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this…” He was too
upset to finish. He held the melons out to us.
    “Whoa!” I cried in amazement.
    No raccoon could have done this.
    No way.
    Someone had taken a black marker and drawn big, sloppy smiley faces on each
melon!
    My sister shoved me aside to get a good look.
    “Joe!” she shrieked. “That’s horrible. How could you!”

 
 
11
     
     
    “What are you talking about?” Mr. McCall demanded.
    “Yes, Mindy, what are you talking about?” Mom asked.
    “I caught Joe sneaking outside last night,” Mindy replied. “In the middle of
the night. He told me he wanted to wreck the rest of the melons.”
    Everyone turned to stare at me in horror. Even Moose, my best friend. Mr.
McCall’s face was as red as a tomato again. I saw him clenching and unclenching
his fists.
    Everyone stared at me in shocked silence. The smiley faces on the melons
stared at me, too.
    “But—but—but—” I sputtered.
    Before I could explain, Dad exploded. “Joe, I think you owe us an
explanation. What were you doing outside in the middle of the night?”
    I felt my face grow red-hot with anger. “I went out to calm Buster down,” I
insisted. “He was howling. I didn’t touch the melons. I would never do anything like that. I
was only joking when I told Mindy I wanted to wreck them!”
    “Well, this is no joke!” Dad exclaimed angrily. “You are grounded for the
week!”
    “But, Dad—!” I pleaded. “I didn’t draw on those melons!”
    “Make that two weeks!” he snapped. “And I think you should mow Mr. McCall’s
grass and water his garden all month. As an apology.”
    “Whoa, Jeffrey,” Mr. McCall interrupted. “I don’t want your son—or your dog—in my garden again. Ever.”
    He rubbed the casaba melons with his huge fingers, trying to erase the ugly
black stains. “I hope this comes off,” he muttered. “Because if it doesn’t,
Jeffrey, I’ll sue. Believe me, I will!”
     
    Two hours after the melon disaster, I sprawled on the floor of my room.
Grounded. With nothing to do.
    I couldn’t play with Buster in the yard. Because the painters were outside.
    So I stayed in my room and reread all of my Super Gamma Man comic
books.
    I ordered a glob of rubber vomit from the Joker’s Wild catalog for
five dollars. That’s most of my weekly allowance. Then I sneaked into Mindy’s
room and mixed up all the clothes in her closet. No more colors in rainbow
order.
    When I had finished, it still wasn’t even noon.
    What a totally boring day, I thought, as I wandered downstairs.
    “Hand me the yellow, please,” Mindy’s voice rang out from the den.
    I crept toward the door and peeked in. Mindy and her best friend, Heidi, sat
cross-legged on the floor. They were decorating T-shirts with fabric paint.
    Heidi is almost as annoying as Mindy. Something is always bothering her.
She’s too cold. Or too hot. Or her stomach hurts. Or her shoelaces are too
tight.
    I watched silently as the two girls worked. Heidi drew a silver collar on a
large purple cat.
    Mindy hunched over in concentration and slowly outlined a large yellow
flower.
    I leaped into the den. “Boo!” I screamed.
    “Yaii!” Heidi shrieked.
    Mindy jumped up, smearing a big yellow blotch on her red shorts. “You jerk!”
she cried. “See what you made me do!”
    She scraped at the paint with her fingernails. “Beat it, Joe,” she ordered.
“We’re busy.”
    “Well, I’m not,” I replied. “Thanks to you, Miss Snitch.”
    “It was your bright idea to draw faces on those melons,” she snarled.
“Not mine.”
    “But I didn’t do it!” I insisted.
    Mindy counted off the evidence on her fingers.
    “You were up in the middle of the night. You went out in the yard. And you
told me you wanted to wreck the rest of the melons.”
    “I was joking!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you know what a joke is? You should try
making one sometime.”
    Heidi stretched out her arms. “I’m hot,” she said. “Why don’t we go to the
pool? We