"Danny! Danny-Danny-Danny, it's time to get up!"
"Wha…?" Daniel Reisberg groggily forced his eyes open long enough to look into his sister's eager face. "Oreet, sweetie, I'm napping."
"You napped already." Oreet rolled her eyes, big and deep brown and contrasting sharply with her pale, freckled cheeks. "C'mon, it's seven already. We're gonna miss Hillel!"
"We're gonna what?" Daniel looked at the clock. 6:55 PM – Oreet was right. Shit, Omer was going to chew them out for being late again. "Oh…fish sticks, thanks for waking me up." He swung his legs over the side of the bed, straightening his wrinkled button-down shirt as he went, and stood up so fast that his head spun.
"You dressed, honey?" he asked. He wasn't, not properly, but at least his normal work uniform wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. Even Omer, who prided himself on knowing (most of) the services and remembering to put on his tallit more often than not, didn't get on his case over khakis and a button-down.
"Yeah. Look, I have my shoes on and everything." Oreet twirled in place, making her purple plaid skirt swish out. Daniel briefly considered licking his palm and smoothing down her hair, but she hated it, and even thick and coarse as it was, it was lying relatively flat right now.
"Good," he said instead. "Where's your brother?"
"Right here!" Oreet pointed at him and giggled, then shook her head. "You mean Noah? He's in the kitchen."
"And he's not dressed properly, or I'll eat my hat." Daniel stepped into his shoes. With his tufty brown Mohawk and eyeliner thick enough that it could serve as house siding, Noah had long ago made Daniel give up hope that he'd ever make himself into a productive member of society. Never mind the jail record; the way he dressed would make the original Rav Hillel himself crawl into a hole and die.
"No, but he got his other eyebrow pierced. It looks really cool," Oreet said, grinning. "It's all red and puffy, like a bee sting!"
"Oy gevalt," Daniel moaned, slapped a hand over his eyes, and darted a quick glance towards the ceiling. He was holding the big guy responsible for this, benevolent or not. If God could force Noah the First to obey him about the ark, why couldn't He at least tell Noah Reisberg to quit drawing stares on purpose? "Well, he knows where the peroxide is. God forbid he should die before I do, because now –"
" – you'll never get him in a Jewish cemetery and the goyische ones won't take him. I know," Oreet interrupted.
"That's right, and don't you get any ideas about facial piercings, young lady. Your brother's going to turn me gray before I'm forty." Daniel shrugged on the pumpkin-colored pullover he had draped over his desk chair and grabbed his wallet. "Ready?"
Oreet grabbed the hand he held out and went with him down to the kitchen, where Noah's smirk and eyebrow as puffy as Oreet had reported it to be stood out like a stain on the yellow-and-white tiles. "Thought you were gonna sleep forever," he said, half-tilted back on two chair legs.
"Well, I didn't," Daniel snapped. "And take that thing out. It's an eyesore and a tetanus infection waiting to happen."
Noah rolled his eyes. "I'll be sure to let you run my life when hell freezes over. C'mon, they'll start without us." He stood up, letting the chair legs hit the floor with a screech that made Daniel shudder, and held out his hand to Oreet. "Ready to eat, Ori?"
"Yup!" Oreet grabbed his fingers and started for the garage, holding a brother's hand in each of hers. "My colored pencils are still in the car, right?"
Daniel slid into the driver's side, buckled up, and started the engine. "Right up front, sweetheart. Now let's roll."