Uncle and Ants Page 2

  Can’t argue with a child’s logic. So, I did the adult thing and ignored her. “Come on girls, get your backpacks and let’s go.” I turned to shepherd them out the door.

  Mrs. Quarles called out, “Excuse me. You need to sign the girls out first.”

  “I’m Marty Golden, the girls’ uncle. You called me.”

  “Yes, Mr. Golden, I am aware of who you are. You still need to sign the form. It’s in THE RULES.”

  When she spoke of THE RULES, I heard the capitalization.

  Mrs. Quarles continued, “We all have to follow THE RULES. Please show me your I.D. so that I can verify that you are who you say you are and sign this form before the girls can go.”

  I thought about bolting for the door but didn’t think the girls would follow fast enough to make a clean break. And, we had to follow THE RULES. I didn’t notice any stone tablets with THE RULES etched in them, but the school might have sent them to the stone mason for cleaning.

  After I signed, the girls followed me out the door. I didn’t know how to tell them about their mother lying unconscious in the hospital. I didn’t even understand how this could have happened in the first place. Drones didn’t fall out of the sky nowadays. It’s impossible, or at least it should be. Package delivery services had worked out all the bugs years ago. They were safer than driverless cars. Fewer random pedestrians or unexpected street construction projects at a thousand feet in the air.

  How did a drone almost hit Laney? This problem with the drone was starting to bug me. I wanted Sergeant Jackson to figure it out now, not waste two days on a silly, mandatory furlough.

  2

  Monday Late Afternoon

  When we got back to the driveway, my Rover car had disappeared.

  Sigh. I had more work to do to get my changes working correctly. Turning to Skye, I said, “The new feature I wanted to show you didn’t work right. The Rover car was supposed to wait for me.” The girls watched as I used the Rover app on my phone. “I’ll call for another.”

  “Don’t you mean whistle?” asked Megan.

  “Already a smart ass?” I said.

  “That’s a bad word,” said Megan in a sing-song chant.

  Ignoring her, Skye asked, “Where’s Mom?”

  Adroitly changing the subject, I asked Skye, “How was school?” She started talking about her classes and teachers. I didn’t pay full attention, but it sounded like she couldn’t decide whether she liked pre-Algebra or science the most.

  Smart girl. Likes math and science. Maybe she’ll be an engineer.

  Megan jumped in to inform me that she liked art and lunch. Well, I like lunch too.

  When the replacement Rover car arrived, we got in to go to the girls’ home.

  Megan said, “Like wow. You just tell it where to go?” She interrupted herself to add, “Awesome! How does it steer when you’re not even in the driver’s seat?”

  Before I could answer, Skye said, “How does it know the right people got in the car?”

  “How does it know where to pick you up?” asked Megan.

  “Whoa, let me answer.” I broke in to respond before they hyperventilated. “I use my phone to tell it to get me, and having it drive by itself is what I work on with the other engineers.”

  Megan stuck her chin out. “Betcha we could drive it.”

  Skye shook her head. “No way. It won’t work for little kids.”

  “Am not little,” insisted Megan. She wouldn’t let her big sister get away with anything.

  “Are too. Betcha got to be authorized?” retorted Skye.

  “What’s ‘authorized’?” Megan pronounced the word carefully.

  I jumped in before I got too dizzy watching the back and forth. “It means if you have permission. Skye’s right, only adults can have accounts. And it only leaves if the person with the app on their phone is in the car. What’s this ‘Betcha’ all about?”

  Skye stuck out her tongue at Megan and then answered while Megan pouted. “It’s a new thing, just go with it. She’s like always trying to bet on things. Loser pays a buck.”

  Impressive. Clearly an entrepreneur in the making.

  The girls chattered on without me, their little spat forgotten as they had more important school gossip to cover. The car continued driving without hesitation, stopping at stop signs and making the correct turns to get to their house. I smiled with pride. I liked to sit in the front passenger seat so I could watch the surprised looks on other drivers’ faces when they noticed we had no driver. Relying on driverless cars might not have reached widespread adoption yet, but this was Silicon Valley after all. People needed to get used to it.

