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“My butt is cold,” Gold complains, squirming a little as he tries to find a more comfortable position on the tree branch. He’s wearing snowpants and a thick coat, with hat and gloves and scarf to match. Purple privately thinks that he looks like a multicolored marshmallow with a face.
(Gold makes a very cute marshmallow, with those chubby cheeks of his that are still soft and round with baby fat. Purple doesn’t voice the thought, though, because Gold is at an age – an entire eleven years old – where being accused of anything even remotely babyish is an insult beyond the pale.)
“You could always go inside,” Purple says from her own (admittedly rather uncomfortable) perch on another branch.
Gold pouts, and Purple laughs. “What else do you want me to say? If you put on any more layers, you won’t be able to move at all.”
“That is so not true,” Gold says. “I could do at least two more.” He pokes Purple in the ribs; she yelps and swats his hand away, even though his finger is so padded by his glove that she can barely feel the poke through her own coat.
Gold grins at her unrepentantly, somehow innocent and impish all at once.
“Settle down,” Dark says, his tone so uninterested that Purple wonders if he even knows that he’s said it. At this point, it might be muscle memory. “You’re going to fall out of the tree if you keep roughhousing.”
“You’d catch us,” Gold says, leaning back just far enough to give Purple a minor heart attack and not actually far enough to fall.
“I’d what?” Dark looks away from his binoculars, focusing on Gold and proving Purple’s hypothesis about worrywarting muscle memory. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“Nothing,” Gold says. “Can I see?” He makes grabby hands for the binoculars, leaning over at a dangerous angle. Purple grabs his shoulder, steadying him.
“Hold on, I’m trying to see if I can find the house that keeps setting off the big ones.” Dark shifts a little, angling himself higher into the tree. “I think it might be in the neighborhood behind your school.”
Another firework booms overhead, a harsh drumbeat in the silence of the winter night. Purple tilts her head back, watching through the bare branches of the tree as gold and silver sparkles try to outshine the stars for a brief, fiery moment.
Gold sighs, slumping as he lets Purple pull him back safely onto his branch. “Can I have a cookie?”
“Possibly. What’ll you give me for it?” Purple asks, pulling a cookie from the pocket of her coat and holding it up with a flourish.
Gold widens his eyes, letting his lower lip fall into a pout. Both Purple and Dark have since come to regret teaching him how to improve his already lethally adorable puppy-dog eyes – especially since, out of all his family, they’re the biggest suckers for them.
“Fine,” Purple says, handing over the cookie. “Just acknowledge that I am a fantastic older sister and a glorious specimen of stick kind.”
“Yes,” Gold hisses. He stuffs the entire cookie into his mouth and sits back, looking like a very pleased hamster. “You’re th’beft.”
“Ew,” Purple laughs. “Ever heard of chewing?”
“Norp,” Gold says, voice muffled by the cookie. “Nefer.”
“See if I ever make cookies for you again, you barbarian,” Purple says, ruffling his hair until it stands straight up from his head.
Gold pouts at her again, and they both laugh. Purple will cave the very next time Gold begs her to make cookies, all previous resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding, and they both know it.
“D’you think they’ve noticed that we’re out here yet?” Gold asks, trying to sneak his hand into her pocket for another cookie. Purple grabs his wrist as he darts his hand back, stealing the cookie from his fingers and biting into it herself.
“I doubt it,” Dark says, climbing a little higher. Purple wonders for a brief moment how long it will take for him to realize that the branches get thinner the higher he goes.
She chews on her cookie, humming thoughtfully as the taste of chocolate spreads over her tongue. “Yeah, same. That chess game was looking pretty tense when I snuck in to grab the cookies.”
“Ugh.” Gold groans. “Chess is okay, but Dad and Cho take foreveeeeer.”
He steeples his fingers, staring intently at the cookie in Purple’s hand with a serious expression. “I should move my bishop here,” he says, in his “Chosen” voice. “But if I do that, then Dad – I mean, Mango – will be able to take my knight in a couple of moves. So perhaps I should move my bishop here. Or maybe I shouldn’t move it at all.”
Purple laughs, and Gold flashes her a wicked little grin before shifting in his seat and adjusting an imaginary pair of glasses. “Chosen’s thinking about moving his bishop, but if he does that then I can take his knight. So he’ll probably move his queen instead, and then I will move my bishop like so – ” He flicks his fingers, snapping them triumphantly. “Voila! Victory! I move like so, and it’s checkmate in three hundred moves!”
“You little stinker,” Purple grins, shoving him gently (very gently, so as not to unbalance him). “When did you get so sassy, huh? Where’s the sweet little kid that followed me around like a duckling?”
Gold shrugs.
“I think they’re on Cherry Street,” Dark says, lowering the binoculars. “Can’t tell which house from here, though. Too many trees.”
“Why do you even want to know?” Purple asks, craning her neck to look up at her older brother.
“The fireworks they’re shooting off are seriously badass,” Dark says, right as another one of the fireworks in question explodes overhead in a shower of orange and green sparks. “I have an urgent and irresponsible need to find out who their supplier is.”
“Makes sense.” Gold nods sagely, and Purple wonders if she should be concerned about the manic glint in his eye. Gold is a sweetheart through and through, but he’s a sweetheart with a potential taste for arson.
A golden-yellow firework whistles overhead, unfurling into a sunflower with a boom.
“Like that, see? Like that! How are they doing that?” Dark demands.
“Huh. I dunno.” Purple leans forward, ignoring the way the branch digs into her thighs. “I guess you could also just try looking it up.”
Dark sighs. “I guess.” He climbs down from his higher perch, sliding onto the branch next to Purple’s. “Pass me a cookie?”
Purple does as requested, and Dark shoots her an enthusiastic thumbs up as he bites into it.
A sunburst of orange, yellow, and red explodes high above them, turning the crisp white blanket of snow into a sea of pale fire.
“Ooh,” Gold says. “That’s a nice one.”
Purple leans over, letting her shoulder jostle Gold’s, and hums. “Yeah, it is.”
“It’s almost midnight, now,” Dark comments, checking his watch and squinting in the dim light. “Four more minutes to go.”
“It’s crazy that another year is already over,” Purple muses, letting her chin drop into her hands. “Feels like it only just started.”
“It lasted forever,” Gold says, grimacing. “I still have six whole months to go before I turn twelve.”
“Ack, no, don’t remind me,” Purple complains. “Stop growing already, why don’t you.”
“No,” Gold says sweetly.
“Dark, c’mon. Back me up here.”
Dark just gives Purple a flat look. “Look who’s talking, Miss Senior-Year-of-High-School.”
“Oof.” Purple shivers. “Don’t remind me about that, either, please.”
They fall silent, waiting as the seconds tick by. Every year, Purple thinks that the moment that one year ends and another begins should be special, momentous, different – but, in the end, it never is. It’s a moment like any other, here and then gone.
“Ten,” Dark says, and Gold joins him in counting down. Purple mouths along, silent whispered moments of time.
The new year comes, and Purple breathes a long, deep sigh.
Gold looks at her, tilting his head. “You’re so pink right now,” he says. “Why are you so happy?”
Purple looks up, at the fireworks, and down, at the snow. Then she looks at her brothers, and smiles. “Just because.”