Midnight Runes (The Bestowed Ones) (10 page)

He smiled. “Just wait. You’re going to be impressed.”

“I’m sure I am,” I replied sardonically. “All that matters is to get it done. The faster we get this float built, the less time I have to spend with Emilee outside of school. So if you’re as good as you say you are…that’s all that matters.”

“She is exceptionally difficult, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but I’m only on her radar now that you’re here.”

• • •

Fortunately, Elyse and I weren’t the first to arrive to Emilee’s house. A few people were already in her living room, gathered around the float sketches, excitedly talking about how to bring them to life. Others were in the kitchen, organizing the supplies.

Emilee’s voice was full of anticipation. “I heard that Landon is coming. Isn’t that awesome?”

“We’re here to work, not for you to show him your lingerie,” Zach said.

“That’s not going to stop me from giving him a tour and making a special detour to my bedroom.” She winked and gave a devious smile.

I looked at Elyse and rolled my eyes. She shook her head.

Landon arrived at the same time as a few other people. I took in what he wore—a plaid flannel shirt, torn jeans, work boots, and a tool belt around his waist—and laughed.

“Nice outfit,” I managed to say.

“Hey, man, you know it’s not Halloween yet, right?” Wayne said.

“Anyone who dresses like that knows how to use tools,” Zach said.

Landon gave us an I-told-you-so look.

Adrienne ignored the disruption. “So everyone is on the same page, the trailer will be divided into four quadrants: Transformers, Rainbow Brite, the Smurfs, and Inspector Gadget. Let’s split up into teams to bring each cartoon to life. We have boxes, paints, glue, adult- and kid-sized mannequins, donated clothing, all sorts of kitchen tools and metal pipes and other things. The guys who can build stuff need to head outside to work with the dads.”

“That means you, Bob the Builder,” Logan said to Landon.

Elyse and I giggled, but Landon caught us as he walked by.

“How about a friendly wager?” he offered.

I raised my eyebrows wondering what he had in mind.

“If we get more done than you, and we will, you have to dress like this at school. Including an empty tool belt.”

I would have rather gone to school naked than to wear that. On second thought, that wasn’t true, but it wasn’t going to happen. “And when
we
get more done than you?”

“Highly unlikely, but I’ll pay my dues.”

Elyse and I turned to each other, determination in our eyes. We picked creating the Smurfs as our project and got to work. The float sketch showed enough room for three Smurfs. As a group, we had previously decided on Papa Smurf, Smurfette, and Brainy Smurf, but Elyse and I made a last-minute decision to scrap him for Handy Smurf, in honor of Landon’s outfit.

We pulled out three child-sized mannequins and evaluated the work required to convert them.

“We need to make the ears, nose, and feet bigger. And we need to make hats,” I said.

“Let’s carve the modifications out of Styrofoam and glue them on.”

“That’s going to be really messy,” I said.

Elyse caught on. “That’ll be too bad if we get Styrofoam all over the place. We’ll do our best not to make a mess,” she mocked.

“Good idea,” I agreed. We weren’t malicious enough to actually make a mess on purpose, but we reveled in the thought of it. “There’s probably a bunch in the donated boxes.”

We rushed over to the boxes, opened each one, and grabbed what we needed. We hurried outside and set up our operation next to a large garbage can.

We dug into the white material with borrowed kitchen knives. We nearly had them finished when the wind picked up and lifted the tiny bits of Styrofoam out of the garbage and over to the guys. It looked like they were standing in a snow globe.

“What is that stuff?” Zach asked.

“It’s snowing!” Wayne said.

“No, it’s not melting on my tongue,” Logan said and wiped off his tongue on his sleeve.

I snuck a glance at Landon’s progress. He was too preoccupied measuring a piece of trim to notice the fake snow floating in the air. He wrote a number and looked up.

“Sabotage by distraction. Very unexpected,” he lightheartedly said.

“Paranoid much?” I said.

He laughed.

After Elyse and I made samples of each piece, completing the rest of them was easy. Elyse finished the noses and moved on to the ears when I was halfway done with the shoes. We finished carving at the same time and moved onto the hats.

“One needs to be painted all blue, and the other two are blue just from the waist up. We also need red paint,” I said.

