* * *
Christine poured lemonade at a picnic table across from where I usually set up business.
Well, she wasn’t going to scare me away.
But all the families nearby hired her for their water fighting needs. Well, actually they hired her for entertainment because she couldn’t hit a single target.
The roar of applause at her latest attempt burned in my ears. Grabbing my backpack, I started stuffing everything in. I would have to set up elsewhere if I were to win the bet. My frustration boiled over like a pot of Mom’s nasty soup.
Chance plopped down on the bench at my table. “How’s it going?” He grinned.
The cheater. “How do you think it’s going?”
Chance spread his arms behind him along the table. “I think your baby sister stole your business.”
“Way to send her to do your dirty work.” I slung my pack over a shoulder.
Chance eyed my movements. “So you’re going to set up somewhere else?”
I grunted in reply and turned away.
“Hmm …” Chance’s musings stopped me in my tracks. “Christine told me that you needed to make twenty-four dollars in two hours.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “Yeah.”
“And you’ve already been here one hour, right?”
My hope sank as if it had just gone off the Double Trouble slide at Roaring Springs.
“Have fun.” Chance stood and jogged away as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
I slumped down in the spot Chance had vacated and stared numbly at the table belonging to the “Super Water Fight Professional.” The words on her sign blurred together. I blinked to clear my head and focus.
Her prices were lower than mine. I hadn’t even noticed that earlier. Cup of water: twenty-five cents. Water Balloon: fifty cents. Water gun: seventy-five cents.
Water gun? Where did she get a water gun? My head jerked toward a peal of laughter.
A giggling teenage girl dripped with water.
Next to her stood Christine holding my old Mega Drench pointed directly at a high school boy. She must not have known that the gun shot off to the right, but she shouldn’t have even had my gun in the first place.
“Christine,” I yelled as she lugged the huge water gun back toward her table. “You stole my water gun.”
“It was in the garbage,” she said easily.
What made me the maddest was that she was right. It was as if I’d sabotaged myself. I told Isabelle my secret, I made Christine upset by telling her secret, and I’d put the water gun in the garbage can because I didn’t want it anymore. What a mess. But since I was the one who made the mess, I had to be the one to clean it up. First off, I would get rid of my sister.
Unzipping my backpack, I pulled out a water balloon and leaped onto the table. “Go home or get bombed,” I yelled.
Christine looked up. Anybody watching would think she was completely innocent by the face she gave me.
I knew better. I snatched a second balloon.
Christine aimed her gun at me.
We fired at the same time.
As if in slow motion, the balloons inched their way toward her. Christine dove toward the ground when the water she shot from my old water gun did nothing more than water the flowers by my side. She wasn’t fast enough.
Splat. Splat.
Her braids stuck to her face.
Ha.
She rolled to her table and grabbed some balloons, but her arm was no match for my slingshot.
I didn’t even get wet.
Christine jumped up, and I couldn’t tell if there were tears in her eyes or if all the water dripping down her face was from my attack. “I’m telling Mom,” she shouted.
“What are you going to tell her?” I yelled at her back as she ran away. “That we both threw water balloons at each other, only you have terrible aim?”
She disappeared behind some trees.
My conscience gnawed at my resolve. But at least she was gone so there would be no more competition. I could win the bet and make it up to my sister with some ice cream.
Except that next to Christine’s picnic table stood Isabelle with arms crossed.
“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.
“I’m taking over for Christine. That was terrible what you just did to her.”
I was terrible? No, I was the one who kept getting sucker punched. Chance, Christine, and now Isabelle.
“She’s your little sister, Joey. You’re supposed to protect her.”
“No, somebody needs to protect me from her. She’s in cahoots with Chance. They ganged up on me to keep me from winning the bet.” I pictured Chance and Christine in the future with black trench coats and dark glasses. They were perfect candidates for organized crime. I was just the harmless victim.
Isabelle got busy refilling my old water gun. She smiled at the first person to walk by—an old lady with a bag of birdseed. “Are you interested in hiring a professional water fighter?”
The woman didn’t hear very well. Isabelle had to repeat her question three times before the woman shook her fragile head and patted Isabelle’s hand.
I watched in fascination, though I should have been moving my business like I planned to earlier. “That was silly,” I called as the woman wobbled away. “You have to offer your services to people who might actually hire you.”
Isabelle took a sip of Christine’s lemonade. “Any more advice?”
She mocked me, but I thought back to all I had learned that summer anyway. “You could offer your service for free to get things going. When you have a high demand you can raise your prices. And you can offer discounts.”
Isabelle lifted an eyebrow. “Discounts like the buy-one-get-two-free deal at The Starlight Mountain Theatre?”
