The Lemonade War (7 page)

"What-
ever
;" said Megan, imitating Carly's voice.

Jessie laughed, even though she was still stinging from the baby-sitting remark. "Thanks for doing the lemonade stand with me," she said.

"Are you kidding?" said Megan. "She's such a stuck-up jerk. I didn't even invite her over. She just rode by, and when I said that you and Evan might be coming over, she just walked into the house."

"Are all the girls in fourth grade like her?" asked Jessie. She tried to sound casual.

"Some are, some aren't," said Megan. She sat down on the stairs and opened a bottle of sky blue nail polish. With quick expert strokes, she started painting her toenails. "Hey, that's right. You're going to be in our class this year. That's so weird. Jumping a grade."

"A lot of people skip a grade," said Jessie.

"Really? I never met one before. Here. Do your toes green and then we'll be coordinated."

Jessie ended up getting more polish on her toes than on her toenails. But by the time they were done, Jessie had explained her plan for the day: Value-added.

"See," she said, pulling
Ten Bright Ideas to Light Up Your Sales
from the back pocket of her shorts. She turned to Bright Idea #2 and pointed with her finger.

"That means we give customers something extra they didn't expect," explained Jessie. "I mean, anyone can go home and mix up their own batch of lemonade. Right? So if we want them to buy from us, we've got to give them something extra. We
add value.
"

"Great," said Megan. "What are we going to add?"

"Well, how about chips? And maybe pretzels. Everyone likes chips and pretzels. We'll just have a bowl on the table, and anyone who buys lemonade can have some free snacks."

"So we're adding value—snacks."

"Yeah, except—" Jessie had stayed up late last night reading her mom's booklet. "You know what we're really adding? Fun. That's the one thing people can't get all by themselves. It
looks
like we're selling lemonade and snacks. But we're really selling fun. And everyone wants fun."

"Wow," said Megan. "That's really smart. It'll be like a party. Who doesn't like a party?"

Jessie nodded her head. She carefully tore out the definition of
value-added
from the booklet and put it in her lock box. Her mother always said:
Some ideas are like money in the bank.

An hour later, they were all set up. The lemonade stand was newly decorated with streamers and balloons. Three bowls of snacks—Cheetos, potato chips, and pretzels—were set on top. Jessie had lugged Megan's boom box all the way downstairs, and Megan was doing the DJ thing with her CD collection. It looked like a party had somehow sprung up right in the middle of the hot concrete sidewalk. To anyone passing by, the lemonade stand shouted out, "Come over here! This is where the fun is!"

As soon as the music had come on, customers
had started drifting over. One of the moms across the street set up a sprinkler in her front yard, and soon all the kids in the neighborhood were running through the sprinkler and grabbing handfuls of Cheetos. Two women walking their dogs stopped for a nibble and ended up staying an hour. And three or four of the neighborhood mothers set up lawn chairs nearby and talked and ate pretzels while their kids ran through the water.

But Jessie noticed a funny thing. Even though there was an endless buzz of activity around the stand and the chips were flying out of the bowls faster than Megan could restock them, they weren't selling much lemonade.

"Hey, Jordan," said Jessie, as a four-year-old boy ran by in a bathing suit. "Don't you want a cup of lemonade?"

Jordan dive-bombed the pretzel bowl and came up with a fistful. "I had too much already. Four glasses!" and off he ran.

"Four glasses!" said Jessie to Megan. "He didn't buy any! Mrs. Doran, don't you want a cup of lemonade?"

"Sorry, Jessie, I have to pass," said Mrs. Doran. "I had two already, and I'm trying to cut down on sugary drinks."

Where's everybody drinking so much lemonade?
wondered Jessie. She looked down the road.
Oh, wait a minute.
"Megan, hold down the fort," said Jessie. "I'll be right back."

"Sure thing," said Megan, dancing to the music. "This lemonade stand was the greatest idea. It's like a birthday for the whole neighborhood!"

Jessie headed down the road. As she rounded the bend, she prepared for the worst: Evan's lemonade stand crowded with customers. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The corner was deserted.

