I notice Seth ease on the gas; the car coasts, and we all wait for Aidan to continue.
“Well?”
“I flunked kindergarten.”
Silence reigns until finally, in unison, Seth and Mira both snort with laughter.
“Impossible,” Mira says. This secret does border on impossible, knowing King Geek Aidan and his pride in excelling.
“How can anyone flunk kindergarten?” Seth asks. “What? Did you refuse nap time?”
“Or cookies and milk?” Mira adds, giggling.
It is Aidan’s turn to squirm, and his ears redden. However brief, it is annoying to watch him flounder like a fish, so I jump in and immediately wonder, even as I speak, if I have been spending too much time with Mira. “I suppose you weren’t understood and spent a lot of time in detention.”
Aidan’s eyebrows shoot up, surprised at my insight. An ounce of observation goes a long way. He leans forward and grabs the back of our seat. “Yes! Except they called it Time Out. I spent most of kindergarten in the corner staring at a growth chart.”
Mira’s smile disappears and her chin juts out. “That is so unfair!”
“Completely!” Aidan yells. “I was just precocious. Curious. I mean, they give you those small blunt scissors so you can learn to use them, right? Buttons can be sewn back on. And finger painting! Why don’t they just give you a brush if they only want it lathered on paper?”
Seth hoots. “A kindergarten rebel! Look what lurks beneath the geekage.”
“Who would have guessed?” I say.
Mira pats Aidan’s shoulder. “Were you horribly scarred, having to repeat?”
Aidan’s brows knit together and he nods. “It was rough. I had to switch schools. The kindergarten teacher wouldn’t have me again.”
Mira sighs dutifully and pauses for a respectful amount of time. “I bet she regrets that decision every day. Just look at you now.”
“Yes, just look,” I add.
Before Aidan can respond to my brief editorial, Mira claps her hands, ending Aidan’s turn at confession. “Your turn! Des or Seth. Go!” Mira plops back in her seat, waiting.
A thunderous roar and flash splits the sky over our heads. Seth slams on the brakes, and we all turn in the direction it headed. A distant boom rumbles across the air.
“What was that?”
“An airplane?”
“No! It moved too fast.”
“A secret weapon?”
“Right in the direction of Hedgebrook.”
“Lightning?”
“Not a cloud in the sky.”
A convenient distraction, I decide. Whatever the disturbance may have been, I am grateful for it. Mira bubbles with the possibilities, and Aidan shares his seemingly unlimited knowledge of storm anomalies and positive giants, the grandest of lightning strikes that can fly for miles through a cloudless sky. Seth presses the gas pedal once again, and we resume our road trip, our one-day fist in the air to all that is unjust.
Their voices meld into a cloudy rumble of their own, and I ponder Mira’s and Aidan’s secrets and imagine the injustice that threads through other lives, injustice that has no face because it is hidden away in a dark, shameful place, hidden for years in hopes of making it untrue. Can anything be hidden that long? But then as Aidan drones on and on, showing off his keen scholarship, I imagine a tired teacher rubbing her temples and pointing to a tiny chair in a corner, hoping for the barest relief, justice and injustice flipping like a pancake.
“What do you think?” Seth asks.
“About?”