  I took a deep breath and turned to the backseat. Time to stop fooling around.

  “Girls, I have something serious to tell you.” Two solemn yet beautiful faces looked at me.

  “I had to pick you up today because your mom got hurt. She’ll be okay, but she’s in the hospital now. She can’t come home for a few days so you girls will stay with me.”

  Silence fell in the car.

  “What happened?” asked a subdued Megan.

  I explained what I knew. It wasn’t much. I didn’t mention the drone failure was unusual.

  “Is she hurt badly?” Skye’s voice trembled.

  “I spoke to the doctor on my way here. She told me your mom will be fine but will be out of it until tomorrow.”

  “Can we go see her?” asked Megan in a plaintive tone.

  “Sorry. The doctor wanted us to wait until tomorrow to give your mom a chance to rest. Let’s pick up some clothes at your house and you’ll go to my place for tonight.”

  “What about Sunshine?” ventured Skye.

  “The car was totaled.” Laney’s prize possession, her neon yellow, retro style VW Bug, was squashed. She’d spent hours selecting the custom paint job before buying it a few years ago. She and the girls loved it. She said the bright color made her happy every time she saw it.

  Silence descended on the car again. The girls huddled together. I didn’t speak either, looking out the windows at the passing strip malls while the car drove itself to their house. The Rover car still drove well.

  Spending a few days at an uncle’s place didn’t seem like a big deal to me. It takes me about five minutes to pack for a trip. Once you’ve thrown a few changes of clothes into a bag and grabbed your toothbrush, what else was left? But evidently, I knew nothing of packing for my nieces.

  While I waited, I looked around Laney’s small three-bedroom home. While she hadn’t unpacked all her belongings yet, she’d made the house neat and comfortable. The only decoration on the walls was a large picture of Laney, the girls, and her late husband. Several years after her husband passed away, she’d finally decided to relocate to California and restart her Human Resources career. As much as I wouldn’t admit it to her, I liked having her and the girls around.

  After a half hour of drawer slamming and consultations between the girls, I grabbed their suitcases and headed out the front door. The Rover car had left again. “Damn it.”

  “That’s a bad word.” Megan started her sing-song chant as she monitored my transgression.

  “Sorry. I’m frustrated because I told it to wait for us.” When the replacement car arrived, I opened the trunk and started loading the girls’ bags.

  “Oh wait, I have to get my science fair project.” Skye dashed off back to the house.

  “You won’t believe what her science fair project is,” said Megan.

  Positive that it wasn’t smart to ask, I bit, “What?”

  “Ants.” Megan watched for my reaction with a sly expression on her face.

  She got one. “Come on, I’m not stupid. What’s her real project?”

  “Betcha?”

  “Sure.” I shook her hand.

  Megan called shotgun and climbed into the car’s front seat. Probably not entirely legal, but the car drove better than most people so she’d be fine.

  Skye walked out of the house carrying what loo
ked like six plastic boxes glued together sitting on a thin wooden board. I started moving things around in the trunk to make room.

  “What’s in there?” I asked as she approached.

  “Dorymyrmex insanus.”

  “Dory what’s it?”

  “Dorymyrmex insanus. Their common name is ‘crazy ant.’ ”

  “What are you doing with them?”

  “My project is testing the effectiveness of different feeding regimens.”

  “You mean whether the ants need food to live?”

  Skye just rolled her eyes at me.

  “Where on earth did you get ants?” I asked, not noticing the unintended humor of my question until after I spoke. I chuckled at my own joke.

  “Online.”

  Of course.

  She ignored my inadvertent dad humor and turned to put her ant farm into the trunk.

  “You’re not taking them into my apartment. They’ll get all over.”

  Skye whipped her head back to look at me as tears welled in her eyes. “But, it’s my science fair project. I have to keep them with me.”

  I stood there for a moment as the likely true cause of her tears dawned on me. Well, if some crazy ants would make her feel better while her mother recovered in the hospital, then my apartment would survive. “Oh, okay.” Insane.

