Page 9 of The Storm

“What’s boring?” India leans her forearms on the windowsill right behind me and grins when I startle at her voice by my ear.

“Nick’s hometown,” Indy says.

“Can’t be worse than this,” India says as she climbs out the window and sits down next to Indy. She hands us each a can of soda. “‘Town’ implies there are at least some people around. Here it’s just us four.”

“Annapolis is twenty miles away,” Indy says.

“Might as well be on the moon for a person without a car,” India says in a forlorn voice.

“Less than a year to go.” Indy yawns. “I know it’s a hardship, but you just hang in there and before you know it you’ll be terrorizing all those unfortunate souls who have the bad luck of sharing the road with you.”

India’s mouth drops open. “It was only that one car!”

She flicks his forehead, and Indy laughs before he looks at me.

“One car in the whole large-ass parking lot, and she went straight for it.”

“It was the brakes. They weren’t working properly!” India exclaims.

“Along with the steering wheel?”

“I’ll have you know?—”

“What’s with the names?” I ask.

They both turn to look at me.

“India and Indigo,” I say. They keep looking. “Nobody figured it might get confusing?”

They glance at each other and then grin at me.

“Well,” India says. “According to Mom she was high from relief that the pain was over.”

“And Dad was just regular high,” Indy adds. “So I guess it sounded like a good idea at the time.”

They both snicker and grin at each other.

“Even after they were both sober?” I ask.

“Dad’s big on signs and premonitions and all sorts of crazy bullshit, so he thought changing them would be bad juju,” India says.

“I’ve always thought I would make a good Dean,” Indy says thoughtfully.

“Really?” India squints. “I can’t see it.”

“Because you’re used to my name. It’s a bit of a flaw in the system if you really think about it.”

“What is?” I ask.

He turns his head and looks at me. “For all intents and purposes, your name is one of the main things people associate with you. But you usually don’t pick one for yourself. Somebody else does it for you, and there’s rarely solid reasoning for picking a name. I mean, it’s not like your parentsknowyou when you’re born. So you just have to hope your parents will have decent taste in names, or you’ll have to walk around as a Brecklyn or something stupid like that.”

“So the better plan would be to wait until you’re old enough to name yourself?” India asks. “Because I’m going to venture aguess that there’d be a lot of kids naming themselves after the Muppets.”

Indy grins at her. “I’m not saying there’s a better way, I’m just thinking out loud.”

“You and your weirdo brain,” India says. There’s audible affection in her tone.

Indy shrugs.