The Lemonade War (14 page)

Jessie looked skeptical. "You can't have
nothing.
You must have made
something.
"

"Well, I had expenses. So I ended up with nothing. Okay? Are you happy? You win." Evan sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the floor.

Jessie felt her heart sink. "You spent
all
your money on mix for your Lemonade-on-Wheels stand?" Jessie asked. "All of it?"

Evan nodded. Jessie felt like crawling under the bed and never coming out. "It didn't pay off so good?" she whispered.

"There were a few bugs in the system," said Evan.
That's a joke Jessie would have loved,
he thought. Before the war. Now it was all just money and numbers and bad feelings. There was no room for laughing.

"Oh," said Jessie, her voice the size of an ant. She stared down at the box in her lap. "I've got—"

She opened the lid of the lock box, took out the change tray, and pushed aside all the scraps of paper she had collected and the comment card from Megan. She stared. "Wait a minute. This isn't my money." She picked up a handful of wrinkled, bunched-up bills. Evan lay down on the bed and covered his head with his pillow. Jessie counted the money quickly. "Sixty-two dollars and eleven cents? Where'd this come from?"

"Imamummy," said Evan from underneath the pillow.

"What?" said Jessie. "Take that dumb pillow away. I can't understand what you're saying." She hit the side of his leg for emphasis.

"It's my money!" he shouted, still through the
pillow. "It was a hundred and three dollars, but then I spent forty-one dollars for the Lemonade-on-Wheels stand. So now it's just sixty-two."

"Your money? But where's my money?"

Evan pulled the pillow away from his face. His eyes were closed. His nose pointed at the ceiling. He folded his arms across his chest like a dead man. "I took it."

"Well, give it back," said Jessie. This time she hit the side of his leg for real.

"I can't. It's gone." He lay as still as a three-day-old corpse.

"Gone? Gone where?" Jessie was shrieking now. Never in her life had she worked so hard to earn money. Never in her life had she had more than one hundred dollars in her hand. Never in her life had she had a friend who trusted her like Megan had.

"I don't know. It was in my shorts pocket. And then I played basketball with the guys. And then we went to Jack's house to swim. And I took off my shorts and borrowed a suit. And when I went back to change, the money was gone." He sat up
and faced his sister. "I'm
really
sorry."

In a real war you fight. You fight with your hands and with weapons. You fight with anything you've got because it's a matter of life and death. Jessie felt the loss of her hard-earned money like a death, and she ripped into Evan with all the power in her body. She punched him. She kicked him. She threw her lock box at him. She wanted to tear him up into little pieces.

Evan didn't try to pin her, though it would have been easy to do. Part of him just wanted to lie on the bed and take it. Take it all. For being the one who started the whole thing by saying, "I hate you." For making Jessie feel so rotten about herself just because Evan felt so rotten about himself. For taking Jessie's money and losing it to Scott. Just for being so stupid.

But Jessie was really going at it, and if he didn't protect himself at least a little, he was going to end up in the emergency room and that would upset his mom. So he kept his hands up in front of his face, just enough to keep Jessie from gouging out his
eyes. But he never once tried to hit her back. He was done fighting.

Finally Jessie ran out of gas. She lay down on the bed and tried to make her brain work. Her body was so worn out that her brain felt like the only part of her that
could
work.

"One of your friends stole my money?" she asked.

"I think it was Scott Spencer," said Evan. "He went upstairs to go to the bathroom. And then he came down all in a hurry and said he had to go home. After that, I went upstairs and the money was gone."

"He's such a jerk," said Jessie.

"The biggest," said Evan. "If he gets an Xbox, I'll
know
it was him."

"It was a lot of money," said Jessie, feeling tears start to spring from her eyes and run down her face.

"It
was,
" said Evan. "I couldn't believe how much when I saw it. You're really something, you know that? Earning all that money selling lemonade."

Thanks,
thought Jessie, though she couldn't say the word. "Why'd you do it, Evan?" she asked. She
meant
Why'd you take the money? And why'd you act so mean? And why'd you start this whole war in the first place?
There were too many questions.

"I was mad at you for putting the bugs in my lemonade," he said.

"Well, I was mad at you for saying you wanted to pulverize me," she said.

"I only did that because you were hanging out with Megan and I felt totally left out."

"Well, how do you think I felt when you wouldn't let me hang out with you and stupid Scott Spencer?"

"Well, I was mad at you because ... because..."

Jessie sat up and looked at Evan. Evan looked at the wall.

"Because I don't want you in my class this year," he said.

"Because I'll embarrass you," she said solemnly.

"Because I'll embarrass
myself,
" said Evan. "I never have the right answer in math. And I read slower than everyone when I read out loud. And I make mistakes. All the time. And now with you in
the class, it's going to be worse. They'll all say, 'Wow, he's even dumber than his little sister.'" Evan's shoulders slumped and his head hung low.

"You're not dumb," said Jessie.

"I know you don't
think
I am," he said. "And that stinks, too. That you're going to
see
how dumb I am in school."

