The Lemonade War Page 2

  Jessie reached for her book. She didn't want to think about the girls at school and she didn't want to think about the competition. She started reading again.

  Wilbur and Charlotte were at the fair, and Charlotte was beginning to show her age. Jessie read the words that Wilbur said to his best friend.

  I'm awfully sorry to hear that you're feeling poorly, Charlotte. Perhaps if you spin a web and catch a couple of flies you'll feel better.

  Well, the second part didn't apply at all, but Jessie imagined herself saying the first line: I'm awfully sorry to hear that you're feeling poorly, Evan. It sounded about right. At least it would show him that she cared, and Jessie knew that this was important when someone was feeling upset. She decided to go downstairs and give it a try. She would do just about anything to get Evan back to the way he was before the letter.

  Jessie looked in the kitchen and the backyard—no Evan. She was halfway down the steps to the basement when she heard a noise coming from the garage. She opened the door and felt the full heat of the day on her skin. It was like some giant had blown his hot, stinky breath on her.

  In the garage, she found Evan and Scott Spencer. Weird, she thought. Evan doesn't even like Scott Spencer. They'd been on-again, off-again friends from kindergarten. But ever since Scott had purposely put Evan's bike helmet under the wheel of the Treskis' minivan so that Mrs. Treski ran over it when she backed out, the friendship had definitely been off.

  Jessie looked from Evan to Scott and back again. Now she had no idea what to say. I'm awfully sorry to hear that you're feeling poorly, Evan, didn't seem to make much sense when Evan was obviously having fun with his friend. She tried to think of something else to say. All she could come up with was "What're you doing?"

  The boys were bent over a piece of cardboard. Evan was writing letters with a skinny red felt-tipped pen. The purple cooler was in the middle of the garage and two plastic chairs were stacked on top of it. On the top chair was a brown paper bag.

  "Nothing," said Evan, not looking up.

  Jessie walked over to the boys and peered over Evan's shoulder.

  She said, "You spelled lemonade wrong. It's an o, not an i." But she thought, Oh, good! A lemonade stand. My favorite thing to do!

  The boys didn't say anything. Jessie saw Evan's mouth tighten up.

  "You want me to make the lemonade?" she asked.

  "Already made," said Evan.

  "I could decorate the sign," she said. "I'm good at drawing butterflies and flowers and things."

  Scott snorted. "Huh! We don't want girl stuff like that on our sign!"

  "Do you want to use my lock box to keep the money in? It's got a tray with separate compartments for all the different coins."

  "Nope," said Evan, still working on the sign.

  "Well," she said, looking around. "I can clean the table for you." The small wooden table, still covered in black streaks, was pushed up against the bikes.

  "We're not using it," said Evan.

  "But we always use the table for a stand," said Jessie.

  Evan pushed his face in her direction. "We don't want it."

  Jessie took a couple of steps back. Her insides felt runny, like a fried egg that hasn't cooked enough. She knew she should just go back into the house. But for some reason her legs wouldn't move. She stood still, her bare feet rooted to the cool cement.

  Scott whispered something to Evan and the two boys laughed, low and mean. Jessie swayed toward the door, but her feet stayed planted. She couldn't stand it that Evan wanted to be with Scott—who was a real jerk—more than her.

  "Hey," she said. "I bet you need change. I've got a ton. You could have all my change. You know, as long as you pay it back at the end of the day."

  "Don't need it," said Evan.

  "Yeah, you do," insisted Jessie. "You always need change, especially in the beginning. You'll lose sales if you can't make change."

  Evan capped the pen with a loud snap! and stuck it in his pocket. "Scott's bankrolling us. His mom keeps a change jar, so we've got plenty."

  The boys stood up. Evan held the sign for Scott to read, turning his back on Jessie. "Awesome," said Scott.

  Jessie knew that the sign was not awesome. The letters were too small and thin to read from a distance. (Evan should have used a fat marker instead of a skinny felt-tipped pen. Everybody knew that!) There weren't any pretty decorations to attract customers. And the word lemonade was spelled wrong. Why wouldn't Evan take a little help from her? She just wanted to help.

