The Lemonade War (3 page)

"No," he said, without turning around.

"Come on. Please? I'll be a big help. I can do lots of things—"

"You're too young," he said sharply. "You're just a baby."

The boys walked out.

You're just a baby.

Jessie couldn't believe Evan had said that. After all the stuff they'd done together. And he was only
fourteen months
older than she was. Hardly even a full year. She was about to yell back something really harsh, something stinging and full of bite, like
Oh, yeah?,
when she heard Scott say to Evan, "Man, I can't believe you have to be in the same class as your little sister. If that happened to me, I'd move to South America."

"Yeah, tell me about it," replied Evan, crossing the street.

The words died on Jessie's lips. She watched Evan walking away, getting smaller and smaller.

He was deserting her.

He
wasn't
going to stand by her at school. He
wasn't going to smooth the way for her. He was going to be on the
other
side, with all of
them,
looking down on her. Telling everyone that she was too young to be part of the crowd. Telling everyone that she didn't belong.

"Fine for you, Evan Treski," she said as she marched into the house, her fists balled up at her sides. "I don't need
you.
I don't need
you
to have fun. I don't need
you
to run a lemonade stand. And I don't need
you
to make friends in the fourth grade."

Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and shouted, "And I am
not
a baby!"

joint venture
(
) n. Two or more people joining forces to sell a certain amount of goods or to work on a single project. When the goods are sold or the project is finished, the joint venture ends.

"Your sister is really—"

"Shut up," said Evan.

"Huh?"

"Just shut up. She's okay. She just ... she doesn't ... look, she's okay. So just shut up."

"Y'okay," said Scott, holding up his free hand to show he meant peace.

Evan was getting abused on both sides. The
heavy cooler was banging against his inside leg with every step. And the plastic chairs were scraping against his outside leg.
Bruised and bloodied,
he thought to himself.
All for the fun of hanging out with Scott Spencer.

Why couldn't Jack have been home? Or Ryan? And why did Adam have to be on the Cape this week? It stunk.

"How far are we walking?" grunted Scott.

"Just to the corner." Evan watched as drops of sweat fell off his face and landed on the hot sidewalk.

"We shoulda stayed in the driveway. It was shaded."

"The corner's better. Trust me," said Evan.

He remembered when Jessie had said the same words to him last summer. They were setting up a lemonade stand together, and Evan had been grumbling about dragging the cooler across the street and down two houses, just like Scott. But Jessie had insisted. "There's sidewalk on this side," she'd said. "So we'll get the foot traffic coming in both directions. And people in cars coming around
the curve will have time to see us and slow down. Besides, there are a bunch of little kids on the side street and their mothers won't want them crossing Damon Road. The corner's better. Trust me."

And she was right. They'd made a ton of money that afternoon.

It took ten seconds to set up the lemonade stand. Evan unfolded the chairs and set one on each side of the cooler. Scott tilted the sign toward the street for maximum effect. Then they both sat down.

"Man, is it hot," said Evan. He took off his baseball cap and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt. Then he grabbed an ice cube from the cooler, balanced it on his head, and stuck his cap back on.

"Yeah," said Scott. "I'm thirsty." He reached into the paper bag and pulled out a cup. It was one of those large red plastic cups that vendors use at professional baseball games. Then Scott took one of the pitchers from the cooler and filled the cup to the brim with lemonade.

"Hey, not so much," said Evan, pouring himself a cup, too, but only partway. He glugged down half
his drink.
Not bad,
he thought, though he noticed a dead fruit fly floating on the top. His mom had been battling a mad fruit-fly infestation ever since the weather had turned really warm. The kitchen sink area, where they kept their fruit bowl, was dotted with tiny, feathery fruit-fly corpses.

Scott drained his cup and tossed it on the ground. "Aahhh," he said, satisfied. "That was good. I'm gonna have another."

Evan reached for the trashed cup and stowed it under his seat. "Nah, c'mon, Scott. You're gonna drink all our profits if you do that." He stretched his legs out by putting his feet on top of the cooler. "Just chill."

"I'm gonna chill by having another cup," said Scott.

There it was. That mean bite in Scott's voice. Evan's shoulders tensed up.

"Move your feet," said Scott. "It's hot out here."

"Dude, you're—" Evan sat up expectantly and looked down the street. "Hey, here comes our first customer."

A mother pushing a double stroller came into view. At the same time, one of the kindergartners from down the street rode her bike up, noticed the sign, and quickly pedaled back to her house. Within five minutes, there was a small crowd of neighborhood kids and pedestrians buying lemonade from the stand.

