He gave me a smile. “I’ll leave it up to you what kind of bird you want to be. But when you figure it out, write your name on some of the strips you use to make it. Like I did with the programs.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. It was a bit overwhelming, the idea that he’d want me in his picture. “But for now, pass me that folder. I’ll have to cut a bunch of blue for the sky.”

He handed me several sheets of different shades of blue as I pulled my paper cutter toward me. I started to cut the paper, one long strip at a time.

He made a face. “Isn’t there an easier way to do that?” “You can buy ready-made strips,” I said. “But I use different kinds of paper to give my projects texture. See, like, the trunk?” I pointed at the picture. “We used all those different types of paper for the programs, but the precut strips you can buy especially for quilling are all the same boring paper.”

“Makes sense,” Oren said. “But I wonder…could you use a paper shredder to make them? Just, you know, feed the paper in and zip, zip, zip, you’ve got strips.”

I had never thought of that! “That’s a great idea,” I said. “My parents have one in the office next door.”

“Can we go?”

He hadn’t mentioned wanting to go back to the funeral home since that time we’d snuck in. “You sure you want to?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We’re just going to shred paper, right?”

“Right,” I said, pushing back from the table.

“But Evie?”

His tone made me freeze. “Yeah?”

“I still want to see…you know…the other stuff there.”

I understood what he was saying, but we probably couldn’t manage it today, even if I’d wanted to—my parents were there.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Twenty-Eight

“Oh.”

Oren and I were in the funeral home office, staring into the bin I’d just pulled out of the bottom of the shredding machine.

“So that didn’t work,” Oren said.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I said, using one of my dad’s favorite sayings. I dug my hand into the blue confetti. Pretty blue confetti, but it wasn’t strips. It was definitely confetti.

“What’s going on?” Dad asked as he came into the office.

“Uh, we thought the shredder would make strips we could use for quilling.” I held up a handful of the tiny paper pieces to show him.

“Oh.” Dad chuckled. “It was a good idea. You know, if it weren’t a crosscut shredder.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious!” I said.

“Wait. I thought I was Captain Obvious!” Oren said. “So. What now?”

“Well,” I said, “unfortunately, that was all the blue paper I had. So how do you feel about going to the stationery store?”

It was still raining, so Dad said he’d drive us after lunch. But by then the sun was out, so Oren and I decided to walk. The air was muggy and smelled like worms. We even had to avoid squashing them on the sidewalk. But it felt good to be outside.