  Scott turned to her and said, "Are you really going to be in fourth grade this year?"

  Jessie's back stiffened. "Yep," she said.

  "Wow. That is so freaky."

  "Is not," she said, sticking her chin out.

  "Is too," said Scott. "I mean, you're a second-grader and now you're gonna be a fourth-grader. That's just messed up."

  Jessie looked at Evan, but he was busy taping the sign to the cooler.

  "Lots of people skip grades," said Jessie. "It's not that big a deal."

  "It's completely weird!" said Scott. "I mean, you miss everything from a whole year. You miss the whole unit on Antarctica, and that was the best. And the field trip to the aquarium. And the thing where we sent letters all over the country. Remember that, Evan? You got that letter from Alaska. That was so cool!"

  Evan nodded, but he didn't look up.

  "It's not that big a deal," said Jessie again, her voice stretched tight like a rubber band.

  "It's like you miss a year of your life," Scott said. "It's like you're gonna die a whole year earlier than the rest of us because you never had third grade."

  Jessie felt cold and hot at the same time. Part of her wanted to yell, "That doesn't make any sense!" But the other part of her felt so freakish—like Scott had just noticed she had three legs.

  Evan stood up and tossed the paper bag to Scott. Then he grabbed the plastic chairs with one hand. "Come on. Let's go." He reached down to grab one handle of the cooler. Scott grabbed the other, and together they lifted it and began to walk out of the garage.

  "Hey, Evan," said Jessie, calling to their backs. "Can I come, too?"

  "No," he said, without turning around.

  "Come on. Please? I'll be a big help. I can do lots of things—"

  "You're too young," he said sharply. "You're just a baby."

  The boys walked out.

  You're just a baby.

  Jessie couldn't believe Evan had said that. After all the stuff they'd done together. And he was only fourteen months older than she was. Hardly even a full year. She was about to yell back something really harsh, something stinging and full of bite, like Oh, yeah?, when she heard Scott say to Evan, "Man, I can't believe you have to be in the same class as your little sister. If that happened to me, I'd move to South America."

  "Yeah, tell me about it," replied Evan, crossing the street.

  The words died on Jessie's lips. She watched Evan walking away, getting smaller and smaller.

  He was deserting her.

  He wasn't going to stand by her at school. He wasn't going to smooth the way for her. He was going to be on the other side, with all of them, looking down on her. Telling everyone that she was too young to be part of the crowd. Telling everyone that she didn't belong.

  "Fine for you, Evan Treski," she said as she marched into the house, her fists balled up at her sides. "I don't need you. I don't need you to have fun. I don't need you to run a lemonade stand. And I don't need you to make friends in the fourth grade."

  Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and shouted, "And I am not a baby!"

  Chapter 3

  Joint Venture

  joint venture () n. Two or more people joining forces to sell a certain amount of goods or to work on a single project. When the goods are sold or the project is finished, the joint venture ends.

  "Your sister is really—"

  "Shut up," said Evan.

  "Huh?"

  "Just shut up. She's okay. She ju
st ... she doesn't ... look, she's okay. So just shut up."

  "Y'okay," said Scott, holding up his free hand to show he meant peace.

  Evan was getting abused on both sides. The heavy cooler was banging against his inside leg with every step. And the plastic chairs were scraping against his outside leg. Bruised and bloodied, he thought to himself. All for the fun of hanging out with Scott Spencer.

  Why couldn't Jack have been home? Or Ryan? And why did Adam have to be on the Cape this week? It stunk.

  "How far are we walking?" grunted Scott.

  "Just to the corner." Evan watched as drops of sweat fell off his face and landed on the hot sidewalk.

  "We shoulda stayed in the driveway. It was shaded."

  "The corner's better. Trust me," said Evan.

  He remembered when Jessie had said the same words to him last summer. They were setting up a lemonade stand together, and Evan had been grumbling about dragging the cooler across the street and down two houses, just like Scott. But Jessie had insisted. "There's sidewalk on this side," she'd said. "So we'll get the foot traffic coming in both directions. And people in cars coming around the curve will have time to see us and slow down. Besides, there are a bunch of little kids on the side street and their mothers won't want them crossing Damon Road. The corner's better. Trust me."

