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were telephoning the Levesques?” she asked quietly.
    Bingo. The moms knew. This was bad.
    I pulled up a stool and waited. Mom decided to drop the Inquisition and get to it.
    “Marie got a call this afternoon from Meredith Levesque,” she said. “Meredith told her that some girls had made a prank call from the Pelletiers’ number. Your name was specifically mentioned. She said the joke had something to do with a girl stranded at the movie theater? A maid who doesn’t speak English? At any rate, Meredith ended up leaving her house and heading to the theater to find this kid. Luckily, her son telephoned her before she got there.
One
girl apparently had the good sense to call the Levesques and let them know it was a prank!”
    “Oh my god!” I burst out. “The whole thing was
that girl’s
idea!”
    “Well, let me tell you,” Mom burst back, “it was a
stupid
idea. To her credit, Meredith isn’t particularly upset. She Googled the number to get the name on the phone account and called Marie just to let her know that some kids were using her phone inappropriately. But are you aware”—Mom looked meaningfully at me—“that Marie uses their home phone for her decorating business?
And
are you aware that Meredith and Drew Levesque are brand-new clients of Marie’s? Let me tell you, Marie is ripped. This was very embarrassing for her.”
    “I thought you just said Mrs. Levesque wasn’t too upset,” I said.
    “Meredith Levesque has impeccable manners,” my mother replied. “She lives in a small town and understands that you handle things politely.”
    That hit me. Small town. Mess up in a small town and live with it forever. I wondered if this was a good time to bring up private school. Or moving.
    “I don’t know, Brett,” Mom sighed, shaking her head. She seemed deflated now, de-angered. “This is the last thing Marie needs right now. What were you thinking?”
    What-were-you-thinking. Let-me-tell-you. Don’t-speak-tome-in-that-tone. Did someone give them a book in the maternity ward called
Really Annoying Things for Parents to Say
?
    Then, just when I thought the conversation couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.
    “You know, you’re going to have to apologize,” Mom said.
    No. No no no no way. I was prepared to pack up, on the spot, and move to another town. I was willing to telephone every private school in Maine and request transfer applications. I would have even considered renouncing my U.S. citizenship and relocating to Singapore, or some other country on the farthest point of the planet away from Mescataqua. But apologize to the mother of the Hottest Boy in Maine, when all I really wanted to do was crawl under a rock and hide?
    “You’re kidding, right?” I said hopefully.
    “I’m as serious as a heart attack,” she replied.
    Evil. My mother had become evil. Cruella de Vil, Cinderella’s stepmother, and the witch queen from Snow White all rolled into one. Only that morning she had packed my snack of a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll, waved, and said, “I love you—have a great day!” when I’d headed out the door. What had happened to her while I was at school? Had aliens taken over her body?
    “No.”
    It came out of me, simple as that. Just the one word.
    “Brett, this is not negotiable.” Mom was talking in her I-mean-business voice.
    “Mom.” I was talking in my pleading, I’m-on-the-verge-of-tears voice. “I’m really sorry I got involved in such a stupid joke. I’ll call Diane’s mom. But please don’t make me call Mrs. Levesque.”
    “So write her a note,” Mom said impatiently. “Why are you being so pigheaded?”
    “Why are
you
making such a big deal about this?” I answered. “It’s not like we were doing drugs or raiding the liquor cabinet. We played a dumb joke. Big deal!”
    “You’re absolutely right,” Mom replied, putting her hands up in the I-surrender mode. “In the universe of big bad things kids do, this is minor. You weren’t stealing