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“Some of the worst I’ve had in a while.” Dad yanked a chair out from the table and sat down on it with his back to the table.
I nearly dropped the hessian bag of enchantments I had grabbed to check the contents. Did nobody label these things anymore?
“One kid just wouldn’t do as he was told. He ‘saw a cool fish’ or ‘wanted to see how deep he could go.’ That’s great, Timmy, but those excuses won’t fly if you drown and I end up in court.”
“Why don’t you just blacklist them? You’ve done it before,” I said.
My heart stopped as Ben’s face appeared on the other side of the table. He peered over the top of the table at Dad’s back.
What the hell was he doing?
Dad’s face creased as he caught sight of my face and twisted around.
“You know, Dad?” I said loudly, snatching his attention back to me. “You really should blacklist more people. Losing your licence would suck, especially for a few stupid people.”
“I’ll never let that happen.” Dad turned to face the front and fiddled with his keys again. “The moment we lose our licence is the moment before the Everharts decide to start up their own scuba company.”
I dared to peer into another pouch. Why did everything we did or didn’t do have to revolve around the Everharts?
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Ben scuttle silently over to a desk by the open window.
What the hell was that moron thinking? Did he want to get caught?
Dad had bowed his head, his eyes glazed as he played with his keys.
I dared to tilt my head just enough for Ben to see I was looking at him, and he pointed to the window.
I shook my head. Although, it’d be pretty funny if he fell out of the window.
Ben jabbed his finger even harder at the window, but I shook my head harder until Dad looked up again.
“Any luck finding those enchantments?” he asked.
“Not much.” I put the pouch back on the shelf and grabbed another. “What happened to the labelling system?”
My filing system, which had required a lot of organisation and printing out labels, had apparently disappeared when I had.
“I couldn’t keep on top of it after you left,” Dad said. “I know you explained it to me, but I couldn’t make sense of it.”
“Three times. I explained it three times.”
Maybe he needed me around more than I thought.
I snapped open the new pouch I had picked out. “Here we go. Oxygen enchantments.”
I gave them to Dad as he stood up and I linked my arm through his to guide him to the office door.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
I dared a look past Dad’s shoulder to the window, and to my horror, Ben was on top of the desk, attempting to climb out of the window.
As he raised his arm to steady himself on a tree branch outside, his elbow bumped the blinds, rattling them.
Dad stopped in his tracks and made to turn.
Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.
The first thing I thought to do was to throw my arms around Dad and pull him into a hug.
