The Lotterys More or Less by Emma Donoghue

Author:Emma Donoghue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2018-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

“Brian and Oak’s first mom,” Sumac tells him.

Brian lights the two candles — well, really PopCorn does, but Brian clutches the end of the long match and steers it. She shouts out, “Hi, Melinda!” Then she snuffs her own candle with a loud blast of breath.

Oak goes to do his, but has to be yanked away at the last minute because he’s trying to kiss the flame, so he cries a bit.

Then he and Brian do the blowing together, and the Lotterys all clap, and sing “For They Are Jolly Good Fellows.”

Luiz doesn’t know the words but he hums along.

And Opal shrieks, “YOLO! YOLO!”

It feels so wrong to Sumac that PapaDum and Sic aren’t here for Welcome Day … but they’ll be home this evening, she reminds herself. No being glum!

Afterward, when they’ve all washed their sticky hands, Sumac helps Brian and MaxiMum put together the latest package of photos and cards and crafts for Melinda. The padded envelope’s not very full until they add a necklace made of painted rigatoni.

Then PopCorn leans back, sits both the smalls on his belly, and begins the Welcome Day story. “On this very day, the twenty-third of December, two years ago, Keisha, your caseworker, drove you two across the city —”

“In her minivan,” supplies Brian.

“That’s right.”

Brian doesn’t actually remember because she was only two and a half; she’s just memorized the story. “And my name Bree that time and Oak name is Owen.”

“But you couldn’t pronounce it, so you called him Owey.”

“We said bye-bye, Melinda.”

This is a new detail. Actually Keisha, their caseworker, was bringing Brian and Oak from their foster parents’ apartment that day, but maybe that makes the story too complicated?

“That’s right,” PopCorn murmurs, “because she couldn’t keep you safe. Melinda was sad.”

Brian doesn’t say anything.

Sumac pictures Melinda opening her envelope next week when it arrives in the mail. (Well, she pictures a woman: None of the Lotterys know what she looks like.) Melinda thinking about the two kids she lost, and only having cards and pictures and a rigatoni necklace. It makes Sumac feel so sorry for her, she’s dizzy.

PopCorn goes on with the story. “So we all ran out of Camelottery shouting, It’s them! Hi, Bree! Hi, Owen!”

Brian bursts out laughing. “You don’t know I’m actually Brian and Oaky’s Oak.”

“Not yet we didn’t. But we knew we were going to be your family.”

And keep you safe always, with nobody shaking your brains, Sumac adds fiercely in her head.

“What I say?” asks Brian.

“Not a word, at first,” says PopCorn. “You’d only met us a couple of times, so you really didn’t know us yet.” He mimics younger-Brian’s suspicious scowl. “And then you said —”

“Owey mine!” That makes Brian laugh till she coughs.

“Yep, because he was your baby brother and you weren’t at all sure about sharing him with us.”

She scratches under one polar bear earmuff.

“Are you too hot in those, maybe?” asks CardaMom.

“Nah. What do Oak say?”

“I seem to remember he just went gah gah gah,” says PopCorn. “But then you said something else, you said —”

“Poopy!” roars Brian.

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