"You're not dumb," said Jessie again. "You made a hundred and three dollars and eleven cents selling lemonade in just five days."

"Yeah, but you made two hundred and eight dollars! You see? You're my little sister, and you're twice as smart as me."

Jessie shook her head. "Half that money is Megan's. She just gave it to me to give to the Animal Rescue League. I only made a hundred and four dollars."

Evan unslumped. "Really?" Jessie nodded yes. "So you made a hundred and four and I made a hundred and three?"

"And eleven cents," said Jessie.

"So it was really a tie?" said Evan.

"No," said Jessie. "I won. By eighty-nine cents."

"But, I mean, c'mon," said Evan. "After all that, it was
practically
a tie."

"No," said Jessie. "It was close. But I really won."

"Wow, we pretty much tied," said Evan.

Jessie decided to let it go. For the first time in four days, she didn't care about who had more and who had less. Besides, she was waiting to see how long it took before Evan figured
it
out.

Not long.

"Holy crud!" he said suddenly. "I lost Megan's money, too? A hundred and four dollars of her money? Oh, CRUD." He threw himself back on his bed and covered his face with both arms. Neither of them said anything for a long time. Finally Jessie broke the silence.

"I'm really sorry I put the bugs in your lemonade."

"Thanks," said Evan. "I'm sorry I took your and Megan's money."

"We shouldn't have done any of this," Jessie said, waving her hand at the money on the bed.
"It ruined the end of summer."

"Yeah, the whole summer's been crud," said Evan.

"Not the
whole
summer. Just the last five days. Remember we went to Bar Harbor? And we swam at the pond?" Jessie couldn't stand Evan thinking their whole summer together had been crud.

"Yeah, but I think the last five days kind of cancels all that out," said Evan. "I can't believe I have to tell Megan Moriarty—"

"She likes you," said Jessie.

Evan sat up, surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Jessie. "I don't get it either. But she's always asking what you're doing and if you can play and stuff. Why do you think she does that?"

"Cool," said Evan, smiling. "So you guys are friends?"

"Yeah," said Jessie. "We're good friends."

"Okay then. So she'll be coming over here to play and stuff. Right? That's cool."

"You're weird," said Jessie.

"Yes, I am," said Evan.

There was another long silence. The late
summer light in Evan's one-window room had faded to black, but neither one of them wanted to turn on a light. It was nice sitting there, just the two of them, in the cooling darkness. An afternoon breeze had kicked itself into a gusty wind, and the shade on the window tapped out a steady beat that was pleasant and reassuring.

"This war was stupid," said Jessie.

Evan nodded in the dark.

Just then they heard the sound of thunder booming in the distance. Then more and more until the whole house shook.

"The fireworks!" shouted Jessie.

"Oh, snap!" shouted Evan.

Jessie and Evan raced down the stairs. At the bottom, they found their mother sitting on the last step, watching the sky through the sliding screen door.

"Why didn't you call us?" said Evan.

"We're missing the fireworks!" said Jessie.

"Oh, I figured whatever the two of you were talking about was more important than a fireworks show." Mrs. Treski turned to look at
her kids. "Did you work it out?"

Evan and Jessie nodded just as a roman candle exploded in the sky.

"Not a bad seat," said Mrs. Treski, patting the step. "Enjoy."

For twenty minutes, the night sky was alive with wagon wheels, party-colored dahlias, and whistling glitter palms. Evan, Jessie, and Mrs. Treski sat watching, silent but for the occasional "Oohhh" and "Aahhh" that seemed to escape from their lips like hissing air from an overblown tire.

When the last of the fireworks bloomed and then faded, Evan, Jessie, and Mrs. Treski sat in the darkness, waiting. No one said anything for several minutes. And then Jessie whispered, "It's over."

Yes. It was over.

"Wait," said Evan. "What was that?"

"What?" asked Jessie, straining her ears.

"Listen."

In the distance, a boom and a rattle.

"More fireworks," said Evan, staring up at the dark sky.

"Where? I don't see them," said Jessie.

All of a sudden the sky split in two as lightning sliced the night. An explosion of thunder rolled through the house, rattling the windows and pictures on the walls. Rain poured from the sky as if a gigantic faucet had been twisted on.

"Yow!" shouted Mrs. Treski, leaping up from the step. "Battle stations!"

Every window in the house was wide open, so Evan, Jessie, and Mrs. Treski ran from the top floor to the bottom, shutting windows and sopping up puddles. The rain came down with the fury and impatience of a two-year-old having a tantrum. As he closed the window in his room, Evan could hear the gurgle of the gutters choking on the downpour.

"One thing ends, another begins," said Mrs. Treski, meeting Jessie and Evan on the stairs. She raised her index finger, like a wise philosopher. "Fireworks. Rainstorm."

Jessie raised her index finger. "Summer. School."

Evan raised his index finger. "War. Peace."

Then they laughed because it was silly—the three of them acting like wise philosophers, standing on the stairs.

That night, before she closed her door, Jessie whisper-shouted to Evan, who was already in bed, "Hey. I've got an idea. About getting Megan's money back."