“Ask your parents what?” Mom said as she came in.

I pointed at the pile of books. “Can we use one of those for quilling? Oren wants to make a tree as a memorial for his parents.”

Mom’s eyes softened as she looked at Oren. “That’s such a wonderful thought,” she said. “But unfortunately, no, you can’t use the books, for the same reason we can’t throw them out. They’re sacred texts and can’t be cut up. I’m sorry.”

Oren’s shoulders drooped.

“What if…” She chewed on her nail.

“Mom!” I said. “What if what?”

Her back straightened. “Right. Sorry.” She turned to Oren. “How about I print out a couple of the programs from the funeral on some of Evie’s nice paper? They’d have your parents’ names on them but aren’t sacred texts. You could use those, and it would make for a beautiful memorial, I think. Would that work for what you want to do?”

“Like I did with the flowers,” I said.

Oren nodded. His eyes got all watery.

I loved the idea. I grabbed my folder of blank sheets. “Which ones do you like?” I fanned out the pages for him, and he pulled out three. One cream card stock, a handmade beige papyrus with a deckled edge, and a sheet of thin vellum—three of my favorites. He had good taste.

“Okay, I’ll go print them now.” Mom took the pages from him and then turned to me. “Your father and I have to go out of town on some business. You two will be okay here? Nate’s going to update the site and then he’ll be heading out for the day.”

“Yes, we’ll be fine.” I pointed at all the art supplies on the table. “We have lots to keep us busy.”

“We’ll be home later this afternoon, so fix yourselves some lunch. Call if you need anything,” she said before she left the room.

She was barely gone when Oren aimed the screen of his phone at me.

Let’s go next door.

Nineteen

A few minutes later Mom returned with the printed pages. Oren and I made strips out of them while she and Dad got ready upstairs. Well, Oren pointed out the words he wanted and then I made strips using my paper cutter, because cutting straight and even strips is a two-handed job. He had tried, but the result was basically a disaster.

While I cut, I explained the different techniques of coiling paper using the twirly tool, the special stencils and the combs to make the cool shapes. He’d already seen me do a lot of them for the tree, but some of them were complicated and had taken me a long time and some YouTube tutorials to perfect. Some I still had to do over and over to get just right.

While I rambled on, I was also thinking about our secret mission as soon as my parents left. It made me nervous enough that my hands shook a little, and I messed up some of the shapes. Oren seemed not to notice though.