I'm sure your wife will have some ideas to keep them busy," Quinn leaned against the doorway.
"Oh, she has some ideas, all right," Cale laughed grimly. "All of which conveniently leave her out of the picture."
Quinn looked at him blankly, not comprehending.
"My wife left me. We're divorced." He said it simply, with the same amount of emotion as when he had told his sons what was on the dinner menu.
"I see," she said, not at all seeing how any woman could leave a man like Cale.
There was a crash from the living room.
Then again, Quinn silently acknowledged, there may have been other considerations.
Chapter Six
The water in the teapot began to boil, emitting a hostile whistle. On his way into the living room to assess the latest damage inflicted by his offspring, Cale hesitated, debating which to tend to first.
"You finish with the tea. I'll see what's going on in there," Quinn said, grateful for an opportunity to flee the kitchen's close quarters and the overwhelming nearness of him. It was far too much too soon, after way too long. Hearing her approach, the boys scurried back to their places on either end of the sofa.
"So, guys," Quinn asked as she righted the lamp, "what's doing?"
"We are being bored," the one on the right told her, his arms folded across his chest in much the same way as Cale had done earlier.
"Yeah," said the one on the left, narrowing his eyes meaningfully, "and you know what happens when little kids get bored."
"No." She pulled up a small ottoman and sat down facing them. "What happens when little kids get bored?"
"They bounce off walls," one said, repeating the phrase he had heard his father use earlier.
"They get carried away," the other told her.
"Well, I wouldn't know, not having any little kids," she said. "But if I did, there would be no wall- bouncing. And no one would have time to get carried away."
"Why not?" they asked in unison.
"They'd be much too busy."
"Like watching TV and stuff, rfcht?" One nodded approvingly.
She shook her head. "We'd be doing much more fun things."
They exchanged an uneasy glance. Grown-ups never referred to TV as a fun thing.
"Like what?"
"Yeah, what's more fun than watching cartoons?"
"Who's art kit is that on the table?" Quinn pointed to a box on the table under the front window.
"It's Eric's," the boy on the left told her.
Quinn smiled. Now she knew that Eric had the cowlick and Evan did not.
"Eric, may I look at it?" she asked.
"Sure." He shrugged. "I don't use it. My Aunt Val sent it to me."
Quinn retrieved the box and unsnapped the closure. "Ah, look at all these goodies."
The twins rolled their eyes. What was so neat about a bunch of paper and colored pencils and crayons and such?
Quinn drew out a sketch pad and the colored pencils and smiled.
"Well, you boys may go back to whatever walls you were planning on jumping on."
"Bouncing," Evan said meaningfully, craning his neck to see what she was doing. "Off,"Eric added. "Bouncing off."
"Whatever," she said casually, without taking her eyes from the sketch pad on her knees, and the lines and curves she was making with a light brown colored pencil.
It wasn't long before both boys had hopped down from their perches to lean over her shoulder, as she had intended.
"It's Miss Jane Mousewing." Eric pointed to the figure emerging from Quinn's rapidly moving pencil.
"How do you know how to draw Miss Jane so good?" Evan asked.
"Because that's what I do." She looked up at them, and seeing that they did not understand what she meant, she added, "I write the Miss Jane stories, and I draw the pictures, too."
They looked at each other, then said in unison, "S. Q. Hollister writes the Miss Jane books."
"Right. Selena Quinn Hollister. That's me. Quinn is my middle name, but I use it as my first name."
"Why?" Eric leaned ever closer until he all but hung over her shoulder, fascinated as the picture of the little mouse-girl became more defined.
"I guess 'cause my mother liked it." She shrugged as Evan closed in on her other side. "And because I have a cousin named Selena and it would be confusing if there were two of us."
"Then why didn't your mother just name you Quinn? Why did she name you Selena if she was going to call you 'Quinn?"
"Because in my mother's family, the first girl is always named Selena, after my mother's great-aunt. But my mom's brother had a little girl before I was born, and he had named her Selena. So my cousin got to be called Selena and I got to be called by my middle name."
"Hmmm." They both nodded, and leaned just a little closer.
"So, do you have any of the Miss Jane books?" Quinn asked.
"No," Eric told her, "but our teacher read them to us at nursery school sometimes."
"They're girls' books," Evan sneered. "We dont read girls' books."
"Miss Jane is not just for girls." Quinn fixed him with a stare. "What makes you think she's just for girls?"
" 'Cause she's a girl mouse. And because she does girl things."
"Like what?" Quinn asked him, really wanting to know.
"Like she always wears a dress and dances or plays the flute and stuff." Evan shrugged.
Quinn looked down at Miss Jane, a vision in a little flowy dress, her flute raised to her lips.