The Lemonade War (13 page)

"That RAT! That lousy rotten stinking RAT of a sister!" he shouted. He went back to the garage and kicked the wagon. He knocked the cooler to the floor. He tore up his Lemonade-on-Wheels sign into a dozen pieces.

He was going to lose. She had a hundred dollars (he was sure of it) and he had just sixty-two left. Tonight, before the fireworks, when they counted their money, she would be the winner and he would be the loser.

Winner takes all.

Loser gets nothing.

It was so unfair.

Evan stomped upstairs to his room. He slammed the door so hard, it bounced open again. When he went to close it, he was staring across the hallway, straight into Jessie's room. He could see her neatly made bed covered in Koosh pillows, the poster of Bar Harbor from their trip to Maine this summer, and her night table with
Charlotte's Web
at the ready.
Evan crossed the hall, then paused at Jessie's door. There was the rule about not entering. Well,
she'd
broken the rules first. (Even though there wasn't really a rule about fruit flies and lemonade, it was clearly a dirty trick.) Evan walked in and went straight to Jessie's desk drawer.

There was the fake pack of gum. Inside, the key. Did she really think he didn't know where she hid it? He'd seen her slip the key inside the box when he was passing by on his way to the bathroom. Jessie was smart, but she wasn't very smooth. He'd known for months where the key was hidden. He just hadn't bothered to use it.

Until now.

It took him a while to find the lock box. He checked the bureau drawers first and then under Jessie's bed. But finally he found it hidden in her closet. Again, not very smooth.

Evan carried the key and the lock box back to his room and sat on the bed. He put the key in the lock and opened the top. Then—the moment of truth—he lifted out the plastic change tray.

There were a whole bunch of scraps of paper on top, and there was a folded index card, too. Evan moved these aside and found a ten-dollar bill paper-clipped to a birthday card. Under that was an envelope labeled "Pre-War Earnings" with four dollars and forty-two cents inside it. That was the money Jessie had had before the Lemonade War began. She'd kept it separate, just like she promised. Next to it was a fat envelope labeled "Lemonade Earnings." Evan opened the envelope.

Inside, the bills were arranged by ones, fives, and tens. All the bills were facing the same way, so that the eyes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Hamilton were all looking at Evan as he counted out the cash.

Two hundred and eight dollars.

There it was. The winning wad.

Evan thought of how hard he'd worked that week, in the blazing sun, in the scorching heat. He thought about the coolerful of lemonade pouring into the grass. He thought about handing over his sixty-two dollars and eleven cents to Jessie and how
she'd smile and laugh and tell. Tell everyone that she had won the Lemonade War. The guys would all shake their heads.
What a loser.
Megan would turn away.
What a stupid jerk.

Evan slammed the lid of the lock box shut. He stuffed the envelope in his shorts pocket. He was
not
going to let it happen!

He wasn't planning to keep the money. Not for good. But he wasn't going to let her have it tonight. When it came time to show their earnings, he'd have sixty-two dollars and eleven cents and she'd have
nothing.
He'd give her the money back tomorrow or maybe the day after that, but
not to night.

He suddenly felt a desperate need to get out of the house as fast as he could. He shoved the lock box back into Jessie's closet and the key back into the fake pack of gum.

"Hey, Mom," he shouted, not even waiting for her to answer back. "I'm going to the school to see if there's a game. 'Kay?"

waiting period
(
) n. A specified delay, required by law, between taking an action and seeing the results of that action.

Jessie wanted to have fun. She really did. But it seemed like the more she tried, the less she had.

First, the drive to the beach took two and a half hours because of traffic. Jessie felt the car lurching. Forward, stop. Forward, stop.

"Memo to myself," said Mr. Moriarty. "Never go to the beach on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Especially when there's been a heat wave for more than a week."

In the back seat, Jessie and Megan played license
plate tag and magnetic bingo and twenty questions, but by the end of the car ride, Jessie was cramped and bored.

Then the beach parking lot was full, so they had to park half a mile away and walk. Then the beach was so crowded that they could hardly find a spot for their blanket. Then Megan said the water was too cold and she just wanted to go in up to her ankles. She kept squealing and running backwards every time a gentle ripple of a wave came her way.

What fun was that? Sure, the water was cold! It was the North Shore. It was
supposed
to be cold. That's why it felt so good on a hot day like this. When Jessie and Evan went to the beach, they would boogie board and bodysurf and skimboard and throw a Screaming Scrunch Ball back and forth the whole time. They loved to stay in the water until their lips turned blue and they couldn't stop shaking. Then they'd roast themselves like weenies on their towels until they were hot and sweating again, and then they'd go right back in. Now
that
was fun at the beach.

Megan liked to build sandcastles and collect
shells and play sand tennis and read magazines.
That's all fine,
thought Jessie.
But not going in the water? That's crazy.

