes.
I complain a lot about my life, but at the heart of it, there is this. There is here. My family. All together. Laughing in the kitchen.
Even in all their quirky weirdness, I love them.
But what will happen to this calm after I get an attorney, assuming I can find one to take my case? Do we go to court? Could my parents get in trouble for being negligent? Will someone take Poppy, Sequoia, and me away from here and everything we know?
From my mom and her box of herbs to my dad adding a last-minute note to his geography lesson. From my sister coloring in all the parts of the big, wide world on her map to my brother dreaming of dragons.
Can I really risk losing this?
Can I really risk losing them?