She shook her head. “You’re a weirdo, you know that?”
“I know it,” he said.
“I thought my family was strange,” she said, stretching out on her tummy on the bed. “But they’re not a patch on you.”
“I know it.”
He finished his fizzy lemonade and lay down beside her, belching.
“We could ask my Da. He knows a lot of strange things.”
He put his face down in her duvet and smelled the cotton covers and her nighttime sweat, like a spice, like cinnamon. “I don’t want to do that. Please don’t tell anyone, all right?”
She took hold of his wrist and looked again at the teensy thumb. “Wiggle it again,” she said. He did. She giggled. “Imagine if you were like a worm. Imagine if your thumbtip was out there growing another you.”
He sat bolt upright. “Do you think that’s possible?” he said. His heart was thudding. “Do you think so?”
She rolled on her side and stared at him. “No, don’t be daft. How could your thumb grow another you?”