  And she was right. They'd made a ton of money that afternoon.

  It took ten seconds to set up the lemonade stand. Evan unfolded the chairs and set one on each side of the cooler. Scott tilted the sign toward the street for maximum effect. Then they both sat down.

  "Man, is it hot," said Evan. He took off his baseball cap and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt. Then he grabbed an ice cube from the cooler, balanced it on his head, and stuck his cap back on.

  "Yeah," said Scott. "I'm thirsty." He reached into the paper bag and pulled out a cup. It was one of those large red plastic cups that vendors use at professional baseball games. Then Scott took one of the pitchers from the cooler and filled the cup to the brim with lemonade.

  "Hey, not so much," said Evan, pouring himself a cup, too, but only partway. He glugged down half his drink. Not bad, he thought, though he noticed a dead fruit fly floating on the top. His mom had been battling a mad fruit-fly infestation ever since the weather had turned really warm. The kitchen sink area, where they kept their fruit bowl, was dotted with tiny, feathery fruit-fly corpses.

  Scott drained his cup and tossed it on the ground. "Aahhh," he said, satisfied. "That was good. I'm gonna have another."

  Evan reached for the trashed cup and stowed it under his seat. "Nah, c'mon, Scott. You're gonna drink all our profits if you do that." He stretched his legs out by putting his feet on top of the cooler. "Just chill."

  "I'm gonna chill by having another cup," said Scott.

  There it was. That mean bite in Scott's voice. Evan's shoulders tensed up.

  "Move your feet," said Scott. "It's hot out here."

  "Dude, you're—" Evan sat up expectantly and looked down the street. "Hey, here comes our first customer."

  A mother pushing a double stroller came into view. At the same time, one of the kindergartners from down the street rode her bike up, noticed the sign, and quickly pedaled back to her house. Within five minutes, there was a small crowd of neighborhood kids and pedestrians buying lemonade from the stand.

  Evan let Scott handle all the money while he took care of the pouring and the "sweet talk." That's what his mother called it when a salesperson chatted her up. "Trust me," she had once told Evan and Jessie. "Buying something is only half about getting something. The other half is all about human contact." Mrs. Treski knew about these things because she was a public relations consultant. She'd even written a booklet called Ten Bright Ideas to Light Up Your Sales for one of her clients. And Evan was like her: He was good at talking with people. Even grownups. It was easy for him. So he kept the conversation flowing, along with the lemonade. People hung around. Most of them bought a second cup before they left.

  Evan was so busy, he almost didn't notice Jessie flying out of the garage on her bike and riding down the street toward town. Good riddance, he thought—but at the same time he wondered where she was going.

  During a lull in business, Evan walked all around the stand, picking up discarded plastic cups. Scott sat in his chair, jingling the coins in his pocket.

  "Man, we are gonna be so rich," said Scott. "I bet we made five bucks already. I bet we made ten! How much you think we made?"

  Evan shrugged. He looked at the stack of used cups in his hand and counted the rims. Fourteen. They'd sold fourteen cups so far. And each cup of lemonade cost fifty cents. Evan heard Mrs. DeFazio's voice in his ear. Mrs. DeFazio had been his third-grade teacher, and she'd done everything she could to help Evan with his math.

  If one cup of lemonade sells for fifty cents and you sell fourteen cups of lemonade, how much money have you made?

  Word problems! Evan hated word problems. And this one was impossible anyway. He was pretty sure the right equation was

  but how was he supposed to solve that? That was double-digit multiplication. There was no way he could do a problem like that. And besides—some of those fourteen people had bought refills but used the same cup. How many? Evan didn't know.

  Still, he knew they'd made a pretty good amount of money. That estimate was close enough for him.

  "How much do you think we could make if we sold it all?" asked Scott.

  "I don't know," said Evan. "Maybe twenty bucks?" That sounded high, even to him, but Evan was an optimist.

  "Do you really think?"

  Both boys looked in the cooler. Three pitchers were empty. They only had half a pitcher left.

  "You were pouring the cups too full," said Scott. "You shoulda poured less in each one."

