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When Joseph was awoken at the crack of dawn (which, by the usual standards was actually quite late) he was not at all pleased to say the least.
“I thought today was supposed to be a day off!” he loudly complained as he followed his instructors out onto the frosty grounds of Air Supplena Island.
“Quit your griping!” Caesar admonished him before anyone else could. “You really think we have time for a day off?!”
“No, but I thought that nag—”
“Coach!” Caesar forcefully corrected him.
“I thought she’d at least keep to her word!” Joseph continued, pointedly ignoring Caesar.
“It’s probably another lesson! To teach us how we should always be ready, no matter what we’re told or what we may think,” Caesar reasoned.
Joseph scoffed. “Suck up.”
“ Stronzo ,” Caesar retorted.
“Cute pet names don’t work on me, jackass.”
“It wasn’t a pet name!”
“Enough!” Lisa Lisa commanded, materializing out of the early morning shadows.
Caesar froze in his steps and practically stood at attention like a soldier before a respected general. Joseph crossed his arms and slouched. A week of having her bully him in the most horrendous, albeit creative ways possible had done nothing to soften his opinion of Lisa Lisa. True, he was learning a lot, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or her. As far as he was concerned she was just a horrible, miserable nag that had nothing better to do than torture unsuspecting young men such as himself. The sooner Joseph was out of this so-called training the better. Let Caesar stay and fawn over her if he wanted, Joseph was out!
“Today is not a day off, but an off-day,” Lisa Lisa began. “In that the training you will do will not be as taxing as usual. I can work you to the point of breaking, but only so far before it becomes ineffective. That said, there is the matter of the unfortunate time limit we are working with. Hence today’s particular training.”
She paused to light a cigarette, the light a stark contrast to the gray of the early morning. Joseph took the time to try and spot what sort of awful gauntlet he’d be forced to clamber through today. There was nothing of note on the brown and withering grounds of the island. No flaming obstacle courses to run through, no deadly spires to climb and balance atop—even their instructors were walking away, meaning they wouldn’t be fighting them directly. Pity, Joseph thought. He would’ve loved a chance to knock them senseless.
Joseph turned back to Lisa Lisa as a plume of smoke danced in graceful ribbons in the air before her, looking as unconcerned as ever. With a pang of paranoia Joseph considered the ground beneath his very feet, neatly paved though it was, and wondered if there was a trap door that would send them off to some doom. Thankfully there was no abnormality to indicate a trap door. Still, that left the question of what on earth they’d be doing today. Was Lisa Lisa going to have them run laps or something? How droll!
“Jojo,” Lisa Lisa said tartly, as if sensing Joseph’s ire. “You’ve progressed much throughout this last week, but you still lack refinement. Today’s training will remedy that.”
“I’m plenty refined!” Joseph objected loudly.
Beside him, Caesar snorted. Oh, how Joseph hoped they’d be sparring with each other. He was more than ready to knock some teeth in, and if they just so happened to come from Caesar’s obnoxiously perfect smile so much the better. Meanwhile, Lisa Lisa raised her eyebrows at Joseph, the closest thing to an emotion he ever saw from her.
“Today you’ll both be using your Hamon to revitalize the grounds. During the spring and summer this island is home to marvelous gardens that make the place worth living on, but as you can imagine, such things are not suited to late winter. However, with the right application of Hamon, they could survive even a blizzard,” Lisa Lisa explained.
Joseph slumped even lower and sighed as dramatically as his stupid mask would allow. He’d been dragged out of bed… to garden?!
Lisa Lisa gestured behind her, where two sections of the grounds had been roped off. “You’ll each have a section to revitalize on your own. Whoever finishes first—while still meeting my standards—will be allowed the rest of the day off.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Joseph cheered. Finally, something sensible!
“The loser,” Lisa Lisa continued. “Will revitalize the rest of the island on his own.”
“No problem!” Joseph exclaimed. “All I have to do is perk up some lousy flowers and then I get the day off? I may as well have not left my bed, I could do that in my sleep!”
“Hey, meathead, did you not hear the part where Coach said you have to finish first?” Caesar said, sharply elbowing Joseph in the ribs.
“Tch, beating you is going to be a cinch!” Joseph proclaimed, smacking Caesar’s shoulder in retaliation.
“We’ll see about that!”