My stomach cramped at the thought of the two licorice salesmen and their kisses. If I didn’t win the bet, I was going to have to kiss Isabelle. And it would be all her fault. If she only knew … “Isabelle. Come here.”
My prissy neighbor looked down her nose at me then started across the grass slowly. She kept my old water gun with her. “What?” she demanded when she reached my side.
I puffed out my cheeks like a blowfish, then let the air out all at once like a popped balloon.
“What?” she repeated.
“I didn’t tell you everything about the bet.” I studied curious brown eyes and freckles sprinkled over a nose where nostrils flared. “I told you that the winner gets the out-of-this-world triple dip. But I didn’t tell you what the loser has to do.”
“Tell me.” Isabelle’s eyes narrowed.
How do you explain to a girl that she is part of a bet? “The loser has to kiss you.”
“Ack.” Isabelle covered her mouth as if she had to throw up. “So either you or Chance has to kiss me?” she whispered when she regained control of her gag reflex.
I shrugged. I wished I could say it had been Chance’s idea.
“This is horrible.”
I looked down at my feet. “Sorry.”
Isabelle grabbed my arm. “You have to win. I’ll help you.”
I’m sure my face lit up like the neon sign at the arcade. “Great. I’ve got an idea.”
Putting my plan into action, she sneaked up on a couple of older kids, tossed cups of water at them, and took off running.
The kids yelled as she ran off.
That’s when I stepped in to offer my services.
Every single time she did this, the people Isabelle soaked hired me to soak her in return. It was a dream job. I wished I’d thought of this gimmick at the beginning of the summer. Laughing, we met back up at the picnic table.
Isabelle looked as if she’d been jumping off the rope swing into the river. It was great. How often do you find a girl that would rather have you shoot her with the Turbo Drench 3000 than give her a little kiss? Parker was right. She was the kind of girl I should want on my side.
“So.” Isabelle sprawled in the
sun for a moment. “You’ve shot me with your water gun ten times, and used your slingshot seven times, right?”
“Yeah. And one cup of water.” I counted my money. “We’ve made over nineteen dollars. What time is it?”
Isabelle rolled over to her stomach and checked her watch. “Oh no, we only have five minutes to make five dollars. I don’t think we can do it.”
I jumped up. “We have to.” I looked around frantically. “We just need to find a group of kids.”
Isabelle groaned. “I don’t know if I can run away from you anymore. I’m wiped out.”
I grabbed Isabelle’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “You can do it,” I said. I handed her my Turbo Drench.
Isabelle’s eyes got wide. “You’d let me use your water gun?”
I pointed toward the tree next to where the Clairmont family tossed horseshoes. “If you climb that tree and soak Grant, Austin, and Brady, their dad will pay me big bucks to get you back.”
“Brady?” Isabelle paused. Apparently, she hadn’t known Baby Clairmont’s name either. Then, as if getting back to the game plan, she ran her hands over the gun the way I did when it first came in the mail. She pumped air into the pressure chamber. “All right. I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
I sat down.
Isabelle tucked the gun into the back of her pants. She jumped and grabbed a tree branch. Swinging back and forth, Isabelle kicked both legs forward and flipped them up and over the branch.
My mouth hung open.
With both arms straight, she held herself in the tree. Bending one knee, she lifted a foot on top of the branch next to her hands. Then she leaped like a frog to grab another branch higher overhead. This time she pulled her knees to her chest, flipped upside down, and hung by her legs. Reaching behind her back she pulled out the water gun and aimed at the family below.
Grant, Austin, and Brady shouted and hollered as they got doused with water, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Isabelle. She finished her job, grabbed the branch with her hands, and flipped to the lower branch. The setting sun shined on her like a spotlight.
All of a sudden I imagined her flying through the air as if on a trapeze. She wasn’t Prissy Izzy anymore. She was Isabelle the Amazing. I stood up as if to give an ovation.
Isabelle dropped to the ground and ran toward me.
What should I say? What should I do? Her words from earlier floated through my mind. She said she hated me because I wasn’t nice. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be nice to a girl.
“Uh, hi …” I started stupidly, but Isabelle ran right past me.
“Go, Joe,” she yelled.
Oh, yeah, my job. I jerked my head in the direction of the Clairmonts, and the brain fog faded.
Mr. Clairmont strode toward me. “Is she with you?” he asked, all business.
His boys bounced behind him.
“Pay Joey to get her back, Dad.” Grant wrung out his shirt.
“Was that Isabelle?” asked Austin.
I nodded.
“Use the slingshot,” Brady chimed in.
Mr. Clairmont handed me a five dollar bill.
I stared at it. I’d done it. I’d won the bet with Chance. I wouldn’t have to kiss Isabelle after all. But I did have to throw some water balloons at her. The funny thing was, she wanted me to.