Skye didn't see Bobbi for pretty much the rest of the afternoon. She and Jemma spent most of it at the table, catching up on The Giver and, at least in Skye's case, struggling through a math worksheet.
May sat with them, helping out occasionally but mostly focusing on the medical paperwork Miss Hand had dropped off. She kept it tucked inside the file folder as she read, so Skye couldn't see what any of it said, not that she even wanted to pry into Bobbi's records like that. Skye liked knowing things and on more than one occasion had resorted to various methods of sneaking to learn the things she wanted to know, but even she knew that something like papers from Bobbi's doctor were personal. Besides, she had no reason to need to know anything that would be in a file like that. Her own file, on the other hand, she would have loved to lay her eyes on.
While Skye had heard Miss Hand's speech about her plenty of times, she had never been able to get ahold of a full copy of her file. She got in trouble at St. Agnes once because she had managed to crack into the nuns' computer system to access her digital file. She had gotten a month's worth of kitchen and laundry duty for that, plus a couple raps across the knuckles with Sister Margaret's discipline rod. It had hurt to use a keyboard for a week afterwards, and the worst part of it was, she had barely learned anything new. Skye had eventually pieced together that the St. Agnes had only "gone digital" a few years ago, about a year after Jemma had first come there, so all of the older information on Skye was still only in a hard copy in her file. The digital file had her school records and all the records of her various indiscretions, but no mentions of her early years or of how she had come to the orphanage in the first place. The story told to her by the nuns of being dropped off on the doorstep without a name or any identification papers was a deeply unsatisfying one, and Skye was determined to uncover any other shred of information that she possibly could. And as far as Skye could figure, the only way to do that was to eventually figure out a way to see her file – her whole file.
As the afternoon slowly began to creep into the evening, Phil reemerged from his office and joined Skye and Jemma at the table while May drifted away to finish up some of her own work.
"How's the book coming?" he asked, craning his neck to get a look at what page they were on.
"Okay, I guess," Skye shrugged. The book had certainly improved the farther into it they got, but she still wasn't crazy about it. She still thought the whole world the main kid, Jonas, lived in made very little sense, but Jemma assured her that she wasn't missing anything.
"We only have one more chapter left to read," Jemma said. She had been doing the majority of the reading, which Skye was grateful for, but her voice was starting to sound a little hoarse.
"I have an idea, but I want to see what you two think first," said Phil. "What do you say I read the last chapter out loud to you, to give you both a little break, and Jemma you can get some water for that throat?" Jemma blushed, but Skye's face split into a grin and she pumped her head up and down. Having someone else do her homework for her was about one of the greatest ideas Skye had ever heard. She gave Jemma a nudge, prompting the younger girl to get up from the table and fix a glass of water for herself. Without hesitating, she pressed her copy of the book into Phil's hands and pulled her legs up so she was sitting cross-legged on the seat of the chair, fully prepared to listen without having to follow along.
Phil waited until Jemma had come back to the table with her water and taken a long sip before clearing his throat and beginning to read. Skye was delighted, but not surprised, to learn that Phil had an excellent reading voice. He made everything sound just dramatic and serious enough, while still using his familiar, gentle tone, and he went out of his way to make sure each character had their own unique voice. Before long, Skye was thinking less about how Phil was doing her homework for her and more about how nice it was to have someone read to her out loud with so much care and attention. She had a vague memory of some of the nuns reading out loud to her when she was much younger, and there had been a few teachers here and there in elementary school who had read books to her classes, but none of those times had ever felt quite like this.
Beside her, Jemma wore an unsure expression that looked out of place on her face. It wasn't often that Jemma looked quite so confused. Skye caught Jemma's attention and furrowed her brow in an effort to see what was wrong without interrupting Phil, but Jemma only shook her head and locked her gaze on the book instead of Skye. Apparently, that was going to have to be a conversation for the two of them to have later.
Phil seemed not to notice, though, and he kept reading until they reached the point where Miss Hill had told Skye and Jemma to stop in order to be caught up with the rest of the class.