The two of them were sprinting past Lisa Lisa before she could bother to finish explaining the exercise. She didn’t seem to care as she took a long, measured drag of her cigarette, watching the smoke as it was idly carried away by a chilly breeze. Neither did it appear that she cared to stick around to watch them, retreating back towards the castle after a moment. That was more than fine by Joseph. He didn’t need her pestering him about his technique at every turn. No, he got enough of that from Caesar.
Hopping swiftly over the rope that marked a distinct section, Joseph took a deep, practiced breath as he clapped his hands together. The prickle of Hamon surged to his fingertips at once. Lacking refinement indeed! Lisa Lisa just hadn’t been watching close enough, otherwise she would’ve seen how well he adapted to this new way of distributing his Hamon. Well, Joseph thought with alacrity, today would be the day he would show her, once and for all!
Joseph knelt to the ground. The grass crunched underfoot, stiff with winter frost and made brittle by time. No problem at all. The grass roots, Joseph considered, were likely so tightly tangled together as to create a whole interconnected system. In that case, he could take care of all the grass in one fell swoop from one spot by letting his Hamon travel through that system. Then he would be well on his way to winning! Glancing over at Caesar, who was steadily brushing his hands over the grass and leaving swaths of lush, green blades in his wake, Joseph snickered. This would be too easy!
With a rush of glee Joseph slapped his hands against the hard ground and let his Hamon flow out of him and into the grass directly underneath his palms. They burst into vibrant life at once, and Joseph closed his eyes to focus the direction of his Hamon, to guide it all the way down to the roots and have it spread from there. Like the tide of the sea, the wave of green pulsed out slowly from Joseph, creeping ever more over the expanse of his section. It was steady, and faster than Caesar’s progress by far. Still, Joseph decided it could be even faster, that he could get an even bigger lead on Caesar, and win by a healthy margin. He took another drawn-out breath and sent out another, bigger wave of Hamon into the ground.
The result was instantaneous, if perhaps a bit more than Joseph had bargained for. Not only did all the grass within his section return to its verdant state in a matter of seconds, it all began to grow at an alarming and uneven rate. Joseph squawked and pulled his hands away, but the damage was done. The grass directly around him was almost a whole foot tall, and from there it tapered off until the edges were a neat inch tall. Joseph blinked. That would be fine, right?
From his section, Caesar guffawed obnoxiously. “Nice going, Jojo!”
“Shut up and mind your own business!” Joseph shouted.
Caesar was still cackling as he went about continuing to revitalize the grass in his section (without growing it to ridiculous lengths), but otherwise left Joseph well alone. Meanwhile Joseph considered the state of his part of the lawn for only a moment longer. It would be fine. Probably. After all, grass was prone to growing! He couldn’t be blamed for something that was only natural! There was more work to be done anyways.
Several beds of withered flowers were arranged in neat rows, almost completely overrun by massive clusters of weeds. Joseph hummed thoughtfully. He could probably take a shortcut here as well. The weeds were matted in fierce knots around the flowers and bushes, meaning he could use the same trick he used with the grass. He could use the weeds as a conduit to revitalize the flowers, and then suck the Hamon right back out to make pulling them easier.
That was what Joseph thought he could do, anyways. The weeds, for what reason he couldn’t discern, conducted Hamon much differently from grass. They were greedy, and ate up almost every drop of Hamon for themselves. The flowers and bushes hardly stirred. Now that wouldn’t do at all. A few more deep breaths sent a veritable tidal wave of Hamon into the weeds and throughout the ground. Finally the flowers began to perk up, the bushes fluffed out. Pleased, Joseph pumped even more Hamon into the ground until he realized with a shock that the weeds were growing out of control, to the point where a few wily ones were coiling themselves around his legs. With a startled yelp he yanked his legs free, quite a feat given how hardy the weeds were.
Immediately Joseph glared at Caesar in anticipation of inevitable ridicule. Caesar’s back was turned to him, but his shoulders were shaking with obvious mirth. Joseph clicked his tongue. Bold of him to laugh when Joseph was so far ahead of him. Sure, the grass was uneven and the weeds had soaked up so much Hamon that even now only a few haphazard blooms dotted the flower beds (a lot of them being dandelions—as far as Joseph was concerned, those counted), but he had done what he was told to do. He had revitalized this section, down to the very weeds (even if he did intend to rip them up). All of this Joseph had accomplished, and Caesar was still working on his grass!
