Sunday school and morning and evening services came and went, and miraculously, Amy-Liz was still completely in the dark about our secret project. Andie and I were giddy with excitement early Monday morning as we anticipated the many deliveries we planned to make.
“It’s so cool, this whole thing,” Andie said to me as we sipped orange juice on my front-porch swing. “I’m glad you thought of this project.”
“What a job, though,” I said, reaching for a cream-filled dough-nut. “I hope I never see another snickerdoodle for as long as I live.”
She laughed. “Ditto for polvorones.”
We sat around relaxing as we waited for Stan to get back from downtown. Between the two of us, it seemed we could rope him into just about anything these days.
Andie and I laughed about it.
“We’ve got Stan wrapped around both our little fingers,” I said, holding my hand up.
She glanced at her watch. “Hey, where is he?”
“Give him time,” I said. “Mom said he had to run an errand for Uncle Jack first thing today.”
“Is he wearing a watch?” Andie asked.
“He usually does.”
“Yeah,” Andie said softly. “So what’s keeping him?”
I shrugged my shoulders and tightened the purple hairband holding my braid. “He’ll be here sooner or later; you’ll see.”
But at nine-thirty, Stan still hadn’t shown up.
“What’ll we do?” Andie moaned. “If we don’t get started soon, we’ll never get done.” She studied her list of names and addresses. “It’ll take us forever.”
I hadn’t counted on Stan being this late. Surely he hadn’t gone off fishing or something else with his buddies. I got off the porch swing and went inside.
“Mom!”
When she didn’t answer, I went downstairs and checked the laundry room.
The house was quiet. Too quiet.
Quickly, I ran upstairs. She wasn’t in her room. Not in any of the kids’ rooms, either. I opened the door to Carrie and Stephie’s bedroom. Both of them were sound asleep.
“That’s strange,” I said, closing their door. “Mom’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
Determined to locate her, I went back downstairs, through the kitchen, and out to the new addition. Phil and Mark were also sleeping when I tiptoed into their room.
Stan’s room, however, was alive with sound. I dashed into his bedroom, through the maze of car mechanics magazines and a pile of underwear, and turned off his radio. Then I glanced around, looking for clues as to his whereabouts.
I knew he’d be furious if he found out I had rummaged through the junk on his dresser. But when I saw the note with Jared Wilkins’ phone number and the words video arcade—tomorrow, I leaped for joy. Of course Stan was probably down at the old arcade. He probably just assumed that there’d be plenty of time to hang out with Jared—play a few games—before helping me and Andie.
But his irresponsibility had put us behind by a whole hour. How rude.
Guys!
NO GUYS PACT
Chapter 6
When I told Andie the news, her face scrunched up. “We’ll just call the arcade and roust him outta there.”
I could see it now, the place crammed to the seams with kids exhibiting that glazed-over look in their eyes, while the phone rang and rang off the hook. If there even was one.
Andie stood up, empty doughnut plate in hand, and headed for the kitchen. “So where’s your phone book?”
“Where is my mom is a better question.” I told her how I’d searched the house and found nothing but sleeping children every where.
“Maybe she went for a walk.”
“Maybe.”
Andie put her plate in the sink while I dragged the phone book out from the drawer. “I’ll look up the number for the arcade,” Andie offered.
I handed it to her. “Be my guest.”
“Hmm, let’s see…” She flipped through the book, found her place, and slid her finger down the page. “This oughta be it.”
I pressed the numbers while she called them out. And just as I had anticipated, the phone rang and rang. And rang.
No one even bothered to set foot outside their individual game worlds. Reality-based worlds such as telephones and girls waiting for promises to be kept were lost in the mind-numbing maze of sight and sound and the challenge of defeating monsters. What could be more important?
“Okay, now what?” Andie closed the phone book and placed it on the countertop.
“Don’t ask me. This is so typical,” I muttered. “You just can’t count on males.”
Andie ran her fingers through her dark, wavy locks. “Okay, calm down.” She was thinking it through. “What if we hop the bus and head downtown?”
I sighed. “That’ll take too much time. We’ve got to think of another way.”
She pulled out a barstool and sat down, leaning her elbows on the bar. “So, what’s your plan?” She stared at me.
I’d thought of a Plan B, all right, but I knew Andie wouldn’t be thrilled about it. Standing up, I took a deep breath. “We could make our own deliveries.”
“Like how?”
“With a little help from Carrie and Stephie.”
She tugged on the sleeve of her T-shirt. “You’re joking, right?”
“Ever hear of wagons?”
She pretended to fall off the barstool. “Wagons? Are you crazy, Meredith? Do you know how long it’s gonna take to pull loaded wagons around to all those houses?”
“Do you have a better idea?” I said.
“Hey, wait a minute. Whatever happened to Billy and Danny helping us? Weren’t they supposed to show up today?”
“You’re right.” I drank the rest of my juice. “Paula called Billy from the church on Saturday, remember?”
She nodded. “Maybe Stan was supposed to remind them.”
“Guys have a way of forgetting.” It was true. Right now—when they were supposed to be over here assisting us with our noble mission—Stan, Billy, and maybe even Danny were probably shooting the breeze somewhere. Or hanging out at that ridiculous arcade with Jared.
