Read 13 for Free Online

meant. I just wanted to be a kid.
    â€œJust write anything.”
    I typed:
    anything
    Patrice sighed. “Fine, let’s do something else.”
    â€œWe can watch that movie if you want.” I wasn’t really in the mood to see Singin’ in the Rain right then, but I was feeling bad about blowing her off the night before.
    Patrice brightened. “Oh, yay! Okay, wait, let’s go make more popcorn.”
    She jumped off the couch and ran up the stairs. I closed the laptop and followed her into her kitchen.
    â€œSo what happened last night anyway?” she asked, taking the cellophane off a package of microwave popcorn.
    â€œI’m sorry about that—I just couldn’t call.” Lie. “I mean, first we got completely stranded at the quarry,” lie, “and then my cell phone died,” lie, “and by the time I got home, it was too late to call you.” Lie.
    â€œOh.”
    Patrice got that hurt look again. She pushed the buttons on the microwave. “So what did you guys do anyway?”
    â€œWell, after the quarry we went over to Eddie’s house and his mom got pizzas for all of us. Then Fudge got this idea.”
    The kitchen was beginning to smell like butter.
    â€œOh, yeah?” I could tell Patrice was trying like mad not to be judgmental about my hanging out with Brett. “What was it?”
    I told the next part of the story really fast. “It was just getting dark. So he said that we should stand on the side of the road, and when a car came around the corner and caught us in its headlights, we should pretend to be beating Eddie up. Then we should scatter and Eddie should fall to the grass like he was really hurt.”
    Patrice shot me a funny look. “What was the point of that?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said defensively. “You know, to scare the guy in the car.”
    â€œSo you did it?”
    â€œWell, I told them it sounded like a dumb idea.” Lie. “I just wanted to go home.” Lie. I shrugged. “Brett’s a pretty hard guy to refuse.”
    Patrice’s funny look took on a harder edge. “You know, he’s not God, Evan.”
    For some reason I laughed. I mean, I knew she was right. But on the other hand, she was also wrong. Around Appleton, Brett was as close to a human deityas there was. Anyway, by that point I was really sorry I had started the story, but with Patrice leaning back on the kitchen counter, waiting, I had to finish.
    â€œSo a minute later, we saw headlights coming and all of us pretended to beat the crap out of Eddie. Then we ran for the hedges—the girls, too.”
    Patrice’s eyes went wide. “Did the car stop?”
    I nodded and just blurted out the rest of it. “Eddie really played his part, too. He held his stomach, moaned and said, ‘My stomach. My face,’ and stumbled off to his house. Then the guy in the car followed Eddie up the path asking if he could help. By that point, Eddie couldn’t take it anymore. He started laughing and ran like a maniac toward the woods. Next thing I knew, we were all hysterical.”
    The microwave went ding . Patrice ignored it.
    â€œWhat did the guy in the car do?”
    I pulled out the bag of popcorn. “I don’t know, he was all ‘You rotten kids!’ or something. We were too busy cracking up.”
    Patrice wrinkled her brow in this way that made her look a little bit like Mrs. Eckfeldt, my second-grade teacher at PS 194. “Why were you cracking up?”
    Even though I had told Patrice everything, I had left out something crucial: how it all felt . The truth was that once we started to pretend to beat up Eddie,it was exciting. And when the car actually stopped and the guy got out to help? It was a rush. Just because it’s a stupid prank doesn’t mean it’s not fun. It felt good to be one of the gang, feeling like we had pulled something off.
    â€œI guess it was pretty