“I’m good on ladders,” I say. “I’ll scrape your shingles.”

His brow furrows. “You’re Floyd’s boy?”

“Brick MacAvoy.”

“You available the rest of the week and over the weekend?”

“Yeah ... I’m a good scraper, Mr. Langille.” Never done it in my life but how hard can it be?

“Rolf,” he says. “Call me Rolf.”

He wouldn’t want first names if he knew about Igor and Lorne ... would he?

Tully charges up the driveway on her bike and skids to a halt beside him, huffing and glaring. I wait for her to rat on me, but she doesn’t say anything. Then Marigold, her mother, comes out the side door; you can tell right away she’s pregnant.

“What’s up, Rolf?” she says.

“This here is Floyd’s boy. Wants the job.”

She has a quiet face, not flashy like Opal’s, and curly hair the color of horse chestnuts. She loops her arm through Rolf’s, smiling at me. “Are you a good worker, Brick?”

“Sure.” My heart sinks. “Only thing is, I got Cassie.”

Big-eyed, Cassie is clinging to my leg. But Marigold is like Tully, doesn’t give up easy, so we go through another round of gummi bears. By which time I’m sweating bullets—it’s as though my entire escape plan depends on this two-bit job.

“I’ll like having Cassie here,” Marigold says. “She can play with the puppy, and Tully’s around.”

“Not always,” Tully says.

She’s still glaring at me. It’s not if she’s planning on ratting, it’s when.

“Why don’t you give Brick a trial run, Rolf?” Marigold says. “See how he does. You start day shifts next Tuesday, Tully can’t handle more than the bottom step of any ladder, and I don’t want to look at one sideways now I’m pregnant. Besides, no one else has answered your ad.” She rests her head on his shoulder. “I bet Brick will do just fine. We need to get started ... it’s been too wet all spring to do anything.”

I heard Opal tell Floyd that the woman down the road was expecting a baby, a little curl to her lip like, Why would anyone in her right mind end up pregnant?

“I can paint too,” I say, stretching the truth right out of shape.

Rolf scratches his chin. “Okay,” he says, “a trial run. Start around this side of the house—Tully can scrape the lower part later. Thorough, that’s what I want. No skimping. But no digging into the shingles, either. I like wooden shingles better than siding, so I don’t want them ruined.”

“Is the ATV all right under the trees? I try not to park in the sun because I don’t want the paint to fade.”

“No problem.”

I bend down and whisper fiercely, “Cassie, you be a good girl and stay out of everybody’s way.”