Pleased as punch, Joseph gathered up fistfuls of weeds and focused on drawing the Hamon back out of them, but it proved to be much more difficult in practice than in theory. The weeds, it appeared, very much liked living and were not about to give way to some cockamamie young buck who thought he was too good to tear them up as they were. Joseph growled and dug his heels into the Hamon-warmed dirt. He was not going to tolerate attitude from some weeds!
A few moments later found the flower beds littered with shredded weeds, some with their roots intact, others without. Joseph breathed heavily, but steadily, carefully, so that that damn mask wouldn’t choke him out. He discovered the hard way that the weeds would, somehow drain the flowers before allowing themselves to be drained, meaning that he had to rip them up at their peak, indeed even beyond the peak of their vitality. The sun was hardly fully over the horizon, yet Joseph’s brow was already damp with sweat.
With the weeds taken care of, however, it meant that Joseph was completely done with his section already. He beamed under his mask, already thinking of how he’d spend a proper and sorely needed day off. First he would definitely nap—between the mask and the looming threat of the rings within him, sleep just didn’t come as easy anymore. He could always use more of it. Then maybe he could poke around and see if the castle had anything interesting to do, or even better, he thought wickedly, he could laze about and taunt Caesar as he tended to the rest of the island.
A pronounced snort drew Joseph out of his reverie. “You don’t seriously think you’re done, do you?”
“Mad that I beat you?” Joseph jeered, just before sticking his tongue out at Caesar and then promptly remembering that Caesar wouldn’t see it, and then doing it anyways because Caesar wouldn’t see it.
“You haven’t beaten me,” Caesar assured him before turning back to his work. “Not by a long shot, and you never will if you think that’s a job well done.”
“It’s a job that’s done, who cares if it’s good or not?!” Joseph insisted.
Instead of deigning that with a response, Caesar merely shook his head and returned to his unrelenting, turtle pace. Joseph let him, and let a satisfied, controlled exhale as he threw himself back onto the plush grass he’d just grown. If he closed his eyes, he could believe it was summer in the country, save for the cold that bit at his ears. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned as much as his mask would allow. Oh yeah, he definitely needed this. Today was going to be a great and relaxing day!
“Jojo,” came a voice as frigid as the air around him.
Joseph grumbled, his eyes snapping open. He’d just been starting to drift off too! Oh well, he thought as he sat up with another careful yawn, he could always nap later. Lisa Lisa stood at the edge of his section, her stone-cut features drawn into an expression of what Joseph could only describe as tight contempt. That wasn’t anything that worried Joseph. She was probably just so impressed she couldn’t stand it! He grinned under his mask as he hopped to his feet.
“What do you think, Coach?! Pretty good, right?” Joseph puffed with a flourish.
Lisa Lisa pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose it was foolish on my part to give you any sort of leeway. This sloppy work is unacceptable.”
“You just said to revitalize this section!” Joseph argued.
“To my standards, which you should know by now. Get to cleaning this up at once and I’ll consider not disqualifying you this very moment,” Lisa Lisa threatened.
“Aw, come on!” Joseph screeched. “How am I even supposed to deal with the grass?!”
Lisa Lisa turned sharply on a pristine heel, hair like a dark and unforgiving whip behind her. “There’s a lawn mower on the island. Somewhere.”
She left Joseph to fume as she checked Caesar’s progress. He didn’t stick around to watch. If he had to watch that pompous prat kiss ass for even a second he might vomit, and that was the last thing he wanted to do with this damn mask on, especially if he had to rely on Lisa Lisa’s mercy in the event that happened.
So off Joseph went in search of the supposed lawn mower that was… somewhere on the island. Joseph harrumphed and summoned up every possible insult he could think of to hurl (however privately) at that monstrous woman. This was completely unfair! This game was totally rigged against him!
Indeed by the time Joseph found the lawn mower (rusty, shambling piece of crap that it was!) a full two hours had passed. Two entire hours! Even at his invariably snail-like pace Caesar would’ve made decent progress by now! He’d had to scour the entire island before he found the pathetic little shed it was hidden away in. The damn thing felt like it would fall to pieces if he so much as breathed at it wrong (and wouldn’t that just be yet another dandy little lesson!), so Joseph took great care to carry it gingerly all the way back to his section.
