Iris: The American Dream Series Book One

The Surprise

I stepped off the bus at the corner. Pim called my name from the other side of Veerweg Street, his voice lost in the rush of cars pushing on through the stoplight.

"Iris!" he called, hands cupped around his mouth. "Iris! Come have tea with me!"

I looked both ways before running across the street, jumping over a rain puddle in the crosswalk. I tried to dance around the puddles, but my black lace-up boots were soaked through to the toes by the time I reached my older brother.

"Tea in the shop?" Pim nodded at the little café. "My treat?"

"Well, if you're buying...then I'll have one of everything," I said, smiling at Pim.

"Ah, ah ah, young lady. You know that good Dutch children only eat one cookie with their tea!" Pim said in a silly old lady voice. It was something that our grandma (in Holland, we called her our "oma") had always said to us: "Children who have one treat and one tea always make for good company!"

"Right. Of course," I said, tucking my long hair behind one ear. Pim opened the door to the shop and let me pass underneath his arm. In the six months since he'd turned fourteen, it felt like my brother had grown a million inches.

Strange as it may seem, Pim had always been my best friend. I mean, I had other friends, but when I wanted good advice or needed to be around someone who understood me, I turned to Pim.

"So. Let's talk," he said, sliding eight euros across the counter to pay for our hot tea and biscuits. We'd each chosen speculaas—a thin, spicy cookie—as our afternoon treat. "You said you had a plan."

"I think we need to find a way to get Mom and Dad back together as soon as possible," I said, slipping out of my coat and hanging it over the back of my chair in the warm café. Pim set our tray down and slid his school bag to the floor, kicking it under the table with one foot. With a flick of his head, he tossed his brown hair to the side. He had a serious look on his face.

"Well, obviously," Pim said from across the table, blowing on his steaming mug of tea. "So tell me your plan."

"Remember how happy Mom and Dad used to be? You know, before he left?" I asked. Crumbs from my cookie fell into my tea, floating on the surface of the amber liquid. I stared into my cup.

"Yeah, I remember. But then they fought for a long time—I remember that part more." Pim frowned, looking out the large front window at the street. Outside, rain pattered the sidewalks and the roofs of cars as they passed by. Most people had their headlights on already though it was only early afternoon. Volkswagens and Renaults paused at the traffic light on the corner every few minutes, idling there until the light turned again and set them free. Pim watched the cars in silence.

"But Pim, we were really, really happy once. Even Mom and Dad were happy. And if we remind him of the good times, then maybe he'll come back to us."

"Don't you hate that Dad is living with Britt?" Pim asked suddenly, eating his whole cookie in one bite.

"Yeah. Of course." I shrugged, dumping a packet of sugar into my tea and stirring it around with a silver spoon. "But once he remembers that being married to Mom means that he'll get to be with his kids again everyday, I think he'll leave her."

Pim looked thoughtful. "I just feel like we need to do more than talking about vacations we took as a family, or reminding him what a good cook Mom is. We need to go big with this one, Iris. We need to make sure that Romy and Esmee grow up with both of their parents around like we did."

"I don't know that I really grew up with both of them around, Pim. I mean, come on, Dad left when I was ten—that's not really grown up."

"You know what I mean." Pim reached for my cookie. I slapped his hand away and took a bite of the cookie.