LITMIR.BIZ

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and a six-pack of strawberry milk. I gathered up the booty and brought it into the living room, where I set it between Mem and me on the floor. Mem broke off the tip of a Twinkie and sucked the cream filling out, then threw the spongy shell back in the box and took out another one.

      “Mem, that’s disgusting.”

      “I only like the middles,” he said with a mouthful of white stuff.

      “Yeah, but can you put your rejects somewhere else?”

      He looked at me wide-eyed, like he’d never thought of that, then hurried to deliver the shells to the kitchen. “Done,” he called, wiping a cloud of crumbs into the air as he returned. “Done done dee done.”

      “Good. Hey, let’s watch something else.” I reached for the remote.

      “No!” he yelled. And I mean yelled. His face turned red and mad, and he snatched the remote before I could touch it. “I’m watching this.”

      “Fine—chill, will you?” Talk about touchy. I wondered what would happen if I rearranged his bedroom furniture or something.

      At least I had Niko’s Pizza Palace to look forward to. A couple of my friends were meeting there for lunch. If I stretched out my shower, read some magazines cover to cover, and maybe played with the ferrets, I figured I could survive the morning while Weather Boy mind-melded with Martin the Meteorologist. I guzzled the last slug of pink milk and headed upstairs to dig out my toothbrush.

      • • •

      When the crayon clock finally said noon, I put Linguini back in her cage with Jambalaya and headed downstairs. Mem was still doing the lotus position in front of the tube.

      “Let’s go,” I told him.

      No response.

      “C’mon, let’s get going.”

      Finally he turned my way. “We’re going somewhere?”

      “Yeah, Niko’s, lunch.”

      I was afraid he’d throw another fit about having to leave his beloved show, but he actually smiled and turned off the set himself. “Let’s go. Let’s get going,” he beamed and started toward the door.

      “Wait, Mem, you’ve got Twinkie guts on your face—here.” I handed him a tissue, and he scrubbed his face like he was trying to sand it off.

      “Now?” he said.

      “Now.” But I wasn’t at all sure how this was going to work. There were way too many things that could go wrong.

      The first thing went wrong before we even made it to the curb. Dirk Dempster, the kid who lives across the street from Mem, happens to be a total jerk. In fourth grade, he blamed me for the class fishbowl he shattered, and he’s made trouble for me ever since—copying off my tests and then accusing me of being the cheater, making sure I get picked last on teams, cutting ahead in line, you name it. He’s the tallest, meanest kid I know. I think the reason he gets out of bed in the morning is to outdo his nastiness from the day before. I always steer clear of him, but now he was shooting hoops in his driveway. When he spotted us he shouted, “Hey, it’s The Dipp.”

      I was going to ignore him, but then he started singing, “Dippity do da, dippity ay, my oh my, what a wonderful day.” To make things worse, Mem thought it was funny and started waving at the idiot and saying what a cool guy he was.

      Obviously, I had to say something, and what came out of my mouth was, “Shut up, Dirk.” Dirk kept singing though, so I added extra loudly, “Come on, Mem, we’ll take care of him later.”

