“Go away.”

  The one to say the first words was, surprisingly, Wednesday. Maybe it was because she had the most time in our body over the st year or so?

  “Voilà! Finally, you’ve unveiled your beautiful voice! I was worried our dear twins would never make a sound, but I should have known to trust my innate motherly instincts to bring it out of you.”

  But while I was surprised, Morticia was absolutely ecstatic.

  “And those same instincts tell me that it is time to dispose of my enemies when I can. Unless they’re pretending, but that doesn’t apply here!”

  The woman reached up to a hanging noose and rang an absurdly loud bell. Immediately, a huge shadow loomed over us, and a dictionary plopped down in front of us on the table. It scared the shit out of me, but Wednesday just squinted, annoyed.

  “Thankyou Lurch! You can go now.” She shooed the walking corpse away and looked back at us, and with a flourish, she flipped over the book to the first pages. “And what better way to start than with the most horrible and sacred testament to human nguage straight out of the tower of Babel; le dictionnaire. Let’s start with the ‘A’s. An aardvark is a rge burrowing nocturnal mammal (Orycteropus afer) of sub-Saharan Africa—”

  “Go away.”

  Um, Morticia, I’m not exactly an expert but I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works.

  Sadly, neither me nor Wednesday had the power to stop her, and the next ten minutes were spent reading the dictionary closer than bible study until our savior arrived in the form of a disembodied hand.

  “Snap!- Snap!-”

  “Hm, what is it, Thing? I’m trying to teach… Wednesday, yes?” she squinted at us.

  My sister rolled her eyes, and Morticia tilted her chin up smugly. If you guessed Wednesday, you’d be right ninety percent of the time anyways, though.

  Thing propped up on his wrist and made a handful -ha- of gestures toward the book and us. He then crawled over and pressed his finger to one of the words, Abacus. Then he pointed to an abacus in the toy box across the room.

  “Oh, you’re so right, Thing! No one can learn just cooped up in a room of thick, dry, and dusty books with no worldly experience. Practicality is what we need!”

  She immediately snapped the book closed and tossed it into the firepce, which erupted in a plume of fme upon impact that Wednesday watched with great interest. Weren’t you the one who just called it a sacred book earlier…?

  Like a whirlwind, she twirled and pced us on the floor and swept out of the room, long dress fluttering behind her. “Keep her occupied while I prepare our twins’ curriculum, Thing!”

  And just like that, we were alone with the strange creature. No, was it a full person at one point? Or were they born just a hand? Did they need to eat anything?

  Before I knew it, I had taken control, reaching out to grab Thing in my own stubby little hands. He let me pick him up, reaching forward to poke me in the nose. My lips twitched unknowingly, but now wasn’t py time. I put him down and looked around. I pointed at the table and mimed with my hand, crawling on the floor like Thing and jumping up from my fingers.

  He paused, somehow giving me the impression of surprise, before giving me a thumbs up. He then crawled abc, then “sprinted” forward before jumping up all the way to the top. I was fascinated, cpping and smiling in my only way to show appreciation.

  The sheer finger strength to do that must be insane; he could probably pop us like a grape if he wanted to. Good to know.

  I then gestured for him to come hop down, and proped up my arm on the floor in an arm wrestling position. He quickly scampered over until he was right in front of me. Watching a hand bigger than my head gallop straight at me was more than a little terrifying, but I endured.

  Propping himself on his wrist, he stuck out a finger for me to grab onto. It wasn’t exactly the best posture, but he probably had more strength in that finger than my arm combined. His pinky and two fingers extended, then lowered one by one in a countdown. Three…two…one…

  I pulled with all my newborn might. Which is to say, not much. Still, he pretended to struggle anyways, wobbling under my strength before easing toward the other direction like a struggling underdog. Just when I thought he’d win, he rexed his strength and I flipped him on his side, smooshing his finger to the ground.

  I smiled and did a little jig.

  Round two. Thing put me on the reverse side this time, making me win at first then turning it around at the st second.

  Round three, for all the marbles. I counted down with him this time, mimicking his fingers with my other hand. Thee, two, one!

  Immediately, I lifted him into the air and let out a ugh of smug victory, waving him around by the finger. And, as I predicted from years of pying with kids of other families, there’s no pettier feeling than wanting to knock a smug younger kid down a peg.

  Somehow applying force in mid-air, Thing brought our hand down to the floor, and our body tipped over with a slightly audible thud. The hand immediately propped back up, poking us in concern, but calmed down when he saw my smile. I knew it!

  I immediately sat up and picked the hand up again, waving my hand under his wrist and holding him up so I could get a better look. It was just flesh, but I knew there was something more to it. I flipped through the memories in my eyes of all of Thing’s strange movements.

  Putting him down, I mimed crawling my right hand on the ground like before, and held out my left hand with a finger out for “one”. Then I stopped, and waved my whole right arm around, miming pushing and pulling a billow to the stove fire, turning the car’s steering wheel, or arm wrestling; all the strange actions I’d seen him do. This time, I held out two fingers on my left hand for “two”.

  This time the surprise was visible, Thing’s fingers spreading outward stiffly before gathering in a fist again to give an enthusiastic thumbs up.

  “Huaaa!” I threw my arms up in the air with a wordless cheer!

  “?”

  I didn’t know if it would work, but I tried expining it to Wednesday as best I could through memories and impressions. Thing sometimes acted strangely, as if he had some sort of telekinesis on his body rather than just moving his hand muscles. But when I pictured human arm movements and reted them to him, I realized it was as if Thing were being propped up by an invisible person rather than crawling around on the ground. Today, I confirmed it.

  “!”

  Somehow, it worked, and an eted feeling lined with subtle awe and praise was directed toward me. I smiled sheepishly, not used to having anyone looking up at me like this.

  This wasn’t the only thing -ha- left to try though. I was about to grab Thing again when two much more feminine hands grabbed my hips and hoisted me up.

  “Friday! It’s so wonderful to see your terrifying smile!” Dread settled in my chest and the sweet words. I tried to shift behind Wednesday, but she didn’t want to deal with whatever learning curriculum mom had in store either.