“Let’s glue the pieces on with superglue, then set up a painting area.”

I taped a drop cloth to the cement in the garage, and Elyse brought out the painting supplies.

“What are we going to make Landon do when he loses? He obviously loves wearing that get-up so it’s not enough to have him wear it to school,” I said.

“The best idea I’ve had so far is to ban him from wearing it, but that seems a little extreme,” Elyse said.

“It isn’t if it’s for one building party. How about making him dress up? Khakis, dress shirt, that type of thing.”

“That’s perfect.”

By the end of the evening, we had accomplished more than we thought we would. Our little Smurfs were modified and painted, the guys had finished construction on the trailer, and the others had made great progress on Inspector Gadget’s gadgets and a shimmery rainbow for Rainbow Brite.

We asked Emilee’s parents to judge which team completed more and they called it a tie. So much for winning our little wager.

Elyse protested, saying that we worked in a group of two, while Landon’s team had four, but they wouldn’t budge—I could see they wanted to keep the peace. I agreed with Elyse and we claimed our win. I think Landon agreed, since he didn’t say much. My competitive side wouldn’t let me walk away without him admitting defeat.

“Don’t mean to gloat, but you do know that we are the victorious ones here, right?” I said.

“If that’s what you want to believe, despite the official ruling,” Landon said.

Elyse joined in, “That’s ridiculous. Don’t you want to know what Brynn wants you to do since we won?”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” he teased, pretending to think it over.

I didn’t wait for him to make a decision. “At the next party, you have to dress up. You can’t look like a construction worker.”

“But that’s how you’re supposed to dress when you build things.”

“That’s the point. See ya,” we both said with a wave.

Elyse and I walked to my car, laughing at the image of Landon using a miter saw in fancy clothes and safety glasses.

“I think this is going to be our best class float yet,” she said.

“Better than the pyramids and camels for the Seven Wonders of the World last year?”

She nodded.

“I have to see it put together before I can say that. It should look amazing, though.”

She took out her phone. “I told Jared I’d text him when we left. We’ll have to get together tomorrow. He wanted to tonight, but it’s already 8:30.”

“Isn’t your curfew at ten?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to spend all my time with him. He’ll get spoiled.”

She was quiet the rest of the way to her house, texting him the entire time.

I pulled up in her driveway. As she unbuckled her seatbelt she asked, “You’re coming in, right?”

“Uh, sure. I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Whatever,” she shot back.

After greeting her parents, we went to her room. She turned on the radio and collected her scattered clothes before sitting on her fuchsia bed. I sat in her pale pink desk chair.

“How many outfits did you try on today?” I teased.

“Two, but I haven’t cleaned lately. Cleaning’s no fun. Could you believe Emilee tonight? Can’t she pick a project and actually do work? She drove me nuts, walking around the whole time like she was a supervisor or something,” Elyse vented.

“I did notice that—she was outside a lot too, even though it was chilly.”

“She
is
an ice princess, so she’s used to the cold. She seems to like Landon. She tried to talk to him while he was working, but he ignored her.”

I hated the idea of him and Emilee together. My plan was definitely backfiring on me. “Is that why you were laughing and wouldn’t tell me the reason?”

“Uh-huh. Now I’m going to watch them together to see if he’s just being a guy—slow on the uptake, or if it’s on purpose.”

“She’ll just get more and more obvious…or obnoxious.”

“She doesn’t have to try hard to be obnoxious. Oooh, I love this song!” Elyse jumped up and turned the radio up.

“Did you know they’re on tour?” Elyse said. “They haven’t announced all the cities yet, but let’s go if they come here.”

“I’ll have to borrow your CDs so I know more of their songs. I only know the ones you play.”

“Really, you need to expand your musical world.”

“That’s why I have you,” I said.

T
wo days later, I picked Elyse up for another float-building party. She texted Jared the whole way there, just like last time.

I kept shooting her glances, but she was too focused on her phone to notice. I couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s the deal?”

“We’re trying to figure out plans for Saturday night. I don’t feel like going to see an action movie, but he’s being stubborn. We’re trying to compromise.”

“Or you’re trying to compromise him.”