  Still teary-eyed, Skye managed a small smile. She wiped her eyes, closed the trunk and we climbed into the car. Megan had her hand outstretched waiting for me to pay my debt for losing the bet. I don’t carry old-fashioned paper cash, so I took out my phone and tapped it on her phone to confirm the transfer of a dollar as the car took off for my apartment. “Megan, what’s your science fair project?” I held my breath hoping it wasn’t worse than ants.

  Megan paused, staring back at Skye as if to deliver a telepathic message, and then said, “My science fair project is tasting milkshakes.”

  “Now you’re just pulling my leg. What’s it really?”

  “Milkshakes. Betcha?” Megan stuck out her chin.

  “Sure.” My dad didn’t raise an idiot. Laney would never permit such poor nutritious choices. Megan couldn’t fool me this time. I shook her hand again. I looked at Skye to confirm my victory. She paused, pushed her glasses back up her nose and then rolled her shoulders hesitantly as she nodded toward Megan. I sighed again and brought my phone out to tap against Megan’s.

  “I really don’t like this game.” Neither girl seemed interested in my opinion. Before the car dropped us at my apartment building, my phone buzzed with a fraud alert from my bank. I had to confirm that I’d intended to execute two distinct transfers of one dollar each before the bank would unlock my account. The bank didn’t know about “Betcha.”

  As I approached my door, the fob in my pocket released the security system and the door swung open. We walked in without breaking stride. The girls, familiar with my place from previous visits, dropped their backpacks and rushed in.

  “I call dibs on this room.” Skye’s voice rang out.

  “Mine,” echoed an even louder Megan.

  I rounded the corner to see them in the hallway, each standing guard in front of different doors. “You’ll both share the guest room. The other room is my home office.”

  “No fair. Why do I have to sleep in Skye’s room?” Megan stood with her arms and legs spread wide apart as she attempted to block the entrance to the double doors of my home office.

  “It’s not Skye’s room,” I started.

  Skye interrupted from her guard post, where she maintained her protective pose with arms crossed, “Yes, it is. I called dibs on it.”

  “Look, it’s just for a short visit.” I hope Laney’s out soon. “I use my office to work. You both can share this room,” I said, gesturing to my spare bedroom behind Skye. “There’s a big bed and plenty of space for your suitcases.” After some pouting and grumbling, I got them settled.

  A diminished supply of groceries and my proposed dinner of peanut butter sandwiches met with a decided lack of enthusiasm. When Skye wanted to know what vegetable they’d need to eat, I tried the hero route. “We can skip vegetables tonight.”

  “Mom says we have to eat a vegetable every night at dinner,” said Skye in a firm voice.

  Maybe we’re not related. I had only one option to offer. “How about broccoli?” Before I even finished both their faces turned into gargoyles. Ok, not broccoli fans.

  “Salsa has tomatoes. That’s like a vegetable,” suggested Skye, sounding as if she’s tried this gambit before.

  Well, it worked. Gargoyle faces turned back to my beautiful nieces. I’d saved dinner.

  When the girls were ready for bed, I went in to turn off the light. “Good night, girls.”

  “Wait, Uncle Marty.” Megan started to sniffle. “What should we dream about? Mom always tells us what to dream about, like unicorns and polka-dotted butterflies.”

  What? “What?”

  I didn’t have the energy for this tonight. Laney’s situation had me worried too. “Just go to sleep and don’t have nightmares.”

  “You really suck at this.” Skye rolled over to hug her sister.

  Sigh.“Ok. Dream about puppies,” I offered.

  “I like puppies.” Megan perked up a bit. “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. What kind of dog do you like?”

  “Labradors,” said Megan without a second’s hesitation.

  I suppressed a smile at her decisiveness. “Ok. Dream of Labrador puppies sitting in your lap while you’re eating peanut butter sandwiches.”

  “Gosh, so creative, Uncle Marty,” said Skye as I turned off the light and closed the door.

