Celebratory clip

A minor moment from A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (Mercer, 2012), posted in honor of the end of my driving-lesson tribulations--my elder children took their last driving lessons and passed the road exam. No doubt a few hair-raising moments await, but they each have a license...

     “Mommer, would you go comb your hair? You look like a medusa.” Roiphe climbed out of the car, staggering a little as if the ground were a foreign medium.
     Her fingers moved nimbly around her head, collecting the crooked pins into a small dark sheaf, which she bound with a rubber band and dropped into her apron pocket. “You could have been killed, the pair of you, or landed in the county jail with a pack of misfits. Roiphe Tattnal, you don’t know the least thing about driving, no more than a fresh-laid egg.”
     “He does now. The boy proved himself a driver of ingenuity and downright verve.” Pip clambered from the passenger seat and leaned for support against the side of the auto. He was not sure he could walk away yet, having recently been startled by a close call with a straggle of cows in the lane.
     “Lil, that was a dadgum shattering experience, but I believe—I truly believe that he could have done a powerful sight more if he had put his unthrottled genius into the thing. If he survives, Roiphe Tattnal has some kind of a future in transportation.” With a wrench, Pip yanked a bushel basket off a headlamp and surveyed it.
     “First man on the moon,” Alden crowed.
     “First idiot on the moon, more like. Y'all better pluck those chicken feathers off the front before Mr. Louis sees it,” Lil advised. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”
     “Would that it were.” Roiphe rolled his eyes dramatically. “All,” he added in case she had not understood.