The Chaos of Stars

“Honestly? I don’t get it.” Scott holds up one of the plastic pieces—one of a thousand—that will go into the drilled holes to secure the tiny lights. “These are black. So why are we painting them . . . black?”

“Different shades of black. They have to be exactly the same.”

“I beg to differ on your choice of semantics.” He adds another freshly painted piece to the “done” section of the tarp. “They do not have to be exactly the same. You want them to be.”

Sirus laughs. “And what Isadora wants has to happen. You don’t know her very well, do you?”

I resist the urge to glare. I’m trying not to be angry. So I settle for sticking my tongue out at him.

Deena slaps her husband’s shoulder. “Hey, I admire a little perfectionism. I wish it would rub off on you in the area of, say, folding laundry.”

“If you admire a little perfectionism, you must full-on worship Isadora,” Scott says, “because this goes way past a little.”

This time Tyler slaps Scott’s shoulder, making his brush jump and smear black paint on his hand.

“Okay, that’s all the sitting my pregnant joints can take.” Deena pushes herself up with a groan. “I’m taking my mandatory Saturday nap.”

Sirus follows her. “Duty calls. You know what they say: the family that naps together . . . ummm . . .”

“Gets the clap together?” Scott offers.

Sirus glares. “Do I need to ban you from my innocent baby sister?”

“No, sir! I meant, uh, gets to clap together. To. Not the.”

With a stern nod, Sirus leaves. I scoot into his spot, but the work here is almost done anyway, and we can’t do anything else until these dry and we test whether it’s better to insert them and then paint the boards, or paint the boards and then insert them.

“So, are you going to school here in the fall?” Scott asks, finishing his pile, then painting a streak on Tyler’s pale-white arm. She keeps at her work, not even looking up.

“No, I already have my GED.”

“You graduated early? Or, wait, is that a normal time to graduate in Egypt?” He puts a curlicue on Tyler’s long, skinny bicep.

“I didn’t go to normal school. Homeschool, I guess, though I was mostly in charge of myself.” After I stopped wanting to learn the history of the gods, I set up my own course of study. I was quite rigid—I never wanted to be behind once I got out of my parents’ house.

“Ah. Boring! No wonder you’re willing to be friends with us. You don’t know any better.”

“I wish I’d been homeschooled,” Ry says, leaning back and stretching his face toward the sun with his eyes closed.

“Why?” Tyler keeps painting, though Scott has now started playing tic-tac-toe with messy black streaks on her bare calf.

Ry rubs the back of his neck, not looking at us. “Oh, you know. School can be . . . weird.”

“How so?” All I know about American high schools is what I’ve seen in movies, and I doubt it’s very accurate. Too many spontaneous, choreographed dances for real life. That or the American education system is seriously screwed up.

“Do you want me to finish yours?” Ry grabs for the rest of Tyler’s nearly gone pile.

“Don’t change the subject. How is it weird?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Tyler finally stops, leaning forward, the motion messing up Scott’s attempt at an x.

“You made me lose!” He paints an angry streak through the tic-tac-toe game.

“Shut up. Ry is telling an embarrassing story.”

“It’s not a big deal. There was just this girl, who got kind of . . . aggressive?”