“I think you are on the spectrum, boo,” said Luna.
Maliyan laughed and thought, Always the joker.
Luna wasn’t smiling and continued sympathetically, “Lots of people are. I mean, I like people on the spectrum. I find them interesting.”
Maliyan wasn’t sure what was worse—Luna’s diagnosis of her mental state or his trying to make it better by kindly reassuring her that, regardless, it was fine with him. It made it all the funnier or all the more disturbing.
Being in the middle of making a sandwich, he didn’t look up but said, “That’s why you don’t get jokes. You take things literally. Your brain is wired differently.”
Maliyan had been living in the shophouse since late spring when Euroka returned from Uluru and took back his hut. After some teething problems, she, Luna, and Iggy adjusted to each other’s fairly constant company in a small space. At first, Maliyan thought that Luna suggested she move in because Euroka was back and her own house was rented until the end of summer. However, after a while, she suspected that he had other motives. Sometimes, she thought it was because he felt she was strange enough without getting more so down on the Bell all by herself. This morning’s conversation about her mental state seemed to support that hypothesis.
