The Lemonade War Read online

  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.

  Jessie was left standing alone in the driveway.

  Chapter 7

  Location, Location, Location

  location () n. Real estate term that refers to the position of a piece of real estate as it relates to the value of that real estate.

  Evan was in trouble. So far, he'd earned forty-seven dollars and eleven cents, which was more money than he'd ever had in his whole life. But today was Friday. There were only three days left. Three days to beat Jessie. He needed to earn almost fifty-three dollars to win the bet. And that meant each day he had to earn—

  Evan tried to do the math in his head. Fifty three divided by three. Fifty-three divided by three. His brain spun like a top. He didn't know where to begin.

  He went to his desk, pulled out a piece of paper—his basketball schedule from last winter—and flipped it over to the back. He found the stub of a pencil in his bottom desk drawer, and on the paper he wrote

  He stared and stared at the equation on the page. The number fifty-three was just too big. He didn't know how to do it.

  "Jessie would know how," he muttered, scribbling hard on the page. Jessie could do long division. Jessie had her multiplication facts memorized all the way up to fourteen times fourteen. Jessie would look at a problem like this and just do it in her head. Snap.

  Evan felt his mouth getting tight, his fingers gripping the pencil too hard, as he scribbled a dark storm cloud on the page. His math papers from school were always covered in X's. Nobody else got as many X's as he did. Nobody.

  Draw a picture. Mrs. DeFazio's voice floated in his head. She had always reminded him to draw a picture when he couldn't figure out how to start a math problem. A picture of what? he asked in his head. Anything, came the answer.

  Anything? Yes, anything, as long as there are fifty-three of them.

  Dollar signs. Evan decided to draw dollar signs.

  He started to draw three rows of dollar signs.

  "One, two, three," he counted, as he drew:

  "Four, five, six." He drew:

  By the time he reached fifty-three, his page looked like this:

  There were seventeen dollar signs in each row. And then those two extra dollar signs left over. Evan drew a ring around those two extras.

  Seventeen dollar signs. And two left over. Evan stared at the picture for a long time. He wrote "Friday" next to the fi
rst row, "Saturday" next to the second row, and "Sunday" next to the third row.

  Evan looked at the picture. It started to make sense. He needed to make seventeen dollars on Friday, seventeen dollars on Saturday, and seventeen dollars on Sunday. And somewhere over the three days, he needed to make two extra bucks in order to earn fifty-three dollars by Sunday evening.

  Evan felt his heart jump in his chest. He had done it. He had figured out fifty-three divided by three. That was a fourth-grade problem. That was fourth-grade math. And he hadn't even started fourth grade! And no one had helped him. Not Mom, not Grandma, not Jessie. He'd done it all by himself. It was like shooting the winning basket in double overtime! He hadn't felt this good since the Lemonade War had begun.

  But seventeen dollars a day? How was he going to do that? Yesterday he'd made forty-five dollars, but that was because he'd had help (and free supplies) from his friends. They weren't going to want to run a lemonade stand every day. Especially on the last days of summer vacation.

  He needed a plan. Something that would guarantee good sales. The weather was holding out, that was for sure. It was going to hit 95 degrees today. A real scorcher. People would be thirsty, all right. Evan closed his eyes and imagined a crowd of thirsty people, all waving dollar bills at him. Now where was he going to find a lot of thirsty people with money to spend?

  An idea popped into Evan's head. Yep! It was perfect. He just needed to find something with wheels to get him there.

  It took Evan half an hour to drag his loaded wagon to the town center—a distance he usually traveled in less than five minutes by bike. But once he was there, he knew it was worth it.

  It was lunchtime and the shaded benches on the town green were filled with people sprawling in the heat. Workers from the nearby stores on their half-hour lunch breaks, moms out with their kids, old people who didn't want to be cooped up in their houses all day. High school kids on skateboards slooshed by. Preschoolers climbed on the life-size sculpture of a circle of children playing ring-around-the-rosey. Dogs lay under trees, their tongues hanging out, pant, pant, pant.

  Evan surveyed the scene and picked his spot, right in the center of the green where all the paths met. Anyone walking across the green would have to pass his stand. And who could resist lemonade on a day as hot as this?

  But first he wheeled his wagon off to the side, parking it halfway under a huge rhododendron. Then he crossed the street and walked into the Big Dipper.

  The frozen air felt good on his skin. It was like getting dunked in a vat of just-melted ice cream. And the smells—mmmmmm. A mix of vanilla, chocolate, coconut, caramel, and bubblegum. He looked at the tubs of ice cream, all in a row, carefully protected behind a pane of glass. The money in his pocket tingled. He had plenty left over after buying five cans of frozen lemonade mix with his earnings from yesterday. What would it hurt to buy just one cone? Or a milk shake? Or maybe both?

  "Can I help you?" asked the woman behind the counter.

  "Uh, yeah," said Evan. He stuck his hand in his pocket and felt all the money. Bills and coins ruffled between his fingers. Money was meant to be spent. Why not spend a little?

  "I, uh..." Evan could just imagine how good the ice cream would feel sliding down his hot throat. Creamy. Sweet. Like cold, golden deliciousness. He let his mind float as he gazed at the swirly buckets of ice cream.

  The sound of laughter brought him back to earth in a hurry. He looked around. It was just some girls he didn't know at the water fountain. But it had sounded like Megan Moriarty.

  "Can you please tell me how much a glass of lemonade costs?"

  "Three dollars," said the woman.

  "Really?" said Evan. "That much? How big's the cup?"

  The woman pulled a plastic cup off a stack and held it up. It wasn't much bigger than the eight-ounce cups Evan had in his wagon.