Finally, after another glass of cold orange juice, Andie gave in. “If this is the best we can do, let’s go for it.” She mumbled something pretty nasty about Stan—and boys in general—before helping me get two red wagons down off their hooks in the garage. We loaded them carefully with stacked boxes of cookies.
I was actually amazed. We looked like we knew what we were doing as we wheeled our goods down the driveway and onto the bricked sidewalks of Downhill Court. Andie continually checked our lists as we made one delivery after another. One customer wasn’t home, so we placed the order carefully inside the screen door. The main door behind it bumped open, revealing a snoring man on the living room floor!
Later we encountered a bulldog running loose in the neighborhood and freaked out for a while. Andie suggested we feed him a box of cookies to wipe the fierce look off his forbidding face. I said we couldn’t spare any and suggested we ignore him. And we did…for three whole blocks!
Our problem was finally solved when we spotted my mom chatting with a neighbor down the street. She had been walking and said she’d lost track of time. Like someone else we knew!
“Will you take this dog home for us?” I whined, dumping my woes on her—about Stan not showing up, and the heat, and this miserable beast following us around.
She called to the ferocious fellow. He must’ve sensed the nurturing nature in her and went right over to her. Mom checked his collar and located his home address and phone number. “I’ll call the owner,” she said, heading into the neighbor’s house.
“I hope Mom gets on Stan’s case for not showing up,” I mumbled to Andie, wiping the sweat from my face.
Hours later, when Andie and I were in the middle of our own personal heat strokes, Jared Wilkins rode by on his bike. He actually had the nerve to snicker at us. “Well, what do you know—it’s the lit
tle red wagon brigade,” he taunted.
“Beat it,” Andie shouted. “It’s all your fault.”
“Yeah,” I said, fanning myself with my hand. “Yours and Stan’s.”
Jared looked baffled. “I don’t get it. Could you two be a tad more specific?”
I spun around, dropping the handle of my wagon. “You spent the morning with Stan, right?” I said, exasperated.
He shook his head.
“At the arcade, remember?”
“No, I just got up.” He ran his fingers through his hair as he thought it over. “Hey, wait a minute, I was supposed to meet Stan downtown.” He turned and smiled. “Thanks, Holly. Almost forgot.”
I called after him frantically, but he kept pedaling down the street in the direction of downtown.
“What a nightmare!” I said.
I turned to see Andie opening one of the boxes, searching for eats. “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m going to die right now if I don’t grab a bite.”
I pulled her away from the opened box. “No, no, you can’t eat up our orders. If you’re that hungry, let’s just go back home.”
She looked up at me, frustration in her eyes. “Here’s the deal,” she said, clutching her throat for effect. “If I leave now and take a break, you’ll never, I repeat, never get me back out here in this heat again today.”
“But what about our customers? We promised.”
“Promises are made to be broken—isn’t that what Stan and the rest of the guys did to us?”
I could see she was on the point of collapse. It was hot. So hot that I wished my hair were shorter instead of waist length. Thank goodness for one fat braid on a day like this.
“Look, Andie,” I said. “I know it’s hot and you’re wiped out, but we have to finish this. Here, I’ll take your orders while you go back to my house for lunch. Just leave your wagon parked here and I’ll keep working.”
“What about you?” She wiped the perspiration off her neck with a tissue.
“I’ll manage. Besides, Mom should be home by now. Maybe she’ll bring you back with something to eat and drink.”
Andie huffed her response.
I could see this was asking too much. “Okay, okay, just fill up two sports bottles with ice water. That’ll work. Oh, and bring the sunscreen.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re really something, Holly. Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. But nobody else was out here in these blazing temperatures without a canteen of water or ice-cold pop, getting sun fried. “Hurry home,” I called to her as I made my way up a set of very familiar steps, carrying two square boxes. One very frazzled mom and two clingy preschoolers came to the door.
The thrill of surprising Amy-Liz with a camp scholarship began to be crowded out by a zillion negative things such as hot temperatures, a parched tongue, and a growling stomach. Either that or my brain was cooked and no longer functioning.
Anyway, I was back on track—I kept telling myself—forcing polite smiles for the customers as I made each delivery, pushing myself onward.
One more block. Just one more…
And at the end of that block I repeated the same thing again. Over and over I pushed doorbells, keeping my promise to make the deliveries. No one would’ve even remotely suspected that I was secretly dying for the moment when Mom might pull up in our gloriously air-conditioned van.
Just when I thought I’d conquered and suppressed the desperate urge for a cool, refreshing drink, some guy came walking his white toy poodle, guzzling a can of pop. He must’ve seen my desperation as I stared longingly at the pop, because he stopped and started talking to me. “Man, you’re wiped out,” he said.
I stumbled over to an aspen tree. I felt dizzy as I sat down, leaning my head against the trunk’s white bark.
Unexpectedly, he held out his can of what I thought was icecold pop. “Here, want some V8?”
