The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Sunny, Summer, 2013

"You know what?" Al said. "We can buy Emma a stuffed toy for cheaper than it would cost to win one, and it would probably be of better quality, too."

Logan shrugged. "It's okay, it was just an impulse. After being in jail this week, and with my mom dying, I wanted to give her something to reassure her I wasn't going away again. I'm all she has now, and she was really scared she was going to lose her whole family."

Al was smart enough not to mention that he and Rachel were also their family; they might have been their legal guardians, but blood was blood. "What about your father? Has there been any news?" Logan's father had been abducted in the middle of the melee that had wound up killing the other man.

Logan shrugged. "I don't think he's going to come out of this alive, but I'm not telling Emma that."

"I think we should still get her something," Al said. "You know, to celebrate her adolescence."

Logan frowned. "Didn't they celebrate last week, when my mom went with them?" He squirmed and said, "I can't think of my little sister... you know... not being a little girl anymore."

Al shrugged and said, "It's a part of life. Everyone who has those parts goes through it."

"The blood scared me a little," Logan said in a remarkable moment of candour for a teenage boy.

"Imagine how she feels. It's a huge moment in her life, just like it is in Naomi's, and now Harpreet's, too," Al said, looking at Sunny.

"Is that what Harpreet's going to do now?" Ajit asked. "Is that why Mom's out with her and the other girls?"

Sunny nodded, wishing Al hadn't passed him this conversational hot potato. "Rule number one of congenial brother-sister relationships: do not comment on it in your sister's presence. It's none of your business, nor is it anything to be feared or made an object of disgust. You'll soon find there are things coming out of you that are just as scary or disgusting, but are also completely natural."

"Jesus, Sunny, what a way to put it," Joe said, in a rare moment of jocularity for this group of sullen males today. "But I agree, it's completely natural, and there's no reason for you to make a big deal out of it. If you ever get girlfriends, be prepared to give them what they need when they're going through it, up to and including buying for them whatever sanitary products they happen to use."

Ajit seemed awed by the prospect, but Tosh grimaced and said, "I'm not getting a girlfriend. Girls don't interest me."

Joe chuckled and said, "You're young, yet. Give it time. It'll come roaring at you like a freight train."

He walked on ahead, Logan and Ajit following after him, before Tosh said, a little quieter, "That's not what I meant." Sunny didn't think Joe heard it in the tumult of amusement park noises, but he did, and he suddenly realized Joe had missed out on a potentially life-changing moment of communication with his son, who might be going through a very scary time himself.

Al must have heard it too, because he crouched down beside Tosh and said, "Did you want me to call him back? I think he needs to hear what you have to say."

Tosh grimaced. "It's okay, Uncle Al. There'll be another time."

Al looked after Joe and shook his head. "Well, you can always talk to your mom about it; she'd be the last person to judge. And heck, you can talk to me too, if you want. There's nothing to be ashamed of, it's completely natural."

Tosh shook his head in irritation and said, "That's easy for you to say. You never went to Catholic school."

He ran after his father. When Al stood back up, he said, "You know, I feel for the boy. I know what it's like to be small and sensitive, if not of his sexual orientation. I've noticed how Joe barely registers Tosh's presence sometimes, while he dotes on Naomi."