Jacob popped up from behind the chair like a jack-in-the-box, practically vibrating with excitement. “Can we really? Can we stop there?”

“Speaking of good taste,” Lillian said, “Sophia seemed to really fit right in at dinner last night.” The conversation drifted into comfortable silence, broken only by the soft thud of Mr. Quacksly’s adventures. It was the kind of quiet that often preceded harder questions.

“Because she’s smart,” Jacob declared, now attempting to scale the back of the chair like a monkey. “Juni says it’s very important to read, and Sophia knows what she’s talking about.” He punctuated this with a triumphant pose.

“Hey, last night at dinner when Sophia brought up those books, you said you couldn’t read them,” Jacob pointed out with the proud satisfaction of a junior attorney who’d just found a key piece of evidence. “So if you can’t read them, why do I have to read anything?”