We walked into the kitchen—after setting up a video call between our phones and placing one in front of Bertie, so that we could see if there was any change in him—and I was relieved to see that, in addition to it being cleaner, the smell from before was almost totally gone. The windows were open, and I could hear the sound of wind and cicadas through them. Clark went around opening up cabinets and peering inside, and I pulled open the fridge, for no reason other than because I was curious what was in there. I realized I wasn’t that surprised by the boy-bought groceries as I looked in—there was a take-out pizza box, a pack of cold cuts, and a bottle of ketchup. And that was about it, except for a six-pack of Coke.
“Feel free to take anything,” Clark said over his shoulder as he opened up a cabinet. “I know there’s not much in there.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to Alberto’s,” I said, closing the fridge door. “Captain Pizza is way better.”
“Good to know.” Clark nodded. “I think I just called the first place that came up.”
“Any soup?”
“Chicken rice.” He held up a can. “Think that’ll work?”
“Probably.” I figured that if the dog had already ingested enough chocolate to make him sick, he probably wasn’t going to be super picky about his soup flavors.
“Okay.” Clark put his laptop on the counter and bent down to open up a cabinet underneath the sink. “So if you were a can opener, where would you be?”
I was only half listening, though. I was looking at the sticker on his laptop. It was one of those thin decals that stick right on, so you can still see the silver underneath. I’d seen them before, of course—Tom had a Kermit the Frog on his laptop, and Bri’s younger sister Sonia had The Giving Tree—but I’d never seen this one before. It took me a moment to even figure out what I was seeing. There was what looked like a castle on a hill, with a very tall spire. Birds circled around the tower, the biggest ones at the corners of the laptop, then getting smaller as they got closer to it. Leaning out one window was a girl with a long braid. She was reaching her hand out to a bird, who was aiming for her, claws extended. I just stared at it, trying to figure out if I was missing something here.
“Andie?” My head snapped up, and I could see Clark looking at me, an open can of soup in his hand—clearly, at some point, he’d located a can opener.
“Yeah.” I blinked at him. It was clear he’d asked me a question, one that I hadn’t heard at all. “Um, what was that?”
“I was asking if you think we should heat this up,” he said. “I don’t know—do dogs ever eat hot food?”
“Well . . .” I stalled, not entirely sure myself. “Maybe just warm it.” Clark nodded and stepped behind me to open a cabinet and pull down a bowl—all the dishes I saw inside it before the door shut again seemed to be white. “So . . . what is this?” I asked, nodding down at the laptop as Clark poured the soup into a bowl and headed for the microwave.
“My laptop?” he asked, sounding distracted as he punched the buttons, and with a beep, the microwave lit up and the bowl started turning around.
“The sticker.” I looked down at it again, hoping it wasn’t something totally obvious that I was failing to get.
“Oh,” he said, just as the microwave beeped again. He pulled out the bowl of soup and brought it quickly over to the counter, dropping it rather than putting it down. “Hot,” he said, shaking out his hands. “We might need to wait a sec before giving it to Bert.” He ran his hand over the sticker quickly, a small smile appearing on his face. “It’s . . . A reader of mine makes them. He sent one to me, and I liked it, so I stuck it on. I guess I was hoping it would give me some inspiration, or something.”
I nodded, like this was normal, to hear someone my age talking about their readers. “So what is it?”
“Oh,” Clark said, and adjusted his glasses quickly. He tilted his head slightly to the side, like he was trying to figure something out. “You’re not . . . I assume you haven’t read them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t really read, you know, books.” Clark’s eyebrows flew up, and it was like he took a step back from me, even though I was pretty sure his feet didn’t actually move. “I know how to read,” I said, seeing the alarm in his expression. “I just don’t love fiction. You know, novels.”
“If you don’t love fiction novels,” Clark said, and even though I tried to fight it, I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, “what do you read?” He shook his head, and it was like I could practically feel how baffled he was. “Wait, I’m sorry, but how do you not read books? Like—what do you do on planes?”
“I study,” I said with a shrug. “Or watch movies.”
Clark blinked at me. “I just . . . I’ve never met anyone who didn’t read before,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, starting to get annoyed. “I read. I have a 4.0.” He was still just staring at me, so I explained. “That’s a thing we have in high schools with more than two people. It’s called a grade point average. . . .”
“Touché,” Clark said, and though he still looked rattled, he was smiling. “Okay. So if you haven’t read my books . . . or, um, any books . . .” I rolled my eyes at that, even as I was trying not to smile. “It’s showing the main character from the first two books, Tamsin. And these are the crows of Castleroy.”