“He can give in a little. Last time we rented a completely awful movie. I want my two and a half hours back. And he picked it, so he owes me.”

I felt a pang of jealously but mostly sadness. Trevor and I no longer watched movies together. We no longer made Saturday night plans.

I drove the rest of the way in silence.

Zach was pulling packages out of his trunk when we arrived at Emilee’s. He pulled a large bag out and waited for us. Giving us an annoyed stare, he said, “I thought you’d never show up. You’re pretty late.”

I stopped walking and put a hand on my hip. “Come on, we’re not that late. And we’re nearly done with our stuff.”

“Honestly, Zach. What’s with all the dramatics?” Elyse asked.

“Queenie over there,” he said, gesturing to Emilee’s house, “is all freaked out over the junior’s float. She somehow got her hands on pictures of it and she went off on some tirade about how it’d be pathetic to get beaten by juniors. Apparently they’re almost done.”

“So are we! We’ll finish our section tonight.”

“Then we’ll help another group,” Elyse added. “So help me, if she even looks at us the wrong way—”

“It’ll be fine,” I interrupted. “I bought a small bunch of plastic flowers for Smurfette to hold, and I stopped in a kid’s resale shop on a whim yesterday and found this.” I reached into my tote bag. “I think it’s very fitting.” I handed a small toolbox to Elyse and couldn’t help grinning triumphantly.

Elyse took it and popped the latch. She peeked inside and giggled. “This is awesome! We can rig it so that he’s holding the hammer! And we’ll even put this case at his feet.”

“I couldn’t think of any props for Papa Smurf, so he’ll just be observing the other two. I think when it’s time to attach them to the float, we should put them standing on moss. Their home
was
in the woods, after all.”

Zach just looked irritated. “Well, let’s get to work already. I don’t want her to look out here and see us standing around.”

Elyse and I both gave him a look.

“Yeah, I know, but my life is much better if I don’t fight her on everything,” he said. “You know, pick and choose your battles.”

We smirked but kept our comments to ourselves. The three of us walked into the backyard to work on our respective projects.

I didn’t realize Landon was there until I heard Emilee call him to help her. I scanned the yard and saw him tell Zach where to cut a piece of trim before heading to the house. Was he her personal assistant now?

He caught my eye, twisted toward me, and tugged on his shirt to show me what was on it. I covered my mouth to stop from laughing loud enough to draw attention and gave him a thumbs-up. It was a tuxedo T-shirt.

He went into the house and came back out carrying a stack of pizza boxes.

“Hey, you want a piece of pizza?” I asked Elyse.

“Sure. No onions.”

I jumped up and walked to the table he set the boxes on.

I grabbed two napkins and lifted a lid. “Love the shirt, by the way.”

“Figured you would.”

“It’s not exactly what I envisioned.”

“It’s in the same spirit.”

“The safety glasses certainly complete the look.”

“I thought they added a nice touch.”

I selected a piece for Elyse and myself.

“Why are you so focused on what he’s wearing, Brynn?” Emilee’s icy voice asked. “Do you wish you were there to help him get dressed?” I felt my cheeks flush. “Anyway, I’m glad you could make it tonight. Hope it wasn’t too inconvenient for you.”

I spun around. “Of course it wasn’t inconvenient. We planned on coming.”

“It’s just that you were late. I figured you thought you didn’t have to do any more work.”

“Are you keeping track of me?”

“I wanted to ask you if you thought you’d be able to help out the Transformers group.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But on second thought, that might be too much to ask.”

“Actually, we’re finishing our section tonight, and we planned on helping other groups.”

“Good. That’s one less thing for me worry about. I can’t monitor everyone all the time.”

“I didn’t know you were nominated to do so.”

“That’s what leaders do.”

“Leaders are elected to their positions,” I said. “I don’t remember an election. Why don’t you do some actual work?” I was getting more irritated with her attitude, especially since she hadn’t done any tangible work on the float yet.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Our Smurfs will be ready soon. Why don’t you attach them to the float?”

Landon made a choking sound, and I half-turned to him.

“That’s a great suggestion! But I don’t do manual labor. I can, however, oversee Landon during installation. It’ll be a great view.” She gave Landon a look that oozed subtext.