Читать книгу Summer After Summer - Ann DeFee, Ann Defee - Страница 10

Our gang managed to dodge the bullet—sort of.

Daddy kept giving me the “look.” I knew he knew what we’d been up to; fortunately he couldn’t prove it.

Too bad! This was my last opportunity to be a carefree kid and I intended to take advantage of every minute. Yeah, I realized we were being childish, but our tiny bit of hell-raising was our version of asserting our independence.

Summer in Meadow Lake had always had a magical quality—it was sun and fun at its best. And July was truly our summer, a time and place that could never be replicated.

It’d been almost two weeks since our skinny-dipping escapade. I cringed at the thought of what would’ve happened if the patrolman had caught us butt naked. Darn it, I was not about to let Bunny talk me into another debacle. And if I believed that, I was delusional. She was charismatic, mischievous and irresistible to mere mortals.

That’s how she managed to snag me for our next escapade. I protested, a little, but it was to no avail. We were heading off to toilet-paper Mr. Hargrove’s house, and that antic was guaranteed to land us in a pile of trouble. Not only was he our high-school principal, he was also one of the grumpiest guys in town.

“I certainly hope you bought that stuff at different stores,” I whispered as I jumped into Bunny’s car. The backseat was filled with rolls of toilet paper.

“Even better, I raided the janitor’s closet at Daddy’s factory. They’ll never be able to trace it to us,” she assured me as we rolled quietly down the road. Our covert mission required maximum darkness—read the middle of the night—so we all had to sneak out. I felt like a cat burglar in reverse as I crept out of my house and met Bunny down the road.

I was afraid Mary Alice would chicken out, but there she was, standing on the corner with Misty.

“Good grief,” Misty exclaimed, batting the toilet paper out of the way. “Where did you get this junk?”

“I liberated it.”

“You stole it,” Mary Alice squeaked.

“No, you ninny. I’ll eventually inherit Daddy’s business, so in essence I own everything in that building. Toilet paper and all.”

Even I realized that was a bit of a stretch. But who was I to criticize? I was in the process of giving Daddy gray hair. Thank goodness Bucky was working as a camp counselor. Brother dearest was the biggest tattletale in the world, and Daddy really didn’t need to hear about this stunt.

We cruised past the Hargroves’ house several times before we came up with a definitive game plan. We didn’t have a ladder—which was probably just as well—so we’d have to make do with papering the bushes.

Total silence was a necessity for successfully completing our mission, and pulling that off would require a miracle. When Mary Alice got in a bind she turned into a giggle box. That wasn’t good when you were committing a misdemeanor. Misdemeanor or felony, it wouldn’t make a whit of difference to Daddy—breaking the law was breaking the law.

The alley was dark, the town was silent, and other than the odd insomniac and the night clerk at the 7-Eleven, we were the only people up and out. Mary Alice gave another maniacal giggle, managing to wake a dog in the process.

“Stop that,” Bunny hissed as she crept into our potential victim’s yard. “I have an idea. We can do this tree.” She indicated a small mimosa. “Jazzy, since you’re so tall, Misty can get on your shoulders and she can throw the toilet paper at least halfway up the tree.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “What’s this ‘we,’ kemo sabe? Looks to me like Misty and I will be doing all the work.”

Bunny waved her hand in the air. Sometimes that girl really annoyed me.

“Come on, let’s do it.” Misty dragged me through the hedge and headed straight to our target—a poor, innocent tree.

“Kneel down and I’ll get on. Then you can stand up,” she instructed me.

“Sure, I bench-press a hundred and ten pounds all the time!”

“Come on, don’t be a spoilsport,” Bunny said. “I’m too short to do this and so is Mary Alice. We have to finish up and get out of here.” She had a roll of toilet paper in each hand.

It was nice of her to remind me I was the only Amazon in a bevy of petites. Uh-huh!

I got down on my knees and allowed Misty to straddle my shoulders. The tricky part would be getting up.

“Hey, you guys, give me a hand,” I hissed to my coconspirators.

We were making more noise than a Ringling Brothers circus. I was positive someone had already called the cops, so when Misty fell off my shoulders and we landed in a heap of arms and legs, I knew we were busted. It didn’t come as a surprise when the front porch light went on.

“Beat feet,” Bunny yelled, dropping the incriminating paper.

Running sounded like one of the best ideas I’d ever heard; too bad Misty was sprawled across me.

“Get up,” I demanded. Then I pushed her off and scrambled toward the hedge. Yay for adrenaline and the flight response! I was well hidden in the leafy foliage before my compatriots made it halfway to safety.

By the time we tumbled into Bunny’s car, every dog in the neighborhood was barking. The Bennett family must’ve had some larcenous genes lurking in the background. The way she pulled her car out of the alley, sans lights, was pure genius.

“I about busted a gut.” Mary Alice lapsed into a fit of giggles. “I can’t believe we did that.”

Neither could I. Had I totally taken leave of my senses? Oh right, this was the goody-two-shoes club’s summer of mischief—innocent, of course. And if I could talk Daddy into buying that one, I was shoo-in for an Academy Award.

“Where are we going?” Misty asked. She’d obviously recovered her sense of speech. From the moment I pushed her away, until we were well out of the danger zone, moaning had been her only form of communication.

“We’re going to the truck stop,” Bunny answered, whizzing down Main Street.

The only place in town that was open twenty-four hours a day was the truck-stop restaurant on the interstate.

“I’m hungry for some pecan waffles,” the princess of our misadventure informed us before she launched into a boisterous sing-along with Carole King.

“Running from the law makes you hungry, huh?” I asked. My pesky sarcasm reared its ugly head again. I was beginning to doubt our friendship, and that made me sad.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, gracing me with the dimples that had turned boys all over the county into slobbering idiots.

Bunny was drowning her waffles with syrup. “Are you over your snit?” Her question was directed at me.

“Beg your pardon?” I asked, emphasizing the question with my famous arched eyebrow. Bucky taught me that trick, and I had to admit it made an effective statement.

“So, how does Charlie feel about you going back East to school?” Although Mary Alice, the inveterate peacemaker, was attempting to head off a spat, her choice of questions left a lot to be desired.

“Charlie has nothing to do with where I go to school. I haven’t discussed it with him. And it’s really none of his business.” Bunny punctuated her assertion with a hair flip.

Sometimes that girl was a real bitch. As I watched her, I tried to remember why we were friends. To be totally honest, it was one of those situations where you intellectually acknowledge a person’s faults, but for some reason you choose to ignore her shortcomings.

But when it came to her cavalier attitude toward Charlie, she pushed all my buttons. In all probability it was a good thing we were about to scatter to the four winds.

College would be a new beginning for all of us, and I wasn’t sure our friendships would survive.