Excerpt: April, Maybe June

APRIL, MAYBE JUNE
by Shalanna Collins

Chapter One
My sister June and I were lounging in the treehouse when I spied the black-and-white police car prowling down our street.
"June, look." She ignored me as I pointed, my finger following the copmobile as it made the gentle curve down Buttonwood Tree Lane. She was busy checking out the dishy Justin Fink, ninth grade sex god and Guitar Hero master, as he sunned himself beside his family's pool like a spoiled cat. "Is it slowing down?"
June finally swiveled the telescope that Gary had installed (but which she used to spy on the neighbors instead of looking at the stars) and looked out front. Even without it, from up here we can see all the way from the top of this hill to the "Welcome to Renner, Texas--home of the Mighty Ocelots!" billboard at the entrance to our ritzy subdivision. The pirates-nest view is the main reason we still use this babyish place that Gary built for us years ago, although I am fourteen and June is fifteen-and-a-half. "Two cops, looks like. One guy, one woman." She adjusted the focus. "They're getting out. Stopped right in front of our house."
"Oh, my God!" I fell against the tree trunk, shaking the ancient elm ever so slightly.
June punched my upper arm, where she kept a perma-bruise going for easy control. "Get a grip, Cruelest." My name is April, but she thinks it's funny to call me that, out of some famous poem or another that Gary loves to quote. "They're probably going to the neighbors across the street." She closed her eyes as if indulging a hopeless idiot.
**need brief non-introspective something to explain her elevated vocabulary and she's very precocious and has lots of intuition--her voice needs to stay as it is and not be dumbed down, but we need a gentle hint as to why she's not an airhead and clues that she'll start to lose her math skills as a result of the spell attacks later on as they fight the magical battle**
"June. LOOK." I shake her shoulders. Finally my sister opens her eyes and takes in the REAL world (she would argue that consensus reality is what you make it, but it seems to intrude into her fantasy life all too often), revealing two sheriff's deputies*** heading up the winding front walk. She won't yield the eyepiece, but confirms: "Yep, they're about to ring our bell." Despite the gravity of the sitch, she snickers at the sexual allusion.
My heart skips a beat. "What could they want? What if Gary's going to be arrested!** What'll we do?"
"Shut up, Cruelest--you're hysterical." She twists the focus ring this way and that.
"What could they want? Gary did something shady in a business deal. Didn't he pay enough in taxes?"
"Shut up, Cruelest. That would be the IRS, and besides, you're obsessed with that just because Uncle Ernest 'forgot' to pay any for ten years." Our cousin Arlene had become a Fallen Woman because of the ruin of their family, our mother claimed, and nobody in the family could get over it. "Gary has Lynwood sign the forms every year. I always hear her whining about having to read them, but he insists she mustn't sign anything she hasn't read. So he's filing. Now be quiet so I can think."
"Then it's a business deal. Ever since he started working from home, I've been worried about that." I stuck my finger in my mouth and began wildly gnawing at the cuticle. It's a habit I'm trying to break.
"Please." My sister reached for my perma-bruise, but I scooted out of reach. "He's an independent contractor and he knows what he's doing. He wouldn't risk it all for some stupid deal." But she looks worried, for once. "We're going in."
We sneaked inside through the French doors to the master bedroom and crept up the hallway where we could hear what's going on in the front room. June is a Ninja who can do the stealth thing--she can creep up behind you like a wraith and startle your teeth out of you, which I don't understand because she's downright chunky where I'm slender--whereas I always knock something over and a klieg spot clicks on overhead.
So of course I get caught. The police turn their heads. I fear for a moment they're going to draw on me. But Gary (our real dad--our parents are progressive and believe that first-name basis among families provides for a level playing field and improved self-esteem) just says, "We're busy, April. Go study."
"Just a moment," says the female cop. "Is this your daughter, ma'am?"
Don't you hate it when people look straight at you and then talk about you to someone else as if you're some kind of pet or doll?
"Yes, my daughter, April Bliss," Lynwood says, with a weak smile and fluttering of her fingers. "Go on, now, hon."
"Other children in the house?"
"My older sister, June." Why shouldn't I be able to talk? I’m as good as anybody here.