  I realized I hadn’t updated my own kids, Amanda and Eli, on their Aunt Laney’s status since my ride to the girls’ school. Working nonstop when they were young, I wouldn’t have qualified for the World’s Best Father award by a long shot. Now that they were both in college, I was trying to rebuild our relationship. Regular texting made it easier.

  GROUP TEXT TO AMANDA, ELI

  AMANDA: Glad she’ll be ok

  ELI: Yea. Good that both will be ok. Truck got what it deserved.

  AMANDA: You used to like ice cream trucks :) Best prank ever! #EPIC

  ELI: Childhood trauma

  AMANDA: Never saw you run so fast

  ELI: Thought truck had finally stopped at our stop sign and I could catch it

  MARTY: She really got you

  ELI: Who knew I had such an evil sibling

  AMANDA: *insert evil laugh here*

  Amanda had burned Eli with an impressive prank in middle school. Every day that summer, the ice cream truck raced past the house after lunch with the loud, iconic music creating an almost Doppler-like effect as the truck roared past. Ten years old at the time, Eli desired nothing more than to have the experience of buying an ice cream cone from the truck all by himself. He’d rush out the door, cash in hand, whenever he heard the truck, but never managed to flag the guy down. The driver must have used his truck to practice for Nascar.

  One July weekend afternoon, Amanda found the ice cream truck music online, then set her speaker in the hallway outside the bathroom door while Eli showered. She hit play just as the shower turned off. He raced out the front door with his towel barely hanging on, only to discover no truck in sight and his sister’s riotous laughter thundering from the doorway. She’d pulled a world-class prank on him. Eli got over it, but not the disappointment of his futile endeavors to score an over-priced, freezer-burned Drumstick.

  Although his mother and I would never have let him, he would have succeeded if he’d stood in the middle of the street waiting as the truck raced toward him. The truck’s automatic emergency braking system would have stopped it without hitting him … Like Laney’s car should have stopped on its own without hitting the truck.

  How could Laney have broadsided a truck? Today’s cars all have automatic braking systems with advanced, look-ahead and side-to-side radars, not like the early versions when I grew up. Our Ro
ver engineering team spends most of its time programming our controls to deal with various results from the radars so the cars will drive safely. And, for that matter, didn’t drones also have autonomous controls to steer them away from collisions? Laney’s accident was starting not to feel very accidental.

  I scrambled to locate Sergeant Jackson’s card and then called him. It went straight to voicemail. I left him a rambling message asking him to check out what went wrong with the drone’s collision prevention system. The ice cream truck driver could be a possible suspect too, although this only made sense if Laney inhabited a bizarre conspiracy/thriller movie. In the real world, ice cream trucks didn’t target people or have problems driving. Unless they were on a Rocky Road. Heh heh.

  3

  Tuesday Morning

  When the alarm woke me, I went into the guest room to wake the girls. Skye lay alone, curled up in the bed. Megan was gone. My adrenaline kicked in. I’d lost Laney’s daughter. In my own apartment.

  She’s going to kill me. Trying to keep the panic out of my voice, I asked Skye, “Where’s Megan?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t yell,” she mumbled and pulled the blanket over her head.

  As I flipped on the light to check if Megan slept in a corner or was waiting to pounce on me, Skye squealed and pulled the blankets even higher over her head. I hurried out of the room, heart pounding, and rushed to the front door to see if she’d sleepwalked. It was still locked.

  Where was she? She wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. I rushed back down the hall and then finally spied Megan step sleepily out of my office. “Hey! What are you doing in there? You’re not supposed to be in that room.” I shouldn’t have yelled at her, but she’d scared me.

  Megan’s lip started to tremble and tears formed in her eyes. “But I told you I wanted my own room.”

  I kneeled beside her. “Look, I’m sorry for yelling. I got scared when I couldn’t find you. I thought you might have sleepwalked out of the apartment.”

  Megan’s pressed lips and furrowed brow told me she didn’t buy my apology. “I’m not a baby. I haven’t done that in years. Besides, Mom told me I’d get my own room in California like back home.” Her voice caught on her last words. “I want Mom.”