The Girls of Skylark Lane: Chapters 1–4

Her dad’s voice had that tone of mild exasperation that comes from driving eight hours down the California freeways, with only Starbucks and gas-station bathroom breaks to shake up the flat monotony.

Her dad’s voice had that tone of mild exasperation that comes from driving eight hours down the California freeways, with only Starbucks and gas-station bathroom breaks to shake up the flat monotony.

“—considering that his ancestors probably scrounged for food in garbage cans and on subway tracks, I would say that Jack the Rat can cool his tiny paws for an hour or so until we get to our new house.”

Unfortunately, this conversation coincided with the girls’ Pixar movie phase, and they were nearly catatonic with joy after watching Finding Nemo.

Unfortunately, this conversation coincided with the girls’ Pixar movie phase, and they were nearly catatonic with joy after watching Finding Nemo.

It sounded like something from a cartoon show that she used to watch when she was younger (and to be honest, the kind of show she wishes she was still young enough to watch), a place where animal families would live in little toadstool houses and have escapades that always ended well.

She grinned to herself as Aggie huffed and flounced away.

She wasn’t sure if she was flushed with the exertion of catching Jack or of the embarrassment of her own hubris.

She wasn’t sure if she was flushed with the exertion of catching Jack or of the embarrassment of her own hubris.

And besides, Jac hadn’t earned the unofficial title of Best Procrastinator Ever in her family for nothing.

How boring and awful would Sunday nights be if you weren’t scrambling to finish a diorama or long-term project about thirty-five international bodies of water?

To hear them tell the story, they were both delirious from lack of sleep on the night Jac and Aggie had been born, joyfully hysterical over their brand-new baby daughters, crying and laughing and calling their family members and taking photos and high-fiving the nurses and then crying and laughing again.

All that to say that her dads’ euphoria over becoming parents got a little out of hand, and their florist dad looked out the window and saw the beautiful lilac-colored trees and shrubbery that surrounded the hospital, and well....
That was how Aggie and Jac ended up with the names Agapanthus and Jacaranda.

She could see the trepidation on Aggie’s face as they had climbed the middle school stairs that morning, both of them desperately ignoring their dad waving gleefully from the front seat in the drop-off line.

Then the bell rang and she almost had a heart attack. Surely they could update the system to be less archaic than a shrill bell ringing every hour!