When Joseph returned, Caesar had finally finished with the grass in his section and was carefully pulling away weeds to revive the flowers and bushes one by one. Joseph sniffed. How cocky could he get?! Going so slow, yet still being so sure he could beat Joseph?! It was outrageous! The sight of it set Joseph to the task of cutting the grass with renewed vigor, intending to be done with it before Caesar could so much as blink at another flower.
Unfortunately, the lawn mower too seemed to actively work against him. It was so laden with rust that it wouldn’t even turn at first, and then when a delicate shock of Hamon shook it free of the rust, Joseph found that the blades were barely sharp enough to cut the grass. He had to push the hunk of junk over any given piece of ground what felt like a hundred times before any discernible progress was made. The area where the grass had grown almost a foot tall was, suffice to say, awful.
By the time Joseph was finished, his arms ached, something that wouldn’t have been so annoying on a regular day of training, but on a day like this, a supposed off-day, it grated on his nerves to no end. He tossed the lawn mower aside with great enthusiasm, and was admittedly very satisfied with the way it fell to pieces upon impact with the ground.
Next was the task of scooping up all the weeds he had carelessly tossed to the edges of his section and finding a place to dispose of them. They scratched and pricked at his bare arms as if in retaliation for his impetuous treatment of them. Joseph didn’t waste too much time on them. He went to the nearest edge of the island and promptly dropped them into the ocean.
The sun was directly overhead by then. Joseph glanced at Caesar’s section as he set himself to giving the individual flowers, many of which, he reluctantly realized, had only partial blooms. It was pristine, of course. The grass wouldn’t need cutting, for one thing. The weeds were pulled in their entirety, roots and all, Caesar having taken the time to pull them all before revitalizing the flowers.
At the moment, Caesar was preoccupied with an orderly line of sunflowers, in particular the last one in line. With careful and devoted attention he traced his fingers up the broad stem; Joseph was transfixed as the vivid spring green color burgeoned at the barest touch. Up and up the stem Caesar continued, until his hands cupped the face of the flower. The petals, brown and wilting, instantly became plump with life.
Once Caesar was satisfied he released the sunflower and moved on to the next flower bed. Joseph continued to watch, however, with intense fascination as the flower settled into its renewed life and turned to face, not the sun for which it was named, but Caesar. It was stunningly obvious to Joseph, who blinked in disbelieving stupor, but Caesar was completely oblivious to the phenomenon, fixated as he was on his work. He did, however, seem to notice Joseph’s staring, and turned to him with a questioning look.
Joseph turned away sharply. He didn’t have time to be watching Caesar, or whatever the flowers might do! At this rate he was going to lose! Caesar needed to slow down—whatever happened to stopping and smelling the roses?!
Speaking of roses, it was thorny bush of them that pierced the tender flesh of Joseph’s palm when Lisa Lisa came by again to declare that Caesar had adequately completed his section, and thus was the winner. Joseph scoffed and loudly clamored about the unfairness of it all, but as usual Lisa Lisa was deaf to his despair.
“Better luck next time, Jojo!” Caesar teased as he sauntered by to enjoy the rest of his day in easy leisure.
Joseph looked around for something to chuck at Caesar, but by the time he reached for the broken pieces of the lawn mower, Caesar was well beyond throwing distance. Caesar waved at him from over his shoulder, chuckling all the while. Somehow, someway, Joseph would get back at him for that. In the meantime however, he considered as he forlornly looked over the entire landscape that was now his charge, there was work to be done. He stamped a foot against the ground. He hated that!
Regardless of how he felt about it, the sun crept steadily across the blinding blue sky as Joseph settled into an easy pace of work. At least he didn’t have to hurry. It was the sort of day where the sky seemed bluer than usual, and it was harder to look at for it. Strange, Joseph pondered as he worked on a bush of pale blue hydrangeas, that the sky should be at its most brilliant when most people preferred to be indoors. Where was this blue in the summer? What was it about the brisk air that brought out the most of the cerulean hues above? Joseph didn’t linger long on the questions. That was simply the way of it, he decided, and moved on.