  "Wow. Three bucks. That's a lot," said Evan. "Well, thanks anyway." He started to walk to the door.

  "Hey," said the woman, pointing to the ice cream case. "I'm allowed to give you a taste for free."

  "Really?" said Evan. "Then, uh, could I taste the Strawberry Slam?" The woman handed him a tiny plastic spoon with three licks' worth of pink ice cream on it. Evan swallowed it all in one gulp. Aahhh.

  Back outside, he got to work. First he filled his pitchers with water from the drinking fountain. Then he stirred in the mix. Then he pulled out a big blue marker and wrote on a piece of paper, "$2 per cup. Best price in town."

  He'd barely finished setting up when the customers started lining up. And they didn't stop. For a full hour, he poured lemonade. The world is a thirsty place, he thought as he nearly emptied his fourth pitcher of the day. And I am the Lemonade King.

  (Later, Evan would think of something his grandma said: "Pride goeth before a fall.")

  When Evan looked up, there was Officer Ken, his hands on his hips, looking down on him. Evan gulped. He stared at the large holstered gun strapped to Officer Ken's belt.

  "Hello," said Officer Ken, not smiling.

  "Hi," said Evan. Officer Ken did the Bike Rodeo every year at Evan's school. He was also the cop who had shown up last fall when there was a hurt goose on the recess field. Officer Ken was always smiling. Why isn't he smiling now? Evan wondered.

  "Do you have a permit?" asked Officer Ken. He had a very deep voice, even when he talked quietly, like he did now.

  "You mean, like, a bike permit?" That's what the Rodeo was all about. If they passed the Rodeo, the third-graders got their bike permits, which meant they were allowed to ride to school.

  "No. I mean a permit to sell food and beverages in a public space. You need to get a permit from the town hall. And pay a fee for the privilege."

  Pay the town hall to run a lemonade stand? Was he kidding? Evan looked at Officer Ken's face. He didn't look like he was kidding.

  "I didn't know I needed one," said Evan.

  "Sorry, friend," said Officer Ken. "I'm going to have to shut you down. It's the law."

  "But ... but ... there are lemonade stands all over town," said Evan. He thought of Jessie and Megan's lemonade stand. When he'd wheeled by with his wagon more than an hour ago, their stand had looked like a beehive, with small kids crowding around. He had read the sign over their stand: FREE face-painting! Nail-polishing! Hair-braiding! What a gimmick! But it sure looked like it was working. "You know," said Evan, "there's a stand on Damon Road right now. You should go bust them."

  Officer Ken smiled. "We tend to look the other way when it's in a residential neighborhood. But right here, on the town green, we have to enforce the law. Otherwise we'd have someone selling something every two feet."

  "But—" There had to be some way to convince Officer Ken. How could Evan make him understand? "You see, I've got this little sister. And we've got a ... a ... competition going. To see who can sell the most lemonade. And I've got to win. Because she's..." He couldn't explain the rest. About fourth grade. And how embarrassed he was to be in the same class as his kid sister. And how it made him feel like a great big loser.

  Evan looked up at Officer Ken. Officer Ken looked down at Evan. It was like Officer Ken was wearing a mask. A no-smiling, I'm-not-your-buddy mask.

  Then Officer Ken shook his head and smiled and the mask fell off. "I've got a little sister, too," he said. "Love her to death, now, but when we were kids—" Officer Ken sucked in his breath and shook his head again. "Hooo!"

  Then the mask came back, and Officer Ken looked right at Evan for ten very stern seconds.

  "Tell you what," said Officer Ken. "I do have to shut you down. The law's the law. But before I do, I'll buy one last glass of lemonade. How's that sound?"

  Evan's face fell. "Sure," he said without enthusiasm. He poured an extra-tall cup and gave it to the policeman.

  Officer Ken reached into his pocket and handed Evan a five-dollar bill. "Keep the change," he said. "A contribution to the Big Brother Fund. Now clean up your things and don't leave any litter behind." He lifted his cup in a toast
as he walked away.

  Evan watched him go. Wow, he thought. I just sold the most expensive cup of lemonade in town.

  Evan stared at the five-dollar bill in his hand.

  It was funny. Two days ago, he would have felt as rich as a king to have that money in his hands. It was enough to buy two slices of pizza and a soda with his friends. It was enough to rent a video and have a late night at someone's house. It was enough to buy a whole bagful of his favorite candy mix at CVS.

  Two days ago, he would have been jumping for joy.

  Now he looked at the five dollars and thought, It's nothing. Compared to the one hundred dollars he needed to win the war, five dollars was nothing. He felt somehow that he'd been robbed of some-thing—maybe the happiness he should have been feeling.

  He loaded everything from his stand into the wagon, making sure he didn't leave a scrap of litter behind. He still had a glassful of lemonade left in one pitcher, not to mention another whole pitcher already mixed up and unsold, so he poured himself a full cup. Then, before beginning the long, hot haul back to his house, he found an empty spot on a shaded bench and pulled his earnings out of his pockets.

  He counted once. He counted twice. Very slowly.

  He had made sixty-five dollars. The cups and lemonade mix had cost nine dollars. When he added in his earnings from Wednesday and Thursday, he had one hundred and three dollars and eleven cents.

  Now that's enough, he thought.

  Chapter 8

  Going Global

  global () adj. Throughout the world; refers to expanding one's market beyond the immediate area of production.

  On Saturday morning, Jessie slept in. And even when she opened her eyes—at 9:05!—she still felt tired. How can I wake up tired? she wondered as she buried her face in her pillow and dozed off.