The Lemonade War (12 page)

Jessie poured her milk slowly. "Evan's mad at me."
And he's going to be a whole lot madder after today,
she added in her head.

"What's he mad about?" asked Mrs. Treski.

"I dunno. He called me a baby and said I ruin everything. And..." Jessie felt it coming. She tried to hold it back, but she knew it was coming. Her shoulders tightened up, her chest caved in, and
her mouth opened in a howl. "He said he hates me!" Tears poured out of her eyes and dropped into her cereal bowl. Her nose started to run and her lips quivered. With every sob, she let out a sound like tires squealing on a wet road.

For the whole time Jessie cried, her mother wrapped her in a hug. And then, like a faucet turned off, Jessie stopped.

She had told the truth; she really
didn't
understand why Evan was so angry. Even before the Lemonade War he had been mad, and Jessie still didn't know why.

"Better?" asked Mrs. Treski.

"Not much," said Jessie. She wiped her nose with her paper napkin and started eating her cereal. It was soggy, but thankfully not salty.

"Don't you think it would be a good idea to find out what he's mad about?" asked Jessie's mom. "You're never going to stop being mad at each other until you both understand what the other person is feeling."

"I guess so," said Jessie.

"It can be hard. Sometimes it's even hard to know what you're feeling yourself. I mean, how do you feel about
him?
" asked Mrs. Treski.

Jessie didn't have to think long. All the insults and anger, the confusion and fighting, seemed to converge in a single flash of white-hot feeling. "I hate him! I hate him for saying all those mean things. And for not letting me play. I hate him just as much as he hates me. More!"

Mrs. Treski looked sad. "Can we have a sit-down about this tonight? After you get back from the beach?"

"No," said Jessie, remembering the spit vow. Evan would be mad if he knew that she had worried Mom with their fighting. And then he'd spill the beans about the terrible thing she was about to do. Jessie didn't want her mom knowing anything about that. "We'll work it out ourselves, Mom. I promise. Evan and I will talk tonight."

"I'm sorry I've been working so hard," said Mrs. Treski. "I know it's a lousy end to the summer."

"It's okay, Mom. You gotta work, right?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. I promise I'll be finished
by dinnertime tonight. That way we can all go to the fireworks together." Jessie's mom looked out the window. "I hope they don't get canceled because of weather. They're saying scattered thunderstorms this evening."

Jessie and her mom finished breakfast without saying much else.

"I'll clean up," said Jessie. She liked to do dishes, and she wanted to do something nice for her mom.

While she cleaned, she thought about the terrible plan she had come up with last night. It was mean. It was really mean. It was the meanest thing she had ever imagined doing.

I'm not going to do it,
she decided.
I hate him, but I don't hate him
that
much.

She was putting the last glass in the dishwasher when Evan walked in. His backpack was bulging.

"I thought you were going to the beach for the whole day," he said.

"Megan's picking me up in half an hour." She thought she saw Evan stiffen up.
Good.
"What's in the backpack?"

"Not much," he said, dumping out the contents
onto the kitchen table. Cans of lemonade mix rolled all over. Jessie tried to count, but there were too many. Fifteen? Twenty?

"Holy macaroni! How many cans did you buy?"

"Thirty-two." Evan started to stack the cans in a pyramid.

"But, but, you don't need that much. Even to win, you don't need that much. That's, that's—" She did the calculations in her head. "That's two hundred and fifty-six cups of lemonade. If you sell them at fifty cents apiece—"

"A dollar. I'm going to charge a dollar apiece."

Jessie felt like her head was going to explode. "You'll never sell it all," she said. "There isn't a neighborhood in town that will buy two hundred and fifty-six cups in one day."
Too much lemonade. Not enough thirsty people,
she thought.

"I'm going to roll! Like the ice cream truck! I'm going to mix it all up in the big cooler and wagon it from street to street. The high today is going to be ninety-four degrees. It might take me all day, but I'll sell every last drop.
Two hundred and fifty-six smackers!
And then tonight, Juicy, we count our earnings. Don't forget: Winner takes all!"

