be
way
better than the saltshakers. I still have to get Aaron back for the toilet thing. You want to help?â
I thought about it while the announcer on the radio talked about switching brands of coolant. âWhatâs the plan?â I asked. I maybe snuck a glance out the door then. Sure enough, Annie Richards was still out there with her arms crossed over her chest. She was glaring at Doug now instead of at me, only a whole lot of good that was doing her, because Doug had no idea he was being glared at. (Doug hardly ever had any idea about anything.)
âOkay,â Doug said, bouncing from foot to foot as he spoke.Doug always bounced when he was really excited about something. âWeâre going to set the alarm clocks to go off at all different times.â Bounce on the left foot, bounce on the right. âLike, two in the morning, three in the morning, all different times.â Bounce, bounce, bounce. âThen weâre going to hide them in Aaronâs room while heâs sleeping, so that he keeps waking up all night and going, âGah!â Itâll drive him crazy.â
I thought it over. It wasnât a bad prank, really. But Dougâs problem was that sometimes he got so excited, he forgot to think through all the details. âDonât you think we should hide the clocks
before
Aaron goes to sleep?â I asked. âIf you do it after heâs already in bed, he might wake up, and then heâd be on to you.â
Dougâs bouncing slowed a little. âThatâs pretty smart,â he said. âPlus, then Annie can come over and help. She said sheâd do a prank with me soon.â
She was still out there, I could see her. Sheâd pulled her bike off the bike rack and was hacking away at the kickstand like
that
was the thing she hated.
âI donât want to help,â I told Doug, and I went back to clanging at the register. Ignoring the prickling in my chest. Completely ignoring it. âItâs your prank. Do it yourself.â
âBut . . .â Doug was clearly disappointed. I hated when Doug was disappointed. His lip stuck out like a little babyâs.
âYou gotta go now,â I told him. âThe gameâs coming back on. Sorry.â
I didnât watch as Doug grabbed his grocery bag full of alarmclocks and slunk out of the shop, back to his best friend in the whole world, but Iâd bet that his lip was sticking out the whole time.
Big baby. We werenât supposed to be pulling pranks anymore, anyway. The fire in my chest slowly settled back to a warm simmering, and I went back to listening to the game.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
It was close, but the Dodgers won, 6 to 4. âAnd you were worried,â Mom teased, grabbing me around the neck and giving me a motherly smooch that I would immediately have to rub off. When games got close, Mom was the one who freaked out, not me. She refused to sit as long as they were behind by more than one run. Given the Dodgersâ record so far this season, I was surprised her feet hadnât fallen off.
Ray went to the front to help a customer, and Mom snapped off the radio and got to the business of grilling her middle child.
âSo,â she said, âyou excited about middle school on Monday?â
It sounded like she was asking seriously, which was weird.
âI thought you hated middle school,â I told her.
She stuck her tongue in her cheek, thinking. âI did?â
âYeah, you said that to Aaron once. You said that you didnât even know why they
had
middle school, that there ought to be some government program where, as soon as kids graduated elementary school, they got scooped up and sent to a lab where scientists could put them in a deep freeze until they were old enough for high school. For their own sake, thatâs what you said. Because middle school sucks so much.â
Mom laughed. âWell, I probably