In spite of my thirst, I didn’t feel comfortable drinking from the same can as a complete stranger. Besides, a yucky vegetable drink made with tomatoes and celery and other hidden healthy stuff didn’t exactly sound thirst quenching. And after being held in the sweaty palm of some stranger, the juice was probably lukewarm and congealing.
I shook my head and declined, which was probably a big mistake, but at this point, I didn’t care. “Thanks anyway,” I whispered.
He shrugged, said something to his dog, and off they went.
As I sat beneath the aspen trees, my tongue thick with thirst, I realized why the rich man in the Bible had pleaded with Lazarus to cool his tongue with a single drop of water. Vegetable juice just didn’t cut it.
Now, I’m not saying Dressel Hills, Colorado, is like hell in any sense of the word. It’s just this heat…this unbearable heat…this…
I closed my eyes, praying for relief, not caring about the wagon still half filled with cookies waiting to be delivered. All I could think about was how hot and thirsty I was.
Until now, I’d never really thought about the Lake of Fire. Our pastor’s sermons weren’t hell-bent like some ministers’ sermons. In fact, he hardly ever mentioned the place. For some reason, our pastor was more into heavenly things when it came to preaching sermons. Maybe he thought people ought to choose God’s Son out of a desire for divine, unconditional love, not because they were scared silly. Or…maybe that wasn’t the reason at all. Maybe it was a lot more fun to preach about a perfect, fabulous place created by our heavenly Father than a hot, miserable pit prepared for the devil and his angels.
“Hot…pit,” I muttered, fanning my face with my limp hand. “Horrible.”
Waves of heat surrounded me. I sank into them.
“Holly-Heart.” A familiar voice spoke my name.
I was too weak to respond, but I felt a cool palm against my feverish brow. Lightly, gently, she pushed back wisps of my hair, and the touch of her hand made my eyes flutter open.
“Oh, Mom…it’s you.”
Nearly incoherent, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The way her hand felt against my forehead—like the brush of an angel’s wing. And then the sudden stream of cool water on my tongue. It was heaven, all right. Heaven on earth.
“Andie, help me get her into the van,” I heard Mom say. She said it with the sweetness of one who could be trusted to take care of me. Mom was like that. I could count on her.
I strained to hear her voice. But it came and went like a poor phone connection.
“Holly, can…you hear…me?”
I tried to let her know I could, but my voice wasn’t working. Nothing was.
She was talking to me again, but she sounded frightfully distant. As hard as I tried, I knew in my foggy state her voice was fading fast.
And then…it was gone.
NO GUYS PACT
Chapter 7
I drifted in and out, slightly aware of a plastic straw being propped between my parched lips. “Here, try to take a sip, Holly.”
Straining to look up at the source of the voice, I was surprised to see Stan. Where had he come from? I sipped some cool water as I tried to get my bearings.
“Next time, why don’t you use your brain and come in when it gets too hot,” he scolded.
“Wha-at?” I mumbled drowsily, looking around.
Strange.
I found myself lying on the living room sofa. “Where’s Mom?” I asked, pushing stray strands of hair away from my face.
Stan squatted beside me. “She and Andie are out delivering cookies.”
I sighed. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “One-thirty. Why?”
“Guess I oughta eat something.”
“You’re right; you should.” He got up and hurried off to the kitchen like he was the big man in charge.
He shuffled around with utensils and things, and that’s when I decided he should make my lunch every single day for the rest of the summer. I wanted to punish him for the miserable way he’d abandoned Andie and me t
his morning.
While I waited for lunch, I thought about asking him why he hadn’t shown up earlier. But I decided it was the wrong time. I wouldn’t bring it up. Instead, I’d play the noble martyr and make him feel like the heel he was.
Stan himself brought up the subject when he returned, balancing a paper plate filled with chips and a tuna sandwich. “Uh, sorry about this morning,” he said rather feebly, handing me the lunch. “Got a little sidetracked.”
I avoided his gaze and picked at the chips, fuming inside.
“Hey, I said I was sorry…what do you want me to do, bleed?”
Then I blurted out what I hadn’t really wanted to say. “Well, if you’d helped us like you promised, instead of spacing out at the arcade, I wouldn’t be feeling so lousy right now.”
There, I said it.
Silence reigned for a moment. Then he got up and started to walk away. “Look, girl, from now on make your plans without me,” he sneered.
I nearly choked. “It was your idea to help make deliveries, remember? Your idea!”
His only response was silence. Some stepbrother he was. But I figured, par for the course. After all, he couldn’t help it; he was a guy!
Much later, when Mom and Andie returned, I was still peeved at the way the day had turned out. I wasn’t very good company. Not for Andie, not for anyone. And my sunburn felt hotter than ever.
When Mom cornered Stan in the kitchen, I heard every word between them. “I want you to get out there and finish up those deliveries for Holly,” she said sternly. “And when you get back from camp, you will be grounded for one week.”
“But, Mom,” he whined. He sounded just like Carrie and Stephie.
I snickered, scrunching down in the sofa next to Andie.
Mom continued, “You have an obligation to fulfill your promise to your sister and Andie.” She wasn’t budging on this, and I secretly applauded. “Now, I don’t want to hear anything more out of you, or I’ll add another day to your grounding.”
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