"But you don't need two hundred and fifty-six dollars to win!" she shouted.

Evan stood tall and said in that gravelly voice that all the boys imitated, "I don't play to win. I play to
pul-ver-ize.
"

Oh! What an idiot! Jessie couldn't believe her brother could be such a jerk. She watched as Evan put together his rolling lemonade stand in the garage. The big cooler was something Mrs. Treski had bought a few years back when she was in charge of refreshments for the school Spring Fling. It looked like a giant bongo drum with a screw-off top and a spigot at the bottom. Evan loaded it into the wagon, then poured in the mix from all thirty-two cans. He used the garden hose to fill the cooler to the top, then dumped in four trays of ice cubes. With a plastic beach shovel, he stirred the lemonade. The ice cubes made a weird rattling noise as they swirled around in the big drum. Using the shovel like a big spoon, he scooped out a tiny
bit and tasted it. "Perfect!" he announced, screwing the top on tightly. Then he went into the basement to make his Lemonade-on-Wheels sign.

Without a moment's hesitation, Jessie sprang into action.

First she got out a large Ziploc bag from the kitchen drawer, the kind that you could freeze a whole gallon of strawberries in if you wanted to. Then she held it, upside down and wide open, over the fruit bowl. She gave the bowl a solid knock. Jessie was surprised how easy it was to catch the fruit flies that floated up from the bowl. It was like they wanted to die!

She filled that bag and two more with flies, then hurried to the garage. She unscrewed the top of the big cooler. Holding the first bag upside down, she unzipped it, expecting the flies to fall down into the lemonade. They didn't. They stayed safe and dry in the bag. It was like they wanted to live!

"Too bad for you, you stupid flies," said Jessie as she plunged the bag into the lemonade. Under the surface, she turned the bag inside out, swishing it
back and forth so that all the flies were washed off into the lemonade. She emptied all three bags of flies into the big cooler, then hunted around until she found two green inchworms and a fuzzy gypsy moth caterpillar. She tossed them into the cooler. Then she threw in a fistful of dirt, for good measure. She was just about to screw the top back on when she heard Evan coming up the basement stairs. There wasn't time to get the top back on! He would see the bugs and the whole plan would be ruined!

Jessie ran to the steps and shouted, "Evan, Mom wants to see you in her office. Right away!"

"Aw, man," muttered Evan as he started to climb the second set of stairs.

Jessie quickly screwed on the cap, grabbed her blue bathing suit from the basement, then went upstairs to her room. On the way, she passed Evan coming down.

"Mom did
not
want to see me," he said, annoyed.

Jessie looked surprised. "That's what it sounded like. She yelled something down the stairs. I
thought it was 'Get Evan.'" Jessie shrugged. "So I got you."

From her bedroom window, she watched Evan rolling down the street with his Lemonade-on-Wheels stand. He was like one of those old-time peddlers, calling out, "Lemonade! Git yer ice-cold lemonade here!" as he walked. For one lightning-brief second, Jessie felt a stab of regret. She could see how hard he was straining to pull the heavy cooler. She knew what it was like to stand in the hot sun selling lemonade. But the feeling was snuffed out by the hurricane of anger she felt when she remembered Evan's gravelly voice: "
pul-ver-ize.
"

Jessie switched into her bathing suit, packed up her beach bag, and said a quick goodbye to her mother as the Moriartys pulled into the driveway.

"What a great day for the beach," said her mother. "Have fun. And be home in time for the fireworks, okay?"

The fireworks. Yep. Jessie imagined there would be some fireworks tonight.

total loss
(
) n. Goods so damaged that there's no point in repairing them (or they can't be repaired at all).

The first cup was an easy sell.

The second cup, too.

It was on the third cup that a little girl, about six years old, said, "Ew, there's a bug in my drink."

