Lost in the Sun

  Doug did a lousy job of screwing the lid back on the saltshaker, and then he slid it across the table back to where it went next to the ketchup. “You ruin all my best pranks,” he pouted at me.

  “You don’t have any best pranks,” I told him. Seriously, Doug was the world’s worst pranker. Aaron was good, and I wasn’t too shabby either, but Doug never managed to pull anything off without botching it somehow. Last week, Aaron had pulled probably his best prank ever, which was covering the toilet bowl with Saran Wrap, so that when Doug went to pee, the stream went everywhere and Doug thought he’d gone crazy. It was pretty funny until Mom had a supreme fit and said that if she was going to live in a house full of animals for the next several years, they were at least going to be hygienic animals, and if we ever pulled another prank again, she was going to string us up by our toenails and leave us for the coyotes. I was pretty sure she’d do it, too. So no more pranks ever, for as long as we lived, that was Mom’s new rule.

  That had pretty much always been Dad’s rule.

  “So,” Dad said and then cleared his throat. Next to me, Aaron “Three, two, one”-ed at me again, and sure enough the next thing out of Dad’s mouth was “What did you all get up to today?”

  I gave Aaron his second fist bump.

  Aaron told Dad and Kari about his day at Swim Beach, where nothing happened at all because lifeguarding was about the most boring job you could have, apparently. Doug told them about riding bikes and playing Monopoly with his two new best-friends-forever. And when Dad remembered he had a third son and asked me about my day, I said, “Nothing.” Because what was I supposed to talk about? How I drew a bunch more pictures of the kid I killed and didn’t play baseball and a girl with a scar thought I owed her one?

  “Do you think our food’s going to come soon?” I asked. “I want to get home in time for the first pitch.”

  “Trent, be civil,” Dad said. “We’re having a nice dinner.”

  “I’m just saying,” I told him. I felt my chest warming up again, not quite fire, but on its way, and I wasn’t sure why. I scooched lower in my seat and crossed my arms in front of me. I could feel my Book of Thoughts pressing against my stomach from the front pocket of my sweatshirt. Why hadn’t I left that idiotic thing at home? “It’s the Diamondbacks tonight, and I want to watch it.”

  “We’ll be done when we’re done,” Dad said. “Just enjoy your dinner, all right? Some kids don’t spend any time with their fathers.”

  “Some kids are lucky,” I muttered.

  Well. The table got quiet then, let me tell you.

  “What did you say to me?” Dad asked. He was all squinty eyes and anger.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Fire, hot fire in my chest.

  “You listen to me, young man,” Dad started. Aaron and Doug were staring down at their place mats. They were smarter than me when it came to Dad, always had been. “I go out of my way, three nights a week, to make sure I have a healthy relationship with you boys, and you could not be more ungrateful. I just want to have a pleasant dinner with my three sons, is that too much to ask?” I did not look up at him. “Trent, just do me a favor and don’t say anything for the next five minutes, you think you can do that?”

  That’s when Claudia brought our food. I might’ve been making things up, but it seemed like she put my burger in front of me extra gently. “There you go, sweetie,” she told me.

  “Your father had a hard day at work today,” Kari decided to say as she dug into her salad.

  Dad rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.

  I picked up my burger and stared at it. “All I said was I wanted to watch the Diamondbacks,” I told him.

  “For the love of—!” Dad shouted, slamming his fork down on his plate. “Trent, just shut up for five minutes, would you?”

  “You don’t tell me to shut up!” I shouted back. The fire was prickly hot now. In my neck, my ears, my everything. “You’re my dad. Dads can’t say shut up.” My heart felt like it was beating in my stomach—pound pound pound—right up against my notebook. Thoughts thumping everywhere.

  “Stop shouting, Trent, you’re causing a scene.”

  “You’re the one causing a scene,” I told Dad. “You stop shouting.”

  Under the table, Aaron was squeezing my leg, trying to calm me down, I guess, but it wasn’t working. It never worked with Dad. Doug was devouring his pancakes, pretending like he was deaf. Kari looked like she wished she could have the baby right then and there and end the whole argument.

