luca. d6. fin

The lemonade maker explodes for the third time in as many days and it makes the whole trailer shake. The sudden sound of it makes me sit straight up in bed, top bunk baby, middle of the night, and I hit my head against the stupid tin roof. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust because the park's always so dark, but when I can see again there's pulp on the walls and lemon juice on the floor and a goose egg on my forehead. And still Papa's snoring on from the other bed.

"Papa!" I fling my pillow across the trailer and watch it land right on his face. "It happened again."

And then he grumbles and turns over and that usually means he'll take care of it in the morning.

That's fine with me - not my monkey, not my circus, you know?

So, when the sun comes up on the weekend, the two of us fill buckets of soapy water and dig out the sponges from under the sink and fix the mess that Papa's newest invention created. But I still appreciate it! I really do! He'd made it because of the lemonade stand Jodie and I had set up last summer, and since the weather was getting warmer he said it was prime time to test it out. We stuck a lemon in it and let it run and badabing badaboom.

Now we're here.

It was a lot better than the automatic can opener at least. And it was easier to clean up than the whole vacuum-mop situation. But Papa says you can't learn anything if you don't fail a few times first. He's a pretty smart guy - I trust him. He brings all sorts of things home from the factory to work on, and sometimes he'll let me tinker with them too. He taught me how to rewire the overhead lights when I was ten and how to use a socket wrench when I was seven. I help him fix the roof when it hails in the winter and then he puts on his best shirt to come to my parent-teacher interviews at school.

So what if Miss Thompson tells him that I don't pay attention? I just tell him it's because her class isn't interesting and then we go to Fran's trailer for ice cream.

I'm pretty sure Papa could teach me more than that school ever could anyways. I keep trying to convince him - I could drop out and be an engineer like him! He could help me! But then he just goes on about English and math and the importance of interacting with things that aren't made of metal, so whatever.

He's a single dad, I gotta cut him some slack I guess.

But we don't really do that mushy mushy stuff. We don't talk about Mama because that was a long time ago and I can tell it makes him sad. I know it made everything a lot harder on him when she left and he had to raise me all on his own, but I think he did a good job.

I turned out pretty great!

It's not just that though - the whole Flynn going into the Games thing kinda hit him hard. I guess it all feels a little closer to home when it's your kid's friend out there in the arena. But it all worked out okay, just like I knew it would! Flynn's a nerd, and he's more than a little dorky, but we love him, we really do.

I'm putting together a bicycle that'll make it easier to get over to that new fancy rich neighbourhood of his. One of the pedals is an emptied out tomato can and I found the chain in the scrap yard. Papa said he's gonna try and bring a couple pipes home from work and cut them down for me. I'm still missing one of the wheels and I gotta find something to use as handlebars, but she's almost done! I've got half a can of leftover red paint waiting under the deck to finish it off with.

Flynn better be throwing a dinner party once his tour's over - I'm starving!