Page 38 of Blightfall

“Not bad,” I said. “But if you overuse it, it gets less funny.”

“Your dad is less funny,” Gilaf said.

“See, now that doesn’t work at all,” I said.

“I was trying not to overuse it,” Gilaf said, “so I changed it slightly. Why are moms funnier than dads?”

“Sexism, probably,” I said.

Arturo was outpacing us now, possibly to avoid Gilaf’s jokes.

“Sexism is funny to you?” Gilaf asked.

I sighed. “Not when you stop to think about it. Do you not have sexist jokes in your language?”

“We do,” Gilaf said. “Though the most similar joke in my language isn’t about mothers. It’s about trees.”

“That figures,” I said. “Isn’t everything on your planet about trees?”

“Everything on your planet fell out of a tree,” Gilaf said.

I laughed. “That’s so not funny it falls off the other end and becomes funny again.”

“See,” Gilaf said. “If a joke is overused, you just use it more. Eventually it comes back around.”

“It does not,” Alanik said, walking faster to catch up to Arturo, probably also to outpace Gilaf.

“Your mother fell out of a tree,” I said.

“See!” Gilaf said. “You get it. I knew you were my favorite.” Then he also sped up to further annoy Alanik.

Nedd and I fell behind, though we stayed within sight of them. “I feel like as assistant flightleader, I should offer to walk between you and the forest in case another tree monster attacks,” Nedd said, “but I actually don’t know if we’re in more danger from the forest or accidentally falling in the river.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think any of these trees are secretly monsters, or that barge crew would be after them. What’s really creepy is the sun, but I don’t know how you’d protect me from that.”

“Seriously?” Nedd said. “You compare monster trees to squirrel poking, but you think the sun is creepy?”

“Yes! The way it stares at you from the sky, watching you all the time. It’s like a nosy neighbor who always peeks in your windows.”

“I didn’t think of it that way before,” Nedd said. “But I do now. Thanks.”

I sounded weird again, but talking to Nedd made my brain fizzy. I knew the others thought I was airheaded at the best of times. Talking to a cute boy didn’t make me any more articulate, that was for sure.

Still. It wasn’t every day I had the totally natural and not at all suspicious opportunity to spend time alone with Nedd. It would be completely normal for me to say a few words to him. Expected, even. In fact, it would be rude of me not to, right?

“I think you should walk behind me, actually,” I said. “That way if a tree pops out of the woods to poke me, you can shout and warn me.”

I liked the idea of Nedd saving me from a tree monster a little too much. It was downright regressive, how sexy it sounded for him to fight off an arboreal monstrosity bent on my destruction. If he got a little sweaty doing it, all the better.

Oh stars. Now I was blushing. I hoped he hadn’t noticed. Was it obvious? At least I hadn’t said any of that out loud.

Had I?

“I don’t know,” Nedd said. “Your callsign is Sentry, so you should be the expert lookout, right? You should see a tree coming a mile away.”

“It may surprise you to know,” I said, “that I’m not an actual sentry of any kind.”

Nedd grinned, and I tried not to look at him. His grin was infectious, and it was really all for the best if I didn’t get too infected with it. It was stunning even when it was partially covered by that mustache he had tried to grow a few months ago. I was rooting for that mustache—an underdog if I ever saw one.