Page 32 of The Loophole
“I didn’t see the harness at first, because it’s the same color as your hoodie. All I saw was you falling.”
He wrapped his arms around me and murmured, “Your heart’s pounding so hard that I can feel it in my chest.”
“Well, yeah. Terror will do that.” I finally let go of him and scooped up Dusty, who’d followed me outside. “I’m going to put the dog back in the house, and then I’m going to help with the lights. No arguments.”
Embry looked disappointed. “I really wanted to surprise you.”
“You still can. When it’s dark out, we’ll go across the street and watch while one of your friends plugs everything in. That way, we can be surprised together when it all lights up.”
He perked up at that. “Okay. That sounds fun.”
Once the lights were finished, Jimbo left with the truck and his ladders, and Dylan started sorting the pile of green waste in the driveway. Meanwhile, Lark and Embry went to work on the dragon. They taped him up, ran an extension cord from the garage, and plugged him in. As he rose up in all his wonky, fire-breathing glory, I realized he was filled with lights and glowed, even in daylight. Fantastic.
While I helped by cutting green and white plastic tablecloths into strips—no idea why—Embry and Lark busted out some glue guns. They fashioned a large Santa hat out of a red plastic tablecloth and some white, fluffy fiberfill and glued it onto the dragon’s head at a jaunty angle, covering the duct tape patch.
After that, Lark went to work slicing up another tablecloth, and Embry produced three white Styrofoam coolers, which were maybe twelve inches square. He looked pretty proud of himself as he explained, “We got these for free from a fish market. They were throwing them out, but we’re going to upcycle them. They smell icky inside, but I don’t think that’ll matter once they’re glued shut.”
As he stuck on the lids with hot glue, I tried to guess what he intended to do with the coolers. I obviously could have asked, but it was more fun to watch it come together.
I cringed when he dragged over a six-foot-long dowel, which was broken into a sharp point at one end. He raised it over his head like he meant to stab something with it, and I shouted, “Hold on! Let me help.”
We ended up impaling the coolers at slight angles, and he hot glued them to each other and to the dowel before embedding the sharp end into the lawn. It looked like a white cube tree. I didn’t get it. Was it a reference to something I wasn’t aware of? It made even less sense when he produced a can of light brown spray paint and blasted the back of the cubes, carrying the spray around to overlap the sides by a few inches.
It turned out Lark had been making a massive red scarf with fringed ends and white and green stripes (which were made out of the strips I’d cut). He draped it around the dragon’s neck and glued it in place, and then he and Embry rotated the huge inflatable until its left side faced the street. After they anchored the dragon to the ground, Embry twisted the cube tree, so that the painted side faced the dragon. As a finishing touch, Lark applied glue to the dragon’s hand, and Embry wrapped it around the dowel, so it looked like the creature was holding it.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The cubes became a giant skewer of marshmallows, which were being toasted by the fire-breathing dragon. I said, “That’s very cute.”
Embry stood back and assessed it with a frown. “It would be better if they were cylinders, but this was the best I could do.”
“It’s perfect,” I assured him. “Since the corners on the coolers are rounded, they really do look like huge marshmallows.”
Lark nodded. “He’s right. That was an inspired idea.”
“I have to admit, I was skeptical,” I said. “But you two had a vision, and you’re making it happen in a very clever way.”
“It’s all Embry.” Lark put his arm around his friend’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze. “He’s brilliant and has a ton of great ideas. Dylan and I are just his worker bees.”
Embry seemed embarrassed by the praise. He gave his friend a hug and changed the subject by saying, “I think it’s break time. Let’s all go inside and warm up.”
We invited Lark and Dylan to join us for dinner, and while Embry and his friends hung out with me in the kitchen, I put together a quick meal. I went with spaghettiaglio e olio, along with garlic bread and a green salad. I would have made something fancier if I’d known ahead of time we’d be having company, but it still felt good to cook for people, even if the meal was a simple one.
We lingered over dinner, finishing with coffee and a big plate of the macarons we’d made the day before. Embry looked proud when his friends raved about the cookies.
Eventually, he got up and said, “Let’s go see how the lights look, now that it’s dark out.”
He put Dusty on a leash and brought him with us, and we crossed the street while Dylan went to plug everything in. Embry and Lark wanted to be surprised too, so all three of us turned our backs to the house.
I could tell when the lights came on, because they were reflected in the windows of the house in front of us. Then Dylan called, “Turn around, guys.”
We all spun around, and Lark and Embry gasped and applauded while I murmured, “Oh, wow.” I’d been prepared to tell them I liked it even if I didn’t, but I was totally sincere when I said, “It looks fantastic.”
The lights had been a very dark purple in the box, but now that they were lit up, they were a pretty shade of lavender. And the dragon was pure joy. It looked fun and festive in its holidayaccessories, and the huge, toasted marshmallows were a genius touch.
Just then, a car slowed down to look at the holiday lights. A boy in the passenger seat rolled down his window, and a little girl in the back seat clapped her hands and yelled, “Look, Mama, it’s a magical Christmas dragon!”
Embry whispered, “Totally worth it, right there.”
“You win,” I told him. “You did exactly what you said you would, and you probably even came in under budget.”