Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Negotiation (negotiation) n. A method of bargaining so that you can reach an agreement. Evan looked up from the marble track he was building when Jessie walked in the front door. She looked hot. She looked sweaty. She looked... happy. Really happy. Like she'd just gotten an A+. Or like... like she'd just won a war. "What are you smiling for?" asked Evan, holding a marble at the top of the track. "No reason." Jessie put her hands on her hips and stared at Evan. She looked like one of those goofy yellow smiley faces—all mouth. "Well, quit looking at me, would ya? It's

creepifying. You look like you're going to explode or something." Evan dropped the marble into the funnel. It raced through the track, picking up speed around the curves. It passed the flywheel, sending the flags spinning, then fell into the final drop. When it reached the end of the track it went sailing through the air like a beautiful silver bird. And fell short. The marble landed on the ground, instead of in the bull's-eye cup. Evan muttered under his breath and adjusted the position of the cup. "Raise the end of the track," said Jessie. "You'll get more loft." Evan looked at her angrily. The marble had fallen into the cup the last ten times he'd done it. Why did it have to fall short the one time she was watching? "Don't tell me what to do," he said. Why was she smiling like that? "I didn't tell you what to do," she said. "I just made a suggestion. Take it or leave it." She turned to

walk up the stairs. "Grumpminster Fink," she tossed over her shoulder. Evan threw a marble at her disappearing back but missed by a mile. Well, he hadn't really been aiming anyway; he just wanted that feeling of throwing something. He'd been feeling the need to throw something these past four days. Grumpminster Fink. That was the name of a character he'd made up when he was six and Jessie was five. That was back when Mom and Dad were fighting a lot and Evan and Jessie just had to get out of the house. They'd scramble up the Climbing Tree —Evan had his branch, Jessie had hers—and wait it out. Sometimes they had to wait a long time. And once, when Jessie was thirsty and impatient and cranky, Evan had said, "Be quiet and I'll tell you a story about Grumpminster Fink." Grumpminster Fink was a man who was cranky and mean and made everybody miserable. But deep down, he wanted people to love him. It's just that every time he tried to do something nice, it turned

out all wrong. Evan had made up a lot of stories about Mr. Fink in that tree. But after Dad left, there just weren't any more stories to tell. No one in the whole world, besides Jessie and Evan, knew about Grumpminster Fink. And Evan hadn't thought about him in years. "Hey!" he said sharply. He heard Jessie stop at the top of the stairs, but she didn't come down. "Do you want to call this whole thing off?" he asked. "What?" she shouted. "This... this... Lemonade War," he said. "Call it off?" "Yeah," he said. "Just say nobody wins and nobody loses." Jessie walked down the stairs and stood with her arms crossed. Evan looked at her. He missed her. He had spent the whole day—the third to last day before school started—by himself. It stunk. It totally

stunk. If Jessie had been around—and they hadn't been fighting with each other—they could have played air hockey or made pretzels or built a marble track with twice as many gizmos that launched the marble into the bull's-eye cup every time. Jessie was very precise. She was good at getting the marble to go into the cup. "Whaddya say?" he asked. Jessie looked puzzled. "I don't know..." she said, frowning. "You see, Megan kinda, well, she..." Evan felt his face go hot. Megan Moriarty. Every time he thought of her his throat got all squeezed and scratchy. It was like the allergic reaction he had if he accidentally ate a shrimp. "You told Megan Moriarty about—everything?" he asked, feeling itchy all over. "No. Well... what 'everything'?" asked Jessie. Evan thought she looked like a fish caught in a net. "You did." And suddenly Evan knew exactly why Jessie had been smiling when she walked in the door. And why she didn't want to call off the war.

She had done it. Again. She had figured out some way to show the world just how stupid he was. Like the time he'd come home with 100 percent on his weekly spelling quiz—the only time he'd ever gotten every word right—to find that Jessie had won a statewide poetry-writing contest. He'd thrown his paper into the trash without even telling his mom. What was the point? Evan didn't know how, but somehow Jessie'd found a way to earn more than one hundred and three dollars. She was going to beat him. And Megan Moriarty knew all about it. And she would tell everyone else. All the girls would know. Paul would know. And Ryan. And Adam and Jack. Scott Spencer would know. Can you believe it? He lost to his little sister. The one who's going to be in our class. What a loser! "You know what?" he said, pushing past her. "Forget it! Just forget I said anything. The war is on. O-N. Prepare to die."