She crossed the street and went into the garage. There was the cooler, dirty and empty. And there were the stacked plastic chairs, four of them this time. And there was—wait a minute. Those were
new
signs.

Jessie pulled out three large pieces of foam core. On the back of each one was part of the penguin
project Evan had done last year in third grade. On the front were big letters:

Jessie
couldn't
believe her eyes.
Ten
cents a cup. That was crazy! Even if they sold all ninety-six cups, they'd only make $9.60. And split four ways—that was just $2.40 for each boy. Evan was never going to earn a hundred dollars with that kind of profit.

Jessie went down into the basement. Evan and Paul were playing air hockey.
Whashoo.
The puck flew into Evan's goal and Paul threw his arms into the air in a victory ∨.

"Oh, snap!" said Evan. "You're winning."

"Winning? Winning? Are you kidding me?" said Paul. Then he dropped his voice to a gravelly growl and said, "I don't play to win. I play to
pul-ver-ize.
" Just like that muscle-guy actor in
Agent Down,
the movie that all the boys were talking about. Paul was even flexing his muscles like that actor—except that Paul didn't have any muscles. At least none that Jessie could see.

When Paul saw Jessie, he dropped his arms. "Hey," he said. Paul was Jessie's favorite of Evan's friends. He always joked around with her, but in a
nice way. And he never minded when Evan invited her to come along with them.

"Hey," said Jessie. "What's up?"

Evan turned off the air hockey table. "Nothing," he said. "We were just going out."

Paul dropped his hockey paddle onto the table and followed Evan into the garage. Jessie trailed behind.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Down to the tracks," said Paul as he strapped on his bike helmet. "We put pennies there this morning, so we're gonna get 'em now. Squash! Ya wanna—"

"YO!" shouted Evan.

"My B," muttered Paul. "So, see ya," he said to Jessie.

Jessie hated this feeling of being shut out. Like she wasn't wanted. Evan had never made her feel that way before, even when sometimes he
did
want to be just with his friends. He'd always say things like, "Jess, we're going to go shoot hoops just the two of us, but when we get back we'll play spud
with you." So that she knew he still liked her, even when she wasn't invited along.

But this. This was like he hated her. Like he never wanted to play with her again. And Paul was going right along with it.

Jessie scowled. "So you really cleaned up today at the lemonade stand, huh?" she said.

"Yep, we sold out," said Evan.

"So what did you make, like three dollars?" she asked.

"Actually, we made a ton. What was it, Paul?"

"Forty-five bucks," said Paul.

Jessie's mouth went slack. Forty-five dollars! "There's no way," she said. "Not at ten cents a cup."

"Oh, just the little kids paid that," said Evan. "The grownups all gave us way more. 'That's too cheap!' they said. 'It's such a hot day and you're working so hard. Here, take a dollar. Keep the change.' It was crazy!"

"Unreal," said Paul. "They kept pushing all this money at us 'cause they thought it was so sweet we were selling lemonade for a dime. We made a killing."

Bright Idea #5—Jessie remembered it immediately. "That's called
goodwill,
" she said slowly, picturing the exact page from her mother's booklet with the definition on it.

"It's when you do something nice in business and it ends up paying you back with money." She sighed. Why hadn't she thought of that? She would be sure to tear out that definition and put it in her lock box when she got back to the lemonade stand.

"Well, whatever. We cleaned up," said Evan.

"Even so," said Jessie, trying to find some way to prove that Evan had
not
had a good day selling lemonade. "You had four people working the stand. So if you split forty-five dollars four ways, that's only eleven twenty-five each."
Which is still way more

than I'm going to make today,
she thought,
since the whole neighborhood has already filled up on cheap lemonade.

"We're not splitting," said Evan. "The guys said I could keep it all."

"Right," said Paul. "All for a good cause!"

"That's not fair!" said Jessie.

"Sure it is," said Evan as he got on his bike and pushed off. "In case you didn't know, that's what it's like to have
friends.
" Evan crossed the street.

"Ouch," said Paul. "TTFN, Jess." He followed Evan.