It didn’t really matter where it came from—cash is cash. Mo snatched the bill out of Mem’s hand and said, “We’ll get you change, buddy…unless you wanna buy us another pizza first, that is.”
“No way,” I snapped. “Don’t anybody ask Mem for money, except me. Got it?”
Mo shrugged, “Only kidding.” He scrambled to the counter and paid Niko, then we all hit the sidewalk together.
“See you later,” I told Reed and Mo, who were heading in the opposite direction. “Call me for—” and then to make sure Mem wouldn’t invite himself along, I stood behind him and mimed swimming. Mem turned around in time to catch the last bit of my aerial backstroke, but he didn’t get it—at least, I don’t think he did. At any rate, he didn’t say anything, and that was a relief.
It was a long walk home without any shoes, without any friends, without anything to fill the rest of my shift with Mem. Luckily, Mem closeted himself in his room when we got back, so I set up my GameCube and played a few rounds of StarBender. My mom called at one point just to check in; I did the good-doobie thing and told her, “Everything’s fine. We’re having a pretty all right time.”
“Really, Johnny?” she said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good. Because I can tell I’m going to love this project, but I can only do it if I know you’re happy.”
“Happy as a clam, Mom.” Not.
“I’ll call again in a couple of days then. Hi to Collette.”
“Got it.”
“And don’t forget to floss.”
“Goodbye, Mom.”
Aunt Collette got home a little late, her ruby lipstick gone and her eyes striped with those little veins that pop out when you’re tired. Mem gave her a celebrity’s welcome and begged her to play Trouble, which he’d already set up in his room. As for me, I hotfooted it to the lake to meet Mo and Reed, and I didn’t feel guilty at all for not taking Mem with me.
Well, hardly at all.
Chapter 3
The next day I got to stay in bed a little later since Aunt Collette didn’t have to be at work until eleven. Mem had been watching The Weather Channel all morning, but when I came downstairs he leaped up and was all over me. “Let’s go swimming, Johnny! C’mon, let’s go swimming at the lake.”
“What—do you even know how?” I asked groggily.
“Do you even know how?” And then I realized he was already wearing his trunks.
Okay, I thought, this might not be the worst way to spend the day. I guess I was still half asleep, or I wouldn’t have had such a crazy thought. “You sure you can swim?”
“Yup. I learned at school.”
“They have a pool at your school?”
“Yup.” He took a pair of swim goggles out of his shirt pocket and pulled them over his head. “But I wanna swim in the lake.”
So it was settled. I stumbled into my trunks and stuffed some towels and Twinkies into my backpack before I was even fully awake. My flip flops were nowhere to be found, though—until I looked at Mem’s feet. “You really don’t have any other shoes?” I asked.
“Nope. Do you?”
I threw on my sneakers, which still felt like homework and smelled like the cafeteria, and told Mem to get a move on. All I wanted was to hit the beach and get barefoot again. Then maybe I could relax for a while.
No such luck. As we started down the front steps, something caught my eye. The mailbox. It was different somehow. I squinted against the morning glare. Something was definitely off, but what? I ran down the driveway. Now I saw. The letters didn’t say T E DIPP anymore. They said DOPE. Someone had removed the T, put the E where the second P had been, and gone to all the trouble of buying an O to replace the I.
Dirk the Jerk. I was sure of it. I could just see him, that mop-topped, freckle-frosted freak, prowling around Aunt Collette’s yard when no one was looking. DOPE. Did he really think that being captain of the basketball team entitled him to pull a stunt like this? “C’mon, Mem,” I charged into the street. “We’re taking a little detour.”
“Why?”
“We need to go to the hardware store.”
“Why?”
I scoped Dirk’s mailbox and the gold-and-black lettering that read A. DEMPSTER. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.”
Mem’s face was getting red and twisted, so I knew an outburst was on its way. Sure enough, he planted his skinny little body in front of me and screeched, “But we’re going swimming at the lake! Johnny, I wanna go swimming. At the lake. I know how. I learned at school. We have a pool there. You prrrrromisssssed!”
Great, a temper tantrum right out here for the world to see. Maybe even for Dirk the Jerk to see. Mem was acting two and I felt 99. “Okay Mem, fine, you’re right,” I said. “I told you we could go to the lake, and we will. It’s just that we can stay there longer if I get this errand out of the way first. You want to stay at the lake as long as possible, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?” he said, his voice softer now. “Don’t you?” He started walking with me—not very fast, but at least in the right direction. “Don’t you?”
Champlain Hardware is right next door to Niko’s. I hadn’t been there in ages, but when Mem and I stepped inside, it smelled familiar, like the paints and varnishes my dad used to keep in the garage, back in the good old days. Mr. Wizzly, the owner, greeted us from behind the counter. I asked him where he kept the letter decals.
“Next to the No Trespassing and For Sale By Owner signs,” he said, pointing to the back of the store.
Good, I could work in private there. So while Mem picked out the letters of his name, I racked my brains. Dempster, Dempster, what could I do with Dempster? It needed to be something really maddening—no, infuriating—but what? Then finally I had it. I took a U and a B—black on gold—and made Mem put his stack of letters away while I paid. I asked Mr. Wizzly for my three dollars change in quarters.
“Ub?” said Mem on the way out. “Or is it bu?”
“Neither.” I put the decals in my backpack. “I’ll tell you later. Maybe.”
“Okay. Want some Juicy Fruit?”
“No. Hey, let’s say hi to your mom while we’re here.” The 7-11 was right around the corner, and I figured it would fill up some of the blank time that was stretching out in front of us like a school day.
“Yeah!” he shouted and started off faster than I’d seen him go in two days. He got there first. By the time I arrived, Aunt Collette was already pouring him a slushie the color of her lipstick.
“Howdy,