The ride home was itchy and hot. Jessie had sand in all the places where her skin rubbed together: between her toes, behind her ears, and between the cheeks of her bottom. And somehow she'd gotten sunburned on her back, even though Mrs. Moriarty had smeared her all over with thick, goopy sunscreen twice. Jessie didn't even have the patience for ten questions, let alone twenty.

But Megan didn't get that Jessie didn't feel like talking. She kept trying to get her to take a quiz in a teen magazine. If Evan had been there, he would have kept quiet. Or maybe hummed a little. Jessie liked it when Evan hummed.

As they turned onto Damon Road, Megan asked, "Are you feeling sick?"

In fact, she was. For the past half-hour, Jessie had been imagining walking in the door and facing Evan. And she'd been feeling sicker and sicker with every mile that brought her closer to home.

crisis management
(
) n. Special or extraordinary methods and procedures used when a business is in danger of failing.

"Sucker!"

"Oh, man. You were
schooled!
"

"
Pre
-school, baby!"

For the third time that afternoon, Scott Spencer had gotten the drop on Evan, dribbling around him and then hitting the easy lay-up. So the guys were giving him the business, even the ones on his own team. It was Evan, Paul, and Ryan against Kevin Toomey, Malik Lewis, and Scott. Evan wished that
Scott hadn't shown up, but he had, and they needed the sixth guy for three-on-three since Jack had gone home to ask his mom if they could all swim at his house. So what was Evan supposed to say?

Anyway, Evan was three times the ball handler that Scott was and everyone knew it. So it was all in fun.

But it didn't feel like much fun to Evan.

"What's up, man?" Paul asked.

Evan dribbled the ball back and forth, left hand, right hand, and then through his legs. "Hey, it's hot," he said.

"Yeah, it's hot for all of us," said Paul. "Get your game on, dude."

But Evan couldn't get his moves right. He was a half-step behind himself. And every time he moved, the envelope slapped against his thigh like a reprimand.

"Speaking of hot," said Ryan. Everyone turned to look. Jack was coming up the path, running at a dead-dog pace.

"Oh, please, God," said Paul. "Let her say yes."

As soon as he was in range, Jack shouted, "She said yes!"

"What's up?" asked Scott.

"Jack asked his mom if we could all go swimming in his pool," Kevin said.

"Hey, Jack," shouted Scott. "Can I come, too?"

"Yeah, sure," said Jack, who'd stopped running toward them and was waiting for them to join him on the path.

Oh, great,
thought Evan. But he wasn't about to turn down a dunk in a pool just because Scott Spencer would be there.

Nobody wanted to go home for suits and towels. Kevin, Malik, and Ryan were wearing basketball shorts anyway, so they could swim in those. "We've got enough suits at the house," said Jack. "My mom saves all our old ones."

At the house, Evan changed into one of Jack's suits. He wrapped up his underwear and shirt inside his shorts and put the bundle of clothes on the end of Jack's bed next to all the other guys'
piled-up clothes. It felt good to drop the heavy shorts with the envelope stuffed in the pocket. Then, just to be sure, he put his shoes on top of his pile of clothes. He didn't want anything happening to that money.

They played pool basketball all afternoon, even though the teams were uneven. Mrs. Bagdasarian brought out drinks and cookies and chips and sliced-up watermelon. Every time one of them went into the house to use the bathroom, she shouted, "Dry off before you come in!" but she did it in a nice way.

Then, just when Evan thought the afternoon couldn't get any better, it did. Scott had gone into the house to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later he came out dressed, his hair still dripping down his back.

"I gotta go," he said, jamming his foot into his sneaker.

"Did your mom call?" asked Ryan. "Nope, I just gotta go," he said. "See ya." He ran out the gate.

"Great," shouted Evan. "Now the teams are even." And they went back to playing pool hoops. Evan didn't think about Scott Spencer for the rest of the afternoon.

He didn't think about Scott Spencer until he went into Jack's bedroom to change back into his clothes and noticed that his shoes were on the floor and his shorts weren't folded up.

reconciliation
(
) n. The act of bringing together after a difference, as in to reconcile numbers on a balance sheet; resolution.

"Come on, you two," Mrs. Treski called up the stairs. "If we don't go now, there won't be any room on the grass."

"We're coming," shouted Evan, sticking his head out of his room. Jessie was sitting on his bed, and he was trying to get her to go to the fireworks. She had her lock box on her lap and a mulish look on her face.

"Just say it's a tie," said Evan. "C'mon, Jess. This
whole thing is stupid and you know it."

"It's not a tie unless it's a tie," said Jessie, knowing she sounded like a brat but not able to stop herself. "How much have you got?"

"Mom's waiting," said Evan. "Put your dumb box away and let's go to the fireworks."

"How much have you got?"

Evan tensed up his fingers as if he were strangling an invisible ghost. "Nothing! Okay? I've got nothing. Look." He turned the pockets of his shorts inside out.