Evan let Scott handle all the money while he took care of the pouring and the "sweet talk." That's what his mother called it when a salesperson chatted her up. "Trust me," she had once told Evan and Jessie. "Buying something is only
half
about getting something. The other half is all about human contact." Mrs. Treski knew about these things because she was a public relations consultant. She'd even written a booklet called
Ten Bright Ideas to Light Up Your Sales
for one of her clients. And Evan was like her: He was good at talking with people. Even grownups. It was easy for him. So he kept the conversation flowing, along with the lemonade. People hung around. Most of them bought a second cup before they left.

Evan was so busy, he almost didn't notice Jessie flying out of the garage on her bike and riding down the street toward town.
Good riddance,
he thought—but at the same time he wondered where she was going.

During a lull in business, Evan walked all around the stand, picking up discarded plastic cups. Scott sat in his chair, jingling the coins in his pocket.

"Man, we are gonna be so rich," said Scott. "I bet we made five bucks already. I bet we made ten! How much you think we made?"

Evan shrugged. He looked at the stack of used cups in his hand and counted the rims. Fourteen. They'd sold fourteen cups so far. And each cup of lemonade cost fifty cents. Evan heard Mrs. DeFazio's voice in his ear. Mrs. DeFazio had been his third-grade teacher, and she'd done everything she could to help Evan with his math.

If one cup of lemonade sells for fifty cents and you sell fourteen cups of lemonade, how much money have you made?

Word problems! Evan hated word problems.
And this one was impossible anyway. He was pretty sure the right equation was

but how was he supposed to solve that? That was double-digit multiplication. There was no way he could do a problem like that. And besides—some of those fourteen people had bought refills but used the same cup. How many? Evan didn't know.

Still, he knew they'd made a pretty good amount of money. That estimate was close enough for him.

"How much do you think we could make if we sold it
all?
" asked Scott.

"I don't know," said Evan. "Maybe twenty bucks?" That sounded high, even to him, but Evan was an optimist.

"Do you really think?"

Both boys looked in the cooler. Three pitchers were empty. They only had half a pitcher left.

"You were pouring the cups too full," said Scott. "You shoulda poured less in each one."

"You're the one who brought the huge plastic cups. You could fit a gallon in one of those!" said Evan. "Besides, I wasn't gonna be chintzy. They're paying a whole half a buck for it. They deserve a full cup. And anyway, we can just go home and make more. My mom has cans of lemonade in the freezer."

"So go home and make more," said Scott.

"Oh, yes, Your Majesty. O High Commander. Your Infiniteness. Why don't
you
go make it?"

"Cuz I'm chillin'," said Scott, leaning back in his chair with a stupid grin on his face.

Evan knew he was just joking, but this was exactly why he didn't like Scott. He was always thinking of himself. Always looking for some way to come out on top. If they were playing knockout, Scott always came up with a new rule that helped him win. If they were doing an assignment together, Scott always figured out how to divide it so he had less work to do. The kid was a weasel. No two ways about it.

But everyone else was out of town. Evan didn't want to spend the day alone. And Jessie—Jessie was on his "poop list," as Mom called it when the dog
did something he wasn't supposed to do. Evan might never play with Jessie again.

Evan crossed the street and went into the house. He was surprised to find that there were no more cans of lemonade in the freezer. Wow. There'd been so many this morning. Luckily there was a can of grape juice in the freezer and a bottle of ginger ale in the fridge.
It'll work,
he thought.
People just want a cold drink. They don't care if it's lemonade.

He mixed up the grape juice at the sink. The fruit flies were more out of control than ever, thanks to the lemonade the boys had dribbled on the countertop. Evan swatted a couple, but most of them drifted out of his reach and settled on the fruit bowl. He wished his mother believed in chemical warfare. But for Mrs. Treski, it was all-natural or nothing. Usually nothing.

When he went back outside to the lemonade stand, Evan noticed that the last pitcher was turned upside down on the cooler.

"Aw, c'mon, Scott," he said.

"What? It was hot! And you said we could always make more."

"Yeah, well, we didn't have as much in the house as I thought. I've got grape juice and ginger ale."

"I hate ginger ale," Scott said. "I wouldn't give you a penny for it."

It turned out that a lot of people felt the same way. Business was definitely slower. The day got hotter. The sun beat down on them so ferociously that it was easy to imagine the sidewalk cracking open and swallowing them whole.

Fanning himself, Evan asked, "How much money do you really think we could make?"

"I dunno," said Scott, pushing his baseball cap down over his eyes.

"I mean, on a hot day like this," Evan said, silently adding the words
or tomorrow.
"If we sold eight pitchers of lemonade. Whaddya think we'd each make?"

"Eight pitchers? I don't know." Scott shook his head. His baseball-capped face wagged back and forth. "Too hot for math. And it's summer."

Evan pulled the red pen out of his pocket and started to write on the palm of his hand.