By the time the looming castle was casting stark shadows across the grounds, Joseph had thought he was only halfway done. For such a small island, there was a lot of space dedicated to pointless foliage. He huffed impatiently and hoped Lisa Lisa didn’t intend to keep him out here until he was done. Just as he was getting irritated again (she didn’t really expect him to finish such a detailed and massive task in a single day, did she?!), he rounded the corner of one of the castle’s many buildings intending to work on the hedges that lined them and found, to his surprise, that they were already flourishing. At first he thought nothing of it, save that he was grateful for that much less work to do.
But then he went to a different part of the island, one that Joseph was positive he hadn’t even touched yet because of the sheer number of ferociously wild looking shrubs, and found it teeming with beautiful and lively (if strange) blooms. Colors abounded here, sometimes in tight clusters with long tendrils branching out from them, other times in harsh, spiky formations well spaced from one another. Weird, Joseph noted. In more ways than one.
He moved onto the next section. More odd flowers, some massive, some so tiny as to be swallowed almost entirely by the dense bushes around them, but most importantly all in bloom. How peculiar. Did Hamon in nature have a sort of domino effect, in which revitalizing enough of a particular area would take care of the rest? Or was something else afoot here…?
The answer came to him only seconds later, when a mild breeze brought with it the faint scent of tobacco. Joseph scrunched his nose. Even after a mere week he could tell one cigarette from another. This wasn’t anything that Lisa Lisa would smoke, he knew at once. It was too light, too sweet (comparatively speaking anyways—in Joseph’s opinion they all smelled nasty, but his unfortunate proximity to two smokers now meant he could make distinctions); Lisa Lisa smoked things that were heavier, more bitter. Which meant, of course, that there was only one other person it could be.
Indeed after trudging through several plots of well-grown and fragrant blooms, Joseph saw, leaning against one of the few trees on the island, Caesar, quite at his leisure. He didn’t notice Joseph at first, taken with the view of the island from the gentle hill that the sparse tree stood its lonely vigil on. Then, after a long, lazy drag of his cigarette, he tipped his head all the way back until it rested against the sturdy trunk, and sent a puff of smoky tendrils to the sky. Both he and Joseph watched, quite ensnared, as the smoke tangled with the branches above before dissipating into nothing. Joseph let his eyes drop back down to Caesar, finding with a start that Caesar had finally noticed him.
“’Bout time,” he said gruffly, beckoning Joseph towards him.
“What’s your deal?” Joseph demanded even as he stomped over to Caesar. “You suddenly feeling sorry for me or something?”
“Get over yourself. You really think Coach would let either of us have an actual day off with such a short time limit hanging over our heads?” Caesar retorted.
Joseph faltered. “Well, I mean—But she said—!”
“You’re so naive,” Caesar scoffed. “Come on, help me with this tree. There’s only a few on the island.”
“I don’t know, won’t Coach just have us do something else if we finish in a hurry? Not to say that I like doing this sort of thing, but if she’s going to have us swim laps around the island again, then—”
“She won’t if we don’t tell her we’ve finished,” Caesar interrupted.
His spring-green eyes glimmered then with something Joseph didn’t recognize. Or rather, he recognized, but it looked foreign in Caesar’s expression. If he was any judge of it, he might say Caesar looked mischievous. But that was ridiculous. This goody-goody? Suggesting they essentially play hooky? Joseph narrowed his eyes at Caesar.
“What’s your angle?” he demanded.
“Does there have to be an angle?” Caesar asked, frowning.
“Uh, yeah, there’s always an angle!”
“No, there’s not!”
“Yes, there is!”
“Just—shut up about your stupid angles and help me with this tree already!” Caesar snapped. “I’m not saying we have to hang out and be buddy-buddy or anything—don’t you want at least a couple hours to relax?!”
“Of course, but I don’t want to owe you anything,” Joseph replied.
“You won’t! Now, help me with this tree! I can’t do it by myself!” Caesar commanded as he extinguished his cigarette underfoot and then stuffed it in his pocket. Turning around sharply, he splayed his hands out over the rough bark.
Joseph, curious now, mirrored Caesar’s posture. “You can’t?”
“Trees are… a bit more difficult to care for,” Caesar explained. “They’re much larger and complex than flowers or bushes, and especially old ones like this can be stubborn.”
“Crotchety,” Joseph added, slapping the tree lightly with his hands.
Caesar ignored him to continue, “Your Hamon needs to go through the bark without breaking it; that’ll just open the tree up to infection and contradict what we’re trying to do. Then, once it’s underneath, it needs to flow naturally within the tree.”