The cop looks as if she might laugh, but bites it back. Good. You can make fun of our names being months and all, but it beats "Frances Marion," which is what Mama's was until she changed it to Lynwood. Lynwood Bliss. Sounds like a fairy princess, doesn't it?
"Why aren't you in school?" she asks me.
"We're homeschooled," I reply, as usual. Actually we're freeschooled or autodidacts, because we only check in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings with Lynwood for the "soft stuff" (English, Spanish, social studies, history) and with Gary on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for the science stuff (math, physical science, and so forth.) They have us following a curriculum they paid bigbux for from some holy roller academy and we take online exams at the end of every "instructional unit" (don't ask), but mostly we're on our own. It works well.
They started homeschooling us when June was six and kept coming home from first grade crying because the kids teased her. She's supposedly some sort of genius, my sister, because of the results of some test or another. She's bright, I'll grant you. But I think I'm smarter than she is. I just don't test well. I'm content with being termed "precocious" with an "extensive (translate: show-offy) vocabulary" and a talent for quick learning. It's better that people don't know what I’m thinking, because I'm always thinking, and most people don't like that. Besides, after seeing the hoo-ha they made over her test scores, I resolved to answer at least half the questions wrong on those kinds of tests. It worked, because now when I can do things, they applaud and cheer. If they knew how I can do math in my head (I don't really "DO" anything--when I see an equation or read a problem, it just plays itself out in my head like I'm watching a mental computer screen scrolling through a file with the answer(s) worked out), it would be a problem. Nobody but June knows it; they'd have me in college or something, and I am definitely not ready for that.
"All right," says the cop. Lynwood nods at me again, looking impatient. Gary winks and waves me upstairs. I guess I'm dismissed.
June has secreted herself somewhere and I can do nothing but slink away upstairs without outing her. She follows me, though, in a few minutes because they've caught her, too. She punches the intercom's LISTEN button before she plopped down on my bottom bunk. (Gary and Lynwood never remember it's been fixed and is working again.)
Voices boom through the silver speaker, tinny but understandable.
"I'm sure it's just a family misunderstanding." Lynwood sounds squeaky. "She's probably with one of her friends, staying at somebody's house, trying to scare her parents."
"Doesn't look that simple, Mrs. Bliss," says an unfamiliar male voice.
"Arlene knows better than to take drugs," Lynwood said insistently.
"Quiet," Gary ordered. "Just answer the detective's questions, dear."
"We've checked this out pretty thoroughly, ma'am, and it looks more serious. If you hear from her, will you call this number?"
"We'll be sure to let you know if we come across any information." Gary's voice sounds distant, as if he's escorting them out. "Always eager to help the authorities. But I'm sure this will all work itself out. Things like this usually do."
June's evaluation: "Bullshit. Something's going on."
# # #
The cops have left, and our parents are arguing louder in their bedroom now that they think we're asleep, Lynwood having quietly checked on us. June suggested we play possum and I went along with it, although I'm hungry. Dinnertime came and went and nobody acknowledged it but my growling tummy.
They're arguing now about Lynwood and how much she told the cops.
"I wish you'd let me call Ray. We should never have talked to them without a lawyer present, not once we found out they want to take Arlene in." Gary sounds like he does when one of us screws up pretty badly. "If I'm gonna be questioned like that by police, I'm gonna have a lawyer. Doesn't matter, I just flat don't trust them. Not that they aren't doing a good job--overall, they are--and not that they aren't performing a much needed service, because they are. Still, mistakes are made and I don't want to be one of them." He always starts blathering when he doesn't know what to do.
"I don't care what you do, but I'm going to call Odile."
"Worst mistake you could make." Gary sounds firm. "You keep out of this, or they'll think you're involved. If your sister Odile wanted us to know, trust me, she'd have called you. The police are already suspicious because you ware too eager to answer."
"I wanted to cooperate."
"Never volunteer stuff they didn't ask," Gary practically yells.

--to be continued--