"To be continued," he grinned, closing the book and setting it down on the kitchen table. "It's getting pretty interesting, don't you think?" Skye just shrugged, and Jemma didn't move at all, her eyes fixed on her half-empty glass of water. Phil stood then, stretching his arms wide and twisting his back side to side a little so that it made a couple of tiny "clicks." He groaned slightly, but his playful expression assured the girls that he wasn't really in pain.
"The drawbacks of getting old, kiddos," he joked. "All my joints are starting to sound like Rice Krispies: they snap, crackle, and pop!"
"You're not old," Jemma assured him, snapping out of whatever reverie she had been lost in moments ago. "Middle-aged is much more accurate."
"How old are you, Phil?" Skye wanted to know. She realized as she said it that she probably shouldn't have blurted the question out, but she was genuinely curious and he didn't seem to be offended.
"I just turned 45 last July," he said. "So you're right, Jemma, middle-aged is probably more accurate. I just feel older than I am sometimes."
"What about May?" Skye asked, pressing her luck. "How old is she?"
"You know you should never ask a woman her age," came May's voice from the doorway. Skye looked up to see May standing there, and even though May was wearing a smile, Skye still felt her cheeks flush.
"Busted!" Phil crowed. He was laughing, and it didn't take long for May to join him. Skye mumbled an apology, which May waved off.
"I was only teasing, Skye. Phil and I are the same age. We actually went to school together when we were younger."
"Really?" Skye was having trouble wrapping her head around the idea of May and Phil being anything but adults. On the one hand, they did sometimes still act like kids, Phil especially, but even so, she had never actually considered the fact that they hadn't always been grownups their whole lives.
"Well, high school. I moved here when my parents got divorced, when I was a sophomore. Phil and I were in the same grade, although we didn't know each other very well then. More like friendly classmates than friends."
"How did you get married then?" Skye prodded. She was enjoying the power of getting so many of her questions answered instead of brushed aside.
"Melinda's selling us short," Phil said with a wink. "We may not have been friends in high school, but we had some friends in common, so we spent plenty of time with each other. After high school, we ended up going to the same college. Not on purpose, but a lot of people in Manitowoc end up going to UW. We started spending more time together, and then eventually I asked her out on a date—"
"You mean I asked you out on a date," May interrupted.
"You always forget this part of the story," Phil chided. "I'm the romantic, it was definitely me who did the asking."
"Agree to disagree," smiled May, planting a kiss on Phil's cheek.
"Anyway, regardless of who asked out who first, we started dating in college, and a few years after that, we decided to get married. Twenty years later, we're still going strong!" Phil finished the story with a beam and returned May's kiss. Skye resisted the urge to scrunch up her nose at the PDA, mostly because she thought it was nice that her foster parents actually liked each other, even if kissing was still kind of gross. Beside her, Jemma seemed enamored with the romance of it all. Not surprising, Skye decided, considering how many books Jemma devoured. The girl was a sucker for a good story, even if it was a love story.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one am worn out from this weekend," May said. She looked briefly around at the other faces in the room, which seemed to confirm her suspicions. "How about, instead of anyone having to cook tonight, we just order some pizza?" Skye's face split into an enormous grin and she had to fight to keep from bouncing up and down in her seat. Like almost any kid, she loved pizza, but she almost never had an opportunity to have it. The nuns certainly never ordered pizza at St. Agnes, and most of the foster families she had stayed with weren't usually so inclined to spend money on take-out food for their foster kids. Jemma also looked excited at the prospect of pizza for dinner, although she did a much better job of containing herself than Skye did.
"I'll take that as a yes," laughed May. "Skye, Jemma, why don't you two go and check on Bobbi and make sure that's okay with her. See what kind of pizza she likes, too, and then Phil and I will place the order."
Skye bounded up from the table, happy to oblige, and pulled Jemma along behind her. Within the last hour, her day had taken a sudden upturn. Between having Phil help finish her homework, hearing May and Phil's story from when they were younger, and getting pizza for dinner, Sunday evening had turned out to be pretty good.
When Skye and Jemma neared the entryway to the den, Jemma gave Skye's wrist a gentle tug, reminding her not to go barging into what was now Bobbi's bedroom.
