I got shivers when I re-read that Snarl called me “evil genius.” Even though I am anything but, the compliment was so personal. Like he’d been thinking about me. Me me, and not just notebook me.

After I fed Grunt, I headed toward the glass screen door that opened to the rooftop garden outside Grandpa’s apartment so I could water the plants. From my warm perch inside the glass door, I looked out at the cold city, north toward the Empire State Building, which would be lit at night in green and red for Christmas, then I looked east toward the Chrysler Building in Midtown, closer to where FAO Schwarz was, should I decide to accept the dare. (Of course I would. Who was I kidding? Shrilly play hard to get with an assignment in a red Moleskine deposited for her at Madame Tussauds? Hardly.)

I noticed my old sleeping bag on the ground outside, the sleeping bag in which Langston and I used to snuggle up on Christmas Eve when we were super-lit le so that Dad could, in his words, “zipper up the excitement until dawn on Christmas morning.” I saw Langston and Benny curled up together in the sleeping bag now, with the blue comforter from Langston’s bed on top of them.

I went outside. They were just waking up.

“Happy Christmas Eve!” I chirped. “Did you two sleep out here last night? I didn’t hear you come in. You must have been freezing! Let’s make a big breakfast this morning, what do you say? Eggs and toast and pancakes and …”

“Orange juice,” Langston coughed. “Please, Lily. Go to the corner store and get us some fresh orange juice.” Benny, too, coughed. “And some echinacea!”

“Sleeping outside in the dead of winter not such a smart idea, huh?” I said.

“Seemed romantic under the stars last night,” Langston sighed. Then sneezed. Again. And again, this time with a full-on hacking cough.

“Make us some soup, please please please, Lily Bear?”

It seemed to me that, in allowing himself to get sick, my brother had nally, and totally, ruined Christmas. All hope for any semblance of a decent Christmas was now gone. It further seemed to me, since he made the choice to sleep outside with his boyfriend last night instead of play Boggle with his Lily Bear as she speci cally asked him to do and which she speci cally used to do for him during his time of need, that Langston sicko would have to deal with this crisis on his own.

“Make your own soup,” I told the boys. “And get your own OJ. I have an errand to run in Midtown.” I turned to go back inside and leave the boys to their nasty new colds. Suckahs. That ought to teach them not to go out clubbing when they could stay home and Boggle with me.

“You’ll be sorry next year when you’re living in Fiji and I’m still in Manhat an where I can order food and juice from the bodega at the corner and have it delivered to me anytime I want!” Langston exclaimed.

I swiveled back around. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”

Langston pulled the comforter over his head. “Nothing. Never mind,” he said from underneath.

Which meant it was seriously something.

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, LANGSTON?” I said, feeling a Shrilly panic moment coming on.

Benny popped his head under the covers, too. I heard him say to Langston, “You have to tell her now. You can’t leave her hanging like that once you slipped.”

“SLIPPED ON WHAT, LANGSTON?” I almost was ready to cry. But I’d decided to try to be less Shrilly for New Year’s, and even though that was still a week away, I felt like I had to get started sometime. Now was as good a time as any. I stood strong, shaking—but not crying.

Langston’s head re-emerged from underneath the comforter. “Mom and Dad are in Fiji for their second honeymoon, but also to spend time visiting a boarding school there. A place that’s of ered Dad a headmaster’s job for the next two years.”

“Mom and Dad would never want to live in Fiji!” I fumed. “Vacation paradise, maybe. But people don’t live there.”

“Lots of people live there, Lily. And this school caters to kids like Dad was, who have parents in the diplomatic service, like in Indonesia and Micronesia—”

“Stop it with all these -esias!” I said. “Why would the diplomatic parents send their kids to a stupid school in Fiji?”

“It’s a pret y amazing school, from what I’ve heard. It’s for parents who don’t want to send their kids to schools in the places where they’re posted, but also want to not send them so far away as to the States or the UK. For them, it’s a good alternative.”

“I’m not going,” I announced.

Langston said, “It would be a good opportunity for Mom, too. She could take a sabbatical and work on her research and her book.”

“I’m not going,” I repeated. “I like living here in Manhat an. I’ll live with Grandpa.” Langston threw the comforter over his head again.

Which could only mean there was more to the story.

“WHAT?!?!?” I demanded, now feeling truly scared.

“Grandpa is proposing to Glamma. In Florida.”

“Grandpa is proposing to Glamma. In Florida.”

Glamma, as she likes to be known, is Grandpa’s Florida girlfriend—and the reason he had abandoned us at Christmas. I said, “Her name is Mabel! I will never call her Glamma!”

“Call her whatever you want. But she’s probably soon going to be Mrs. Grandpa. When that happens, my guess is he will move down there permanently.”