  "You're the one who brought the huge plastic cups. You could fit a gallon in one of those!" said Evan. "Besides, I wasn't gonna be chintzy. They're paying a whole half a buck for it. They deserve a full cup. And anyway, we can just go home and make more. My mom has cans of lemonade in the freezer."

  "So go home and make more," said Scott.

  "Oh, yes, Your Majesty. O High Commander. Your Infiniteness. Why don't you go make it?"

  "Cuz I'm chillin'," said Scott, leaning back in his chair with a stupid grin on his face.

  Evan knew he was just joking, but this was exactly why he didn't like Scott. He was always thinking of himself. Always looking for some way to come out on top. If they were playing knockout, Scott always came up with a new rule that helped him win. If they were doing an assignment together, Scott always figured out how to divide it so he had less work to do. The kid was a weasel. No two ways about it.

  But everyone else was out of town. Evan didn't want to spend the day alone. And Jessie—Jessie was on his "poop list," as Mom called it when the dog did something he wasn't supposed to do. Evan might never play with Jessie again.

  Evan crossed the street and went into the house. He was surprised to find that there were no more cans of lemonade in the freezer. Wow. There'd been so many this morning. Luckily there was a can of grape juice in the freezer and a bottle of ginger ale in the fridge. It'll work, he thought. People just want a cold drink. They don't care if it's lemonade.

  He mixed up the grape juice at the sink. The fruit flies were more out of control than ever, thanks to the lemonade the boys had dribbled on the countertop. Evan swatted a couple, but most of them drifted out of his reach and settled on the fruit bowl. He wished his mother believed in chemical warfare. But for Mrs. Treski, it was all-natural or nothing. Usually nothing.

  When he went back outside to the lemonade stand, Evan noticed that the last pitcher was turned upside down on the cooler.

  "Aw, c'mon, Scott," he said.

  "What? It was hot! And you said we could always make more."

  "Yeah, well, we didn't have as much in the house as I thought. I've got grape juice and ginger ale."

  "I hate ginger ale," Scott
said. "I wouldn't give you a penny for it."

  It turned out that a lot of people felt the same way. Business was definitely slower. The day got hotter. The sun beat down on them so ferociously that it was easy to imagine the sidewalk cracking open and swallowing them whole.

  Fanning himself, Evan asked, "How much money do you really think we could make?"

  "I dunno," said Scott, pushing his baseball cap down over his eyes.

  "I mean, on a hot day like this," Evan said, silently adding the words or tomorrow. "If we sold eight pitchers of lemonade. Whaddya think we'd each make?"

  "Eight pitchers? I don't know." Scott shook his head. His baseball-capped face wagged back and forth. "Too hot for math. And it's summer."

  Evan pulled the red pen out of his pocket and started to write on the palm of his hand.

  That didn't seem right.

  Jessie would know. She'd do that math in a second.

  Evan capped the pen and jammed it into his pocket. "But I bet it's a lot," said Evan. "I bet on a hot day like this, we could actually make some real money in the lemonade business."

  "Yeah," said Scott. "Then we'd be rich. And I'd get an Xbox. The new one. With the dual controls."

  "I'd get an iPod," said Evan. He'd been saving for one for over a year. But every time he had some money put away, well, it just disappeared. Like the ten dollars from Grandma. She'd even written in her card, "Here's a little something to help you get that music thing you want." But the money was gone. He'd treated Paul and Ryan to slices of pizza at Town House. It had been fun.

  "That would be so great, to listen to music whenever I want," said Evan. I could tune you out, he added in his own head.

  They sat in silence, feeling the heat suck away every bit of their energy. Evan was hatching a plan. The heat wave was supposed to last at least five days. If he and a friend (not Scott) set up a lemonade stand every day for five days, he'd definitely have enough to buy an iPod. He imagined himself wearing it as he walked to school. Wearing it on the playground. Hey, Megan. Yeah, it's my iPod. Sweet, huh? Wearing it in class when the teacher droned on about fractions and percents. Nah. But it would be so cool. At least there would be one thing, one thing, that didn't totally stink about going back to school.