"We should knock first," Jemma murmured, tapping absentmindedly on her leg.
"Right," Skye said. She offered a sheepish shrug. "I forgot about that." Jemma gave her a reassuring smile, and Skye stretched out her hand to knock on the doorframe, alerting Bobbi to their presence. When no answer came, Skye poked her head around the corner and peered into the den. Bobbi was perched on the bed with her eyes closed, her braced leg stretched out stiffly. The crutches were piled on the floor, like Bobbi had dropped them the minute she could without a second thought. A couple of the garbage bags had been pulled open, with clothes and other belongings spilling from their gaping tops. In her hands, Bobbi held two wooden rods, each one nearly a foot and a half long and a couple of inches thick. The wood was a little rough, but looked like it had been sanded and shaped enough to have grips on either end, and Skye could see places where it had been rubbed to an almost shiny smoothness. She figured those were the places where they had been handled the most. Bobbi's face was screwed up in a look of concentration and she twirled the rods expertly back and forth in her hands as she took breaths in and out. It was obvious that she hadn't heard or noticed Skye and Jemma at all. Skye cleared her throat.
"Hey, um, Bobbi?" Bobbi's eyes snapped open and she whipped the rods out of sight, shoving them under her pillow in the blink of an eye. Skye took a step back, a little startled by the speed with which Bobbi had reacted.
"Sorry," Skye apologized. "We didn't mean to sneak up on you." Bobbi's shoulders relaxed slightly, although her eyes still looked wary.
"No, it's okay," said Bobbi. "I wasn't paying attention."
Skye meant to ask Bobbi about her pizza preferences, but before her brain had formulated the question, a different one flew out of her mouth.
"What are those things?" Behind her, Jemma let out a squeak, and Skye bit down hard on her own lip to keep any other rogue and invasive questions from escaping. Bobbi looked a little embarrassed and squirmed on the bed, casting her eyes anywhere but Skye and Jemma.
"They're uh… well, they're batons. I use them to twirl sometimes."
"Like in a marching band or something?" Skye ignored Jemma's elbow, which was now digging into her back in a desperate attempt to get Skye to stop. Bobbi had answered, so it seemed like maybe she didn't mind Skye's questions as much as Jemma feared she did.
"Um, no, not exactly. They're more like… I use them to help me think," Bobbi finally said. She eased the batons back out into plain sight. "Usually I spin them while I pace, but I can't exactly do that right now, so I was trying to use them sitting down."
"They're cool," Skye told her, taking a step closer to get a better look. "Where'd you get them?"
"I made them, actually. In shop class a couple of years ago." Skye looked at Bobbi in awe.
"You made them? And your teacher let you?"
Bobbi's cheeks grew pink. "Yeah. He honestly didn't care very much what we made, as long as we didn't chop our fingers off with the band saw. We all had to make a birdhouse for a grade, but other than that it was pretty much fair game." Bobbi paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. "In retrospect, he probably wasn't the most responsible guy to be teaching eighth graders how to use power tools, but at least I got these out of it."
Skye desperately wanted to touch them or even give them a twirl herself, but she saw how protectively Bobbi was cradling them and knew better than to ask right then. She settled instead for a long, careful look, taking in every swirl of the wood grain and spot of worn-down smoothness.
"They're really cool," she said again. She gave Bobbi a grin to let her know that she meant it, and Bobbi's face fell into a small smile herself. Skye thought it might have been the first smile she had ever seen on the older girl's face. Even though Skye was usually extra cautious around older foster siblings, something about Bobbi told Skye that she could be trusted. Like it was okay to open up and be nice to her, and that Skye didn't have to worry about Bobbi trying to throw her weight around. She knew it was a little early to be deciding things like that, but even so, she had a good feeling. She hoped it would turn out to be right.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft tapping on her arm, and she turned to see Jemma looking at her pointedly.
"Oh yeah!" Skye exclaimed. "We came back here to ask you a question. Is pizza okay for dinner? What do you like on yours?"
"Anything but olives," Bobbi said. Jemma made a face in solidarity. She wasn't a fan either.
"Well at least we all have good taste," laughed Skye. Her good feeling was only getting stronger.