Read On the Fence for Free Online Page A

“You playing ball tomorrow?”
    “Of course. You?”
    “Yeah. Are you playing for the team this year at school?”
    I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Uh-huh. Can’t wait for it to start. Talk about exhaustion. School, basketball, gym, homework, bed—now that’s a schedule my body likes.”
    “Why?”
    Crap. The problem with talking to his disembodied voice was that it made me less guarded. It didn’t feel like I was talking to anyone but the sky. “I just like to sleep good. None of this waking-up-at-three-a.m. crap.”
    “ Heck yeah,” he said in his best imitation of me (which wasn’t very good). Every time I substituted a bad word with a milder one, he made fun of me by doing his own bad-to-less-bad word substitution. His taunts weren’t going to pressure me into changing things. I was more scared of my dad’s no-cussing rule than I was of Braden laughing at me for it.
    “I knew you were going to say that,” I said.
    “Oh, really? You knew I was going to say ‘Heck yeah’?”
    “Well, some variation of it.”
    “You think you know me so well, huh?”
    “Yep. Every last annoying habit.”
    He gave a single laugh. “Well, it goes both ways. Actually, I probably know you better.”
    “You think you know me better than I know you?”
    “Yes,” he said confidently. “Because I see you every day, and when I don’t see you, I hear Gage talk about whatever lame thing you guys did.”
    “And you don’t think Gage talks about all the lame things you guys do without me?”
    “Okay, game on.” That was his competition voice. As he said it, I realized I knew it so well. His voice in general was so familiar to me. I was surprised I could picture his expressions as I listened to him talk. Right now he’d have a smug smile on his face. “We will prove who knows more about the other. We go back and forth stating facts. Whoever runs out first loses.”
    “You’re on. I’ll start. You have swampy brown eyes.”
    He laughed. “Oh, wow, you’re really starting with the basics.”
    “Yep. I said I knew everything. That’s part of everything.” The truth was, I wasn’t sure I did know everything about Braden. As Gage’s best friend, he was as familiar to me as a brother, but in some ways, he was a mystery to me. But I assumed I was the same for him, so I had confidence that I knew him at least as well as he knew me.
    “Swampy? Really? You make them sound nasty.”
    “Yes, they are swampy.” His eyes were awesome—brown interlaced with green. It was like they couldn’t quite decide which color team they wanted to play for. “Your turn.”
    “Fine. You have steel-gray eyes.”
    “Oh, I see how you are. Stealing my facts.”
    “Yeah, we should be able to match the other person’s fact. If I didn’t know your eye color and you knew mine, I should’ve lost right there. So now you have to match my fact.”
    I nodded. “Okay. I get it. Evolving rules. So you’re up then.”
    “Right. You suck at math.”
    I gasped in mock offense. “Rude . . . but true.” Okay, so I needed to think of a subject in school Braden was bad in. Problem. Braden was an excellent student. So my match could’ve been that he didn’t suck at any subject, but I didn’t want to praise him after he just slammed me. “Oh! Got it. You suck at choir. Supporting evidence: You volunteer for the solo in the seventh grade Christmas program. You forget the song. You sing the few words you remember completely off-key.” I laughed, remembering the cringe-worthy moment. “I think we still have that on home video somewhere.”
    “Ouch.” He probably grabbed his chest then, but he had at least half a smile on his face. Braden was good at crooked smiles. “For the record, your brother volunteered me for that solo when I was absent and I beat him for it after the fact. But yes, I suck at choir.”
    “My turn,” I said, conjuring up a mental picture of Braden so I could think of my next fact. I almost said he