forever if you laugh and take a lot of risks.
On the way to the industrial yards, we pass Kevin Thompson’s house. His garage is open and his bike is gone, but I still glance up at his roof to see if he’s perched there with his guns.
“I’m just so pissed off,” I say. “It’s not even my fault he wants to kill me. If his dad was a great security guard, they wouldn’t’ve fired him for what we did at the grain mill. He was probably already on thin ice for something else.”
“Yeah, the two of you are gonna be enemies for a while.” Charlie swipes a football from someone’s front lawn. He jogs back to us with a huge smile on his face. “I heard he wants to hook up with Valerie, so if you go out with her, it’s like a double whammy. You think he hates you now, just wait.”
“I’m lifting weights in your garage tonight,” I say. “When he kills me, I want my gravestone to say I fought back.”
At the creek, me and Charlie toss the football around while Cornpup digs for the eternal robot. We call it that because he never stops tweaking it, giving it little remote-controlled weapons, lengthening its legs, outfitting it with cool armor. He pulls the robot up out of the earth. He peels off the blue tarp covering and then checks to make sure no dirt got into the controls. Minutes later, the robot is walking through water, firing Nerf rockets at my head. Charlie finds our Super Soakers in one of the other tunnels. He tosses me one, and then it’s like there’s this all-out battle, me and Charlie against Cornpup’s machine. We’re in the water, drenched, our shorts pretty much falling down, and Cornpup’s onshore, bone-dry, punching commands into his controller, with this crazy look on his face, shouting, “You guys are dead!”
So me and Charlie have no choice but to make balls of creek mud and start whipping them at Cornpup’s face. It’s really the most kick-ass battle we’ve ever had. By the end, me and Charlie are all slimy and green from the water, and Cornpup is covered in mud, and our faces are burning from laughing so hard. When it starts getting dark, we split up. Cornpup stays at the creek to rebury the eternal robot. Charlie is starving and runs home to eat. I feel so grimy, I can’t even think about food. All I want to do is take a shower.
Before I go into my house, I strip off most of my clothes and abandon them in a garbage can by the street. I wring out my sneakers, dripping green water onto our porch steps. I wipe my feet clean in the grass. A long, hot shower turns out to be the perfect thing. I change into jeans and a black T-shirt. Then I call Cornpup.
“You don’t have to actually
lift
anything,” I promise him. “We aren’t gonna force you to work out. Just come hang with us.”
He tells me he got creek water in his eyes. He doesn’t feel so great. He’s going to bed.
So it ends up being just me and Charlie lifting weights in the Pelliteros’ garage. We have the radio cranked up. We’re mocking Cornpup, who’s probably all curled up in bed right now like a granny.
“Oh, Mommy, my eyes are stinging; make me some soup,” says Charlie.
“Oh, Mommy, I pooped the bed and it smells like ammonia,” I say.
“Oh, Mommy, help me get all this toxic mud out of my ears,” says Charlie.
Valerie and Jill show up out of nowhere, and I start freaking out in my head, because what if Val heard me say “pooped the bed” and doesn’t know I was pretending to be Cornpup?
I turn down Charlie’s metal music.
“You guys going to the cookout tomorrow?” Jill asks us.
Charlie drops his dumbbells. His arm muscles look ripped. “Hell yeah, we’re going.”
Valerie is sitting on a weight bench, legs crossed, staring at her hands. She looks up at me once, and I swear she likes it that I’m all sweaty with bloodshot eyes. Maybe I look dangerous.
We talk about dumb stuff for about ten minutes. Then Charlie gets restless because he wants to start lifting again, and the girls
On the way to the industrial yards, we pass Kevin Thompson’s house. His garage is open and his bike is gone, but I still glance up at his roof to see if he’s perched there with his guns.
“I’m just so pissed off,” I say. “It’s not even my fault he wants to kill me. If his dad was a great security guard, they wouldn’t’ve fired him for what we did at the grain mill. He was probably already on thin ice for something else.”
“Yeah, the two of you are gonna be enemies for a while.” Charlie swipes a football from someone’s front lawn. He jogs back to us with a huge smile on his face. “I heard he wants to hook up with Valerie, so if you go out with her, it’s like a double whammy. You think he hates you now, just wait.”
“I’m lifting weights in your garage tonight,” I say. “When he kills me, I want my gravestone to say I fought back.”
At the creek, me and Charlie toss the football around while Cornpup digs for the eternal robot. We call it that because he never stops tweaking it, giving it little remote-controlled weapons, lengthening its legs, outfitting it with cool armor. He pulls the robot up out of the earth. He peels off the blue tarp covering and then checks to make sure no dirt got into the controls. Minutes later, the robot is walking through water, firing Nerf rockets at my head. Charlie finds our Super Soakers in one of the other tunnels. He tosses me one, and then it’s like there’s this all-out battle, me and Charlie against Cornpup’s machine. We’re in the water, drenched, our shorts pretty much falling down, and Cornpup’s onshore, bone-dry, punching commands into his controller, with this crazy look on his face, shouting, “You guys are dead!”
So me and Charlie have no choice but to make balls of creek mud and start whipping them at Cornpup’s face. It’s really the most kick-ass battle we’ve ever had. By the end, me and Charlie are all slimy and green from the water, and Cornpup is covered in mud, and our faces are burning from laughing so hard. When it starts getting dark, we split up. Cornpup stays at the creek to rebury the eternal robot. Charlie is starving and runs home to eat. I feel so grimy, I can’t even think about food. All I want to do is take a shower.
Before I go into my house, I strip off most of my clothes and abandon them in a garbage can by the street. I wring out my sneakers, dripping green water onto our porch steps. I wipe my feet clean in the grass. A long, hot shower turns out to be the perfect thing. I change into jeans and a black T-shirt. Then I call Cornpup.
“You don’t have to actually
lift
anything,” I promise him. “We aren’t gonna force you to work out. Just come hang with us.”
He tells me he got creek water in his eyes. He doesn’t feel so great. He’s going to bed.
So it ends up being just me and Charlie lifting weights in the Pelliteros’ garage. We have the radio cranked up. We’re mocking Cornpup, who’s probably all curled up in bed right now like a granny.
“Oh, Mommy, my eyes are stinging; make me some soup,” says Charlie.
“Oh, Mommy, I pooped the bed and it smells like ammonia,” I say.
“Oh, Mommy, help me get all this toxic mud out of my ears,” says Charlie.
Valerie and Jill show up out of nowhere, and I start freaking out in my head, because what if Val heard me say “pooped the bed” and doesn’t know I was pretending to be Cornpup?
I turn down Charlie’s metal music.
“You guys going to the cookout tomorrow?” Jill asks us.
Charlie drops his dumbbells. His arm muscles look ripped. “Hell yeah, we’re going.”
Valerie is sitting on a weight bench, legs crossed, staring at her hands. She looks up at me once, and I swear she likes it that I’m all sweaty with bloodshot eyes. Maybe I look dangerous.
We talk about dumb stuff for about ten minutes. Then Charlie gets restless because he wants to start lifting again, and the girls
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