Page 4 of Shelter
“Aren’t you both something,” Mama said, sounding almost as surprised as I was. “I’ll just go in and let your mother know we’re here.” She limped up to the house, leaving us. Ava was smiling gently at me, but Cole and I just stared at each other.
He narrowed his ice-blue eyes at me. “What are you supposed to be?” His voice was low and held dislike, though, I’d admit, not as much as the day I wore a bag of onions on my feet.
Ava turned to him, appalled. “She’s Mulan, silly.”
His left brow arched, and his lips pressed together and to the side. “That’s a pretty shabby Mulan,” he muttered.
I clutched the pretend hilt of my broomstick sword, not sure whether I wanted to draw it out of my sash and hit him with it or throw it in the garbage.
Ava stuck her tongue out at her brother. “Ignore him,” she told me. Then she reached for my medallion. “Ilovethe dragon. Did you draw it?”
I nodded, allowing myself to smile under her admiration. I noticed Cole’s eyes trailed after Ava’s, and when he saw the dragon, he blinked and his lips parted. Then his eyes shot to mine before he clamped his mouth shut. But I knew. I knew he’d seen my drawing and thought it was good.
And it was good.
“Are you going to carrythat?”Cole asked, nodding his chin to my plastic jack-o-lantern. The way his nose wrinkled, I might as well have filled the fake pumpkin with dirty diapers.
I frowned at the jack-o-lantern and then looked back at him. “Well, yeah, it’s for trick-or-treating.”
Cole rolled his eyes. “Hua Mulan was a sixth century Chinese warrior. She wouldn’t have carried aplasticpumpkin.”
His words made me feel like I’d been pushed into the dirt. I looked to Ava for rescue, but she was biting her lip and scrunching her nose up.
“It doesn’t reallygowith your costume,” she admitted, wincing. She lifted a pink sequined purse. “See. I’m using this for my candy. It’s something Baby Spice would wear.”
My eyes ran over Cole’s costume, and as they did, he dropped his left shoulder and held up an army green rucksack as evidence, that he, too, wouldn’t be carrying a plastic pumpkin.
I swallowed thickly and wished hard that Mama hadn’t dropped a jar of imported Italian olives on her foot.
But then Cole stepped forward, his haughty brow lowering. He watched me for a long moment. Long enough for me to narrow my eyes at him and clench my teeth, forgetting that I’d wanted to cry a moment before. Now, I just wanted to bounce my plastic pumpkin off his face.
Before I could, though, he gave a decisive nod. “I might have something.” He turned back to the house, but then caught his sister’s eye. “I’ll be right back. Don’t leave the yard.” He set off, leaving Ava and me to gape at him.
Mama stepped outside just after he disappeared behind the front door. “Now, Elise, you have got to stay with Ava and Cole.” She bent down to look me in the eye. “I’ll be here to pick you up at eight o’clock sharp, but if y’all finish before that, you wait for me out here. Am I making myself clear?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Whenever I had to join Mama at work, I had to stay in the kitchen or the laundry room or play outside. Without Mama in the house, I knew I did not belong indoors.
She pressed a kiss to the top of my head. Smiling down on me, she tried to smooth my cowlick. “You make an excellent Mulan,” she whispered and then stood straight. “Be good and have fun, Elise.”
Just after Mama’s car pulled from the driveway, Cole came through the front door carrying a red and gold pouch. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “This should work.”
The pouch wasn’t quite as big as my jack-o-lantern, but it was beautiful. The silky fabric was a bright red, but gold Chinese characters decorated one side. I touched the cool, sleek material between my thumb and index finger “Where did you get this?” I uttered in hushed awe.
Cole frowned and straightened his shoulders. Then he cleared his throat. “My father brought it back from a business trip to China.”
I studied the lines and curves of each character on the silk, mesmerized. “What’s it for?”
“What does it matter?” he snapped, forcing me to blink out of my daze and meet his glare.
I cocked a brow at him, forgetting for a moment how scary he looked in his battle gear. “Because I don’t want to put candy in it if you use it to wipe your nose,” I shot back.
His mouth fell open in surprise, and I heard his breath move past his lips before he clamped his jaw shut. Cole bunched his lips together like he was either really mad or he was trying not to laugh. I couldn’t tell which. His eyes became slits, so I guessed he was mad.
“Wipe my nose on it?”he asked, looking at me likeI’djust wiped my nose on it. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Ugh,” Ava groaned a frustrated sigh. “Enough already. Elise, it’s a Chinese wedding bag. Like for party favors. I had one, too, but I lost it.”
Rolling his eyes, Cole turned away. “As usual.”