Then her brother said, "There's one in mine, too."

"Gross," said an older boy on a skateboard. "There are, like, three in mine. I want my money back, man," he said, dumping his lemonade on the ground.

The mother of the little girl and boy looked into
their cups carefully. "I think you need to check your lemonade, honey," she said to Evan.

Evan unscrewed the cap and everyone looked in. The surface was swimming with dead bugs: fruit flies, worms, and a soggy brown caterpillar.

"Oh my goodness," said the mother.

The boy started spitting on the ground like he was going to die. The girl started wailing. "Mommy! I drank bugs. I have bugs in my tummy!"

Evan couldn't believe his eyes. How did this happen? Did they crawl in somehow? They couldn't have. He had screwed the lid on tightly. He was sure of it. And anyway ... one or two bugs crawling in—maybe. But fifty dead fruit flies and two inchworms and a caterpillar? It just wasn't possible.

Evan was burning with embarrassment as everyone looked at him and his buggy lemonade. Frantically, he reached into the cooler and started to scoop out the dead bugs with his hands.

"Uh, sweetheart," said the mother, "you can't sell that lemonade."

"I'll get them all," said Evan. "I'll get every last one out."

"No, dear. You really can't. You need to dump it out," she said.

Evan looked at her like she was crazy. Dump it out?
Dump it out?
He'd spent forty dollars of his hard-earned money on that lemonade and another dollar for the cups. He wasn't going to dump it out.

"I'll do it at home," he said.

"No. You should do it here, I think. I need to be sure it's all disposed of properly."

Evan looked at her. He didn't know her, but he knew her type. Boy, did he know her type. She was the kind of mother who thought she was the mother of the whole world. If you were on a playground and she thought you were playing too rough, she'd tell you. If you were chewing gum in line at the 7-Eleven, she'd say, "I sure hope that's sugarless." Mothers like that never minded just their own business. Or just their kids' business. They thought they had to take care of every kid in the kingdom.

"It's too heavy for me to dump," he said. "I'll take it home and my mom can help."

"
I'll
help," said the busybody mother of the world. "All we need to do is tip it a little." She
grabbed one handle of the big cooler. Evan had no choice but to grab the other handle. Together they tipped and the lemonade poured out of the top of the cooler.

They poured and poured and poured. The lemonade sparkled in the sunlight, like a bejeweled waterfall, and then disappeared without a trace, soaking into the parched September grass. As the last sluice of lemonade slipped out of the cooler, a slick of mud poured out.

"Oh my goodness," said the mother.

Evan couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe how quickly his victory had turned to defeat. It was just like the lemonade. It had disappeared into the grass, leaving nothing behind. A total loss.

The mother smiled sympathetically as Evan returned her two dollars. The skateboard dude had already skated off with his refund. There was nothing to do but go home.

Evan walked slowly, dragging the wagon with the empty cooler rattling inside.

With every step he took, the wagon handle
poked him in the rear end. Step. Poke. Step. Poke. He felt like someone was nudging him forward.

"
Evan, Mom wants to see you in her office. Right away!
"

That had been weird. His mom had had no idea what he meant. "I didn't call you. I didn't call anyone," she had said. "I've been on the computer."

"
Evan, Mom wants to see you.
"

He had been coming up the stairs. Jessie had been in the garage. She had looked anxious. "
Right away!
" she had said.

Evan stopped walking. He stared at the empty cooler. Then he started to run. The wagon bounced crazily along the uneven sidewalk. Twice it tipped over.
What did it matter?
thought Evan angrily.
There's no lemonade to spill.

By the time he got home, he had it all figured out. He looked in the kitchen trash and found the three Ziploc bags, inside out and sticky with lemonade. He shook the fruit bowl and noticed how few fruit flies took to the air. If he'd had the right materials, he would have dusted the cooler for fingerprints. But there was really no need for that.
He knew what he would have found: Jessie was all over this one.