  Dad glared at me for a good long time, with his Angry Father face. I was pretty sure he’d invented it just to use on me. Aaron and Doug never got to benefit from it.

  “Well, you’re not going to watch that game tonight, that’s for sure,” he said at last. And he looked like he was real proud of himself for coming up with something so clever.

  I gave him my Angry Son face right back. “Oh, yeah?” I asked him.

  “Trent, quit it,” Aaron hissed at me.

  “Yeah,” Dad said.

  “Interesting,” I said. And just like that I set my burger back down on my plate, not even one bite taken out of it, wiped my fingers clean on my napkin, and slid myself out of the booth.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” Dad asked me.

  I didn’t answer. Kept on walking. Walked right on out of the diner, the bell on the door clanging behind me.

  I heard the bell clang again when the door reopened. I was already on the far end of the parking lot by that time. Took him long enough to get out of his seat. “Trent!” Dad hollered at me. I picked up my pace. “Trent Zimmerman, you get your ass in here this minute!”

  “I’ll be fine!” I shouted over my shoulder. Still walking. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ve got a game to catch!”

  I thought he’d run after me then. Grab me by the shoulder, maybe, make me stop. But he didn’t.

  I’d been walking for a good ten minutes before someone finally caught up to me. I was walking down the highway, clenching and unclenching my fists to try to work some of the fire out of them. Thinking what a moron I was and wishing I had Aaron’s cell phone at least so I could call Mom and make her come pick me up, because it was a long walk to Cedar Haven and no way was I turning around now. My Book of Thoughts thumped against my stomach inside my sweatshirt with every step. Thump thump thump. Those stupid thoughts I couldn’t stop thinking, pelting me the whole way. Thump thump.

  “Trent.” I heard my name before I heard the tires rolling across the pavement behind me. “Trent.”

  It wasn’t my dad.

  “Leave me alone,” I told Aaron as he pulled up beside me and slowed to a near stop. Cars whizzed around him down the road, honking as they passed. “I’m fine.”

  “You gonna walk home, idiot?” Aaron asked me. “It’s twenty-five miles.” Doug was in the passenger’s seat beside him. “Get in the car, Trent.”

  What else was I supposed to do? I got in the car.

  “You’re a real jackass, you know that?” Aaron told me as he checked his mirrors and pulled back onto the road. Then he reached behind his seat and handed me a Styrofoam box. I opened it.

  My hamburger.

  “Thanks,” I said. Aaron said nothing.

  For once, Doug was quiet, too.

  • • •

  The Dodgers lost to the Diamondbacks that night—13 to 2, a real pummeling.

  THREE

  Before I started working weekends at the shop with Mom, I never would’ve imagined that there were so many people awake at 7:15 on Saturday mornings. But the line at OJ’s Doughnut House proved that there were.

  “Morning, Trent,” Calvin, the head baker, greeted me. “What’ll it be today?”

  “Two glazed twists and one blueberry cake doughnut,” I told him.

  Calvin raised an eyebrow. “Two g
lazed?” he asked. I guess Mom and I had been coming here long enough that he was getting used to our regular order.

  “Mom says Ray’s been jealous of us eating doughnuts without him,” I explained. “She wants to surprise him.”

  Calvin smiled. “Large coffee and an orange juice?” he asked me.

  “Thanks.”

  Weekend mornings, I was in charge of grabbing the doughnuts and prepping Mom’s coffee while she waited in the car. She claimed that before she got caffeine in her, she only had enough energy to drive to the doughnut house, nothing else. Anyway, I didn’t mind. I liked prepping the coffee. Mom always said I did it exactly right—half a sugar packet and just enough cream that it splooshed up to the top while you were pouring. Two quick stirs and it was perfect.

  “My favorite child,” Mom gushed as I plopped into the car. (That was what she called any of us kids who handed her a cup of coffee.) She held the cup close to her face and took a giant whiff before bringing it to her lips.

  “You know, Doug and Aaron and I bought you a coffeemaker for Christmas,” I reminded her.

