Scott Sanderson didn’t say anything. He looked around her room, taking in the murals she and her dad had painted on the walls. “Is this your bedroom?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s c-c-cool. Is that from The Hobbit?” He pointed to the huge painting of a mine, over which a big red Smaug was rising.
“Yes. That’s one of my favourite books.”
“Me too.” He smiled, then his face grew serious, so that he looked even more like a miniature grown-up. “I climbed the tree because I wanted to say sorry. For spying on you and saying what I said about your f-f-father.”
“Oh.” For a moment, Sam was touched, then she remembered what he’d said and raised the scissors. “What if I don’t forgive you?”
Scott Sanderson’s face crumpled. “I swear I don’t want to fight.”
Sam lowered the scissors. “Good, because you’d lose.”
The moment stretched out between them. It was uncomfortable and Sam didn’t know what she should do. She supposed she could always push him out the window, but she didn’t exactly want to. He was a weird boy but he’d climbed the big tree and he knew about The Hobbit. She decided to try something. “Do you…want to see my ninja turtles?”
His expression brightened. “Yes!”
“Okay, let me shut the door, so my sisters don’t hear. Tabby can’t keep quiet and Nicole might dob.”
She shut the door and shoved her toy box in front of it, to be safe. Then she showed Scott Sanderson her stuff. He was a fun person to show things to, very impressed by everything. When she told him she and her dad painted all the Lord of the Rings stuff on the walls, his eyes almost fell out of his head.
“You must bearty,” he said, as though there was nothing better a person could be.
“Our whole family is, except Nicole. My mum paints and makes earrings and my dad tattoos people. That’s his whole job.”
“I see…” Scott Sanderson seemed to want to say something else.
“What?” Sam demanded.
“Did your d-d-dad really say my dad’s a fat piece of shit?”
Sam sighed. “No, I made that up.”
He looked disappointed. “I thought so.”
“My dad might have said your dad was an agent of patriarchy, though.”
“W-what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s something he says when boys won’t let girls do what boys do.”
Scott Sanderson looked down so all Sam could see was the top of his sandy head. “I kind of w-wish your dadhadsaid my dad was a piece of shit.”
“Why?”
“It w-would have meant someone stood up to him.”
Sam absorbed the information. “Why don’t you stand up to him?”
Scott Sanderson didn’t reply. He was bent over, staring at his shoelaces as though he wanted to do it up without touching it. He was embarrassed. Sam tried to think of something else to say when he looked up at her. “Do you like King Arthur?”
“I like ‘Hey Arthur.’”
“That’s not the s—”
A loud bang from downstairs made them both jump.