Chapter 3
“Voting is a little extra,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“We have to vote,” Millie said. “If we don’t vote, how will we ever know which one is THE BEST?”
“Yes,” I muttered as I worked a finger in my ear. “How will we ever know?”
Keme gave me a dark look.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Fox said as they threw the end of their scarf over their shoulder.
“I’m sure everyone’s gingerbread house is lovely,” Indira said.
“Are you?” I said. “Because I think you know you’re a shoo-in. I heard you cackling earlier.”
Indira didn’t do anything. But that lock of white, witchy hair seemed extra white.
“Uh,” I said. “Retracted.”
We all waited for a peal of thunder—or something.
After a few seconds, Bobby said, “Okay. Here we go.”
“We’ll go first,” Keme said.
“We will?” I said.
He gave me that look again—and, not so discreetly, showed me a fist—so I sighed, and we all moved into the billiard room.
Making gingerbread houses wasn’t a tradition for us.
But Indira had insisted. Actually, insisted is too strong a word; she’d asked if we could do it, and because Indira never asks for anything—and because the rest of us simultaneously love her and are terrified of her—the answer had obviously been yes.
The competition and voting had been Fox’s idea.
You probably expected Millie and Keme to team up.
That’s certainly what I expected, anyway.
To my surprise, though, Millie had said she wanted to build her own.
(You should have seen the look on Keme’s face.) And since I’d been complaining about how playing Xbox had given me early-onset arthritis of the, uh, knuckles, Bobby suggested Keme and I work together.
(Suggested is a word that can mean so many things.)
As everyone took their places in the billiard room, Keme hopped up to sit on a windowsill, leaving me to present our masterpiece.
“What,” Fox said, “is that?”
“It’s—”
“Is it a shoebox?” Fox asked—apparently answering their own question.
“No, it’s not a—”
“Is it a loaf of bread?” More dubiously. “Gingerbread?”
“It’s not a loaf of bread.” Then inspiration struck. “It has wheels.”
“It’s very nice,” Indira said, echoing her comment from earlier—and, from the tone of it, regretting that choice of words.
“Why does it have eyes?” Millie asked. “IS IT A MONSTER?”
“It doesn’t have eyes,” I snapped. “Bobby, for the love of God, tell them what it is.”
Poor Bobby. Poor sweet, beautiful, innocent Bobby. He actually, literally cleared. his. throat.
“Unbelievable,” I said. “This is absolutely unbelievable, that not one of you can—”
“It’s an RV,” Keme said from the windowsill.
“Oh!” (That was Indira.)
“Okay…” (That was Fox.)
“Babe, that’s so clever.” (My sweet boyfriend.)
“OH MY GOD!” (Guess.)
“We had a minor setback having to do with, um, the whole thing collapsing,” I explained, “and then Keme said we should do something that wasn’t a house, and I was eating Oreos, and the rest is history.
It’s got windshields—” I directed a stern look at Millie.
“—not eyes—and it’s got Twizzlers for windshield wipers, and you can see the little door Keme made with frosting.
Oh, and it’s got a jump ramp, and inside there’s a dojo, a command center, and an isolation unit.
Plus we made this sweet zipline out of candy floss. ”
“It’s very nice,” Indira said again, with more enthusiasm this time.
“How does it have a zipline if you drive it around?” Fox asked.
“KEME, IT’S SO GOOD!”
“And what do you do with the jump ramp?” Fox said. “It’s too wide to fit in the back of the RV.”
Bobby kissed the side of my head. “It’s so creative.”
“And why does it have an isolation unit?” Fox reached as though they might open the RV, and I smacked their hand. “Isolation from what?”
“Plague victims,” I said, “the walking dead, bad guys. Ever heard of the Joker?”
Keme scowled and made a gesture that clearly indicated there you go.
“Is it an RV or the Bat Cave?” Bobby asked.
“It has a dojo,” Millie said with something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.
With something that sounded like patience, Indira said, “Let’s move on.”
Fox’s effort wasn’t exactly surprising. But it was less than impressive.
“It’s a deconstructed gingerbread house,” they said.
“Really?” I said. “Because it looks like you just stacked all the gingerbread and put the tub of frosting to the side.”
“It’s avant-garde. It’s groundbreaking.”
“I LOVE IT,” Millie announced.
“I thought you were an artist,” I said. “Shouldn’t this be your time to shine?”
“This is art,” they informed the rest of us. “This is me shattering thousands of years of conformist, representational thinking.”
“Ceci n'est pas une pipe,” Bobby said.
(Bobby. Of all people.)
“Thank you,” Fox said in their most aggrieved tone.
“Moving on,” Indira said.
Bobby’s house was so Bobby that I wanted to seal it in an acrylic display case and give it to our children.
(God, please don’t tell him I even mentioned children; I don’t want to scare him off.)
It was a perfectly square house. With two perfectly angled pieces of gingerbread making a perfect child’s-drawing roof. It had perfectly symmetrical windows. He’d even used some of the frosting to make white lines that were supposed to be snow, and there were six of them on each side.
“It’s very…you,” Fox said.
“BOBBY, IT’S SO GOOD! IT’S THE BEST ONE YET!”
“It’s the best one yet?” I said. “Does it have a Batcomputer?” Keme chose that moment to punch me in the kidney, so I had to moan as I added, “It’s super cute, Bobby.”
And then it was time for Indira’s.
Let’s be real here: we all knew something was coming.
None of us was ready.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was beyond perfect.
House wasn’t the right word; it looked like a fairytale castle. Each piece of gingerbread had been hand cut. The icing on the roof looked like real snow that had built into drifts. Little curlicues of icing decorated the walls, and more icing and little gingerbread trees made it look like—
Okay, I’m just going to say it:
It made it look like a gingerbread house in a forest.
The kind that lost, wandering children might decide to nibble on.
Fox was the first one to speak (of course), but all they said was “Remarkable.”
“Oh my GOD!” (That was a whisper for Millie.) “It’s so pretty!”
Keme was staring at it, and the best word for the look on his face was entranced.
“That’s incredible, Indira,” Bobby said.
“Uh, I think you win,” I said.
“You definitely win,” Fox said.
“Hold on,” Indira said, but you could tell she was pleased. “We haven’t seen Millie’s.”
“Oh, mine isn’t very good,” Millie said.
Bobby gave Keme a nudge, and the boy roused himself long enough to blink and then say, “Yours is probably the best.”
I mean, he was still learning, so you’ve got to give him points for trying. Plus, the comment made Millie glow.
When we saw Millie’s, I think we all stopped breathing.
All of us.
Even Indira.
Because it was Hemlock House.
She’d done the turrets and towers and chimneys.
She’d done the beautiful facade. She’d done the insane, sprawling, Victorian layout.
There were little wreaths and little snowmen and what I was fairly sure were candy cane structural supports.
Light glowed inside the house, and I know you’re going to think I’m insane, but I swear to God when I looked through one of the windows, she’d somehow gotten a Christmas tree in there with tiny presents around it.
“Millie,” Fox breathed.
“This is so good,” Bobby said.
Keme blurted, “It’s perfect.”
I shook my head. All I could think about was how Millie loved to make things. About her homemade jewelry. All the beauty she managed to make out of ordinary, everyday things she found—things that everyone else overlooked. Somehow, I said, “I love it.”
“I made the windows by melting Jolly Ranchers,” Millie said with a smile.
“I think,” Indira said, pulling Millie into a hug, “we have a winner.”