  She took another long sip of coffee. You could practically see it surging through her body, filling her with happiness. “Not nearly as good,” she told me. She took one more sip, then set the cup in the cup holder and shifted the car into reverse.

  “Can we return the coffeemaker to buy video games?” I asked as Mom slowly backed out of the parking spot.

  She laughed. “We’ll talk about it.”

  Ray was surprised about the doughnut. “Oh, wow, thanks,” he said when I handed him the bag. He rubbed the top of his bald head, which was a habit of his. “I love glazed twists.”

  “It was Trent’s idea,” Mom said from the stockroom across the store as she locked her purse in the filing cabinet. “He said it seemed like you were getting jealous.”

  “Well, thanks, buddy,” Ray told me. “I appreciate it.”

  I didn’t know why Mom said that, about the doughnut being my idea. But sometimes moms were weird.

  I’d been working with Mom at Kitch’N’Thingz since last March, and the truth was it wasn’t the worst way to spend a weekend, even if four dollars an hour was definitely not minimum wage (apparently Mom and Ray didn’t care too much about child labor laws). I enjoyed the cash, anyway, and Ray was probably the best boss you could hope for, even if he never did answer my comment in the comment box about correcting the spelling of the store name. Mom had offered Aaron and Doug jobs, too, but Aaron was busy lifeguarding, and Doug always seemed to have better places to be. Girly new friends to ride bikes with and bake cookies with and play Monopoly with. He didn’t have time for practically-slave-labor.

  The only downside to working at Kitch’N’Thingz was that the movie theater was directly across the street, so sometimes Jeremiah Jacobson and his buddies would come into the shop after movies let out and scarf down all the pretzel sticks that Mom and I put out every morning to sample the artisanal jams and mustards. (For the record, if I ever turn into somebody who spends a trillion dollars on a jar of artisanal mustard, I hope someone has the good sense to knee me in the groin and throw me into a ditch.) When Jeremiah and his friends came in, I usually found something that needed restocking, and I usually didn’t find it in the storeroom until I heard Mom tell them, “All right, boys, you know the rule. Two samples per customer,” and they all left.

  That Saturday, the second-to-last day before sixth grade started, was shaping up to be a good one. It was still plenty warm, but there was a breeze, if you were feeling for it. And Mom was in a good mood, too, which was only surprising because I figured Dad would’ve called her to rat me out for my “behavior” at the diner the night before. But either he decided not to or she decided she didn’t care, because she hadn’t said anything about it, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. When the game came on at one o’clock, Ray let us put on the radio that he hid under the counter, since there weren’t too many customers in the shop.

  That was one thing I liked about Ray—he understood about baseball. He was an even bigger fan than Mom, maybe, which was saying something.

  The announcer, Vin Scully (who was about a million years old—Mom said he’d been doing the play-by-play for the Dodgers since before she was born), kept going on and on about how the ump’s strike zone was all over the place. When the ump called a third strike after the Diamondbacks’ pitcher threw a pitch that was practically in the dirt, Mom totally lost her cool.

  “Get your eyes checked, ump!” Mom started screaming at the radio. There were a couple of customers in the store looking at her funny, but most of the regulars were used to her by now.

  I was so engrossed in the game that I didn’t even notice Doug until he popped his head above the counter during a car commercial.

  “My favorite child!” Mom greeted him, since he was holding a cup of coffee. It was a cup he’d poured from the coffeemaker in the stockroom, but it didn’t matter to Mom. “I thought you were hanging out with Annie and Rebecca this afternoon.”

  “Still am,” he said. “Rebecca’s at Lippy’s getting baking supplies with Mrs. Finch, and Annie’s right outside.”

  “Well, tell her to come in,” Mom said. “I’d love to say hi.”

  Of course Mom said that.

  “Annie!” Doug called out the door. He was so loud that an old lady by the potholders actually clutched at her heart. “My mom says to come in here! I bet she’ll give you some jam if you want!”

  I don’t know why I was looking out the door to where Doug was shouting—I definitely had better things to do with myself than find out if Annie Richards was going to come inside to sample jam—but anyway, I was. So I saw it.