“Kind of like when we let Hamon flow through ourselves, following the path of our circulatory system and healing us?” Joseph asked.
“Precisely.”
Joseph nodded. “Too easy.”
They both turned their attention to the tree. The bark ran thick, but as with most things there were always ways to get underneath it, thin or weak points where he could harmlessly pass through. Beside him, Caesar took that telltale breath, chest swelling, shoulders rising. Joseph did the same. With their tandem exhales the tree began to hum with life, as a person settling into a freshly made bed with warmed blankets might hum. Joseph fancied that the tree seemed to even sigh.
“Match your breathing with mine,” Caesar gently instructed, all sense pretentiousness gone from his tone.
Rather than argue as he normally might, Joseph did as he was bid. The Hamon flowed more freely once they were in sync, not only into the tree but into Joseph as well. The winter around him seemed to fade away as the combination of his and Caesar’s Hamon encapsulated them both in a personal spring. Above them, the branches perked up and became dotted with full, freshly green buds. Joseph grinned beneath his mask. It was immensely satisfying, if nothing else, to see the immediate results of his work. Even better was when the buds began to unfold into creamy white blossoms that looked like clouds against the sky.
“Jojo, ease up,” Caesar urged.
Joseph was past the point of listening. He was far too enthralled with the vibrancy of the life of the tree, more potent than that of the flowers and bushes and grass, far too entranced with the way the buds began to pop open like gorgeous kernels, far too—
Without warning the flowers began to burst overhead as lush leaves pushed their way out and onto the branches. Petals rained down on them in torrents, the tree having been in full bloom when it began to flare like a firecracker. Joseph finally pulled back and laughed as he stretched his hands out to catch errant petals. He looked to Caesar, expecting a stern and disproving look from him, but found, with a strange lurch in his chest as punchy and petal-soft as the veritable pyrotechnics overhead, that Caesar was laughing too. The tender green of the newly sprouted leaves were reflected in his eyes, and the cloudy white petals settled delicately upon his sunshine-golden curls to create an image of spring that Joseph almost dared to think of as angelic.
“What?” Caesar asked through a chuckle, having noticed Joseph staring yet again.
“Nothing!” Joseph exclaimed. “There are other trees, right? Let’s go take care of those, I want to do that again!”
Caesar shook his head with a snort, and then ruffled Joseph’s hair to shake loose the petals that had caught there. Joseph swatted at the patronizing hand, only to miss when Caesar skipped out of reach and down the hill.
“Come on, polpetto , if we hurry we can be done before sundown!” Caesar called over his shoulder.
“Hey! Just because I can’t understand what you’re saying doesn’t mean you get to insult me whenever you feel like!” Joseph shouted as he ran down the hill after Caesar.
“Relax,” Caesar said, giving Joseph a light shove when he careened a little too close. “It wasn’t an insult.”
“Then what was it?” Joseph prodded.
Rather than answer, Caesar pointed at another scraggly looking tree in the distance. “Bet you I can get there first.”
“Fat chance!” Joseph shrieked as he immediately started sprinting towards the tree.
“Hey! You’re supposed to wait until I say go!”
“You snooze, you lose!”
“Jojo! Get back here!”
Laughter as warm as summer filled the chilly air of the island as they raced each other like schoolboys without a care in the world. Indeed in that moment the island was a world of its own, remote and safe from the troubles without, from the chill of winter. As the two young men breathlessly reached the next tree and began bickering over who had actually gotten there first, they were both of them unaware that they were watched. At an ornate window stood Lisa Lisa arms crossed but with a rare smile gracing her lips. Suzie Q, curious about the ruckus outside, sidled up beside her to see what all the commotion was.
“Hm? I thought Caesar earned a day off,” Suzie Q remarked.
“He did,” Lisa Lisa affirmed with a nod.
For a moment, they watched as another tree burst into over-excited life, with Caesar and Joseph tossing handfuls of petals at each other as if it were snow. Suzie Q laughed at their play.
“I’m glad they’re having fun, although I do wonder how Jojo managed to rope Caesar into helping him with his work,” Suzie Q said. “Such a shame to waste a day off.”
Lisa Lisa hummed absently, eyes tracking the boys as they flounced off to a place she couldn’t follow. “I think Caesar spent his day exactly how he wanted.”