  Annie Richards poked her head inside the door, her bike helmet smushing her dark brown bangs down over her eyes. And I swear I didn’t make it up, but when she saw me—looked right at me, then darted her gaze away quick—she scowled an angry scowl and stomped over to the far end of the sidewalk.

  Inside my chest, I felt a sharp, sudden prickling of heat, but I squashed it down.

  “Guess she doesn’t want any jam,” Doug told our mother. “Anyway, I just came over because I had a question for Trent.”

  Mom took a sip of coffee, and then noticed Doug raising his eyebrows.

  “It’s a secret question,” he told her.

  “Ah.” She stepped out from behind the counter. “Well, then, I think I see some place mats that need refolding.” She nodded toward the radio. “Trent, give me the play-by-play if I miss anything, will you?”

  Ray looked from Doug to Mom to me. “I, uh, have a strange urge to Windex the counters. I’ll be back if there are any customers.”

  “Sure,” I told him. I turned to Doug, then clacked buttons on the register like I was doing something important, even though I knew I’d have a ton of voids to do later. “So,” I said. I did not look out the door, where I was pretty sure Annie Richards was still scowling. “What’s this big prank of yours?” I knew it was a prank Doug wanted to talk about, because if he was bribing Mom with coffee, it wasn’t the world’s biggest secret. “And be quick. The commercial’s almost over.”

  Doug leaned across the counter to talk to me, and lowered his voice like he thought we were partners in some big bank heist. “It’s only going to be the best prank in the entire world,” he told me. “Look.” And he plopped a paper grocery bag on top of the counter.

  I peeked inside. The bag was filled with travel alarm clocks. At least a dozen.

  “So it has to do with alarm clocks,” I guessed.

  “Yep,” he said. “This is going to be way better than the saltshakers. I still have to get Aaron back for the toilet thing. You want to help?”

  I thought about it while the announcer on the radio talked about switching brands of coolant. “What’s the plan?” I asked. I maybe snuck a glance out the door then. Sure enough, Annie
Richards was still out there with her arms crossed over her chest. She was glaring at Doug now instead of at me, only a whole lot of good that was doing her, because Doug had no idea he was being glared at. (Doug hardly ever had any idea about anything.)

  “Okay,” Doug said, bouncing from foot to foot as he spoke. Doug always bounced when he was really excited about something. “We’re going to set the alarm clocks to go off at all different times.” Bounce on the left foot, bounce on the right. “Like, two in the morning, three in the morning, all different times.” Bounce, bounce, bounce. “Then we’re going to hide them in Aaron’s room while he’s sleeping, so that he keeps waking up all night and going, ‘Gah!’ It’ll drive him crazy.”

  I thought it over. It wasn’t a bad prank, really. But Doug’s problem was that sometimes he got so excited, he forgot to think through all the details. “Don’t you think we should hide the clocks before Aaron goes to sleep?” I asked. “If you do it after he’s already in bed, he might wake up, and then he’d be on to you.”

  Doug’s bouncing slowed a little. “That’s pretty smart,” he said. “Plus, then Annie can come over and help. She said she’d do a prank with me soon.”

  She was still out there, I could see her. She’d pulled her bike off the bike rack and was hacking away at the kickstand like that was the thing she hated.

  “I don’t want to help,” I told Doug, and I went back to clanging at the register. Ignoring the prickling in my chest. Completely ignoring it. “It’s your prank. Do it yourself.”

  “But . . .” Doug was clearly disappointed. I hated when Doug was disappointed. His lip stuck out like a little baby’s.

  “You gotta go now,” I told him. “The game’s coming back on. Sorry.”

  I didn’t watch as Doug grabbed his grocery bag full of alarm clocks and slunk out of the shop, back to his best friend in the whole world, but I’d bet that his lip was sticking out the whole time.

  Big baby. We weren’t supposed to be pulling pranks anymore, anyway. The fire in my chest slowly settled back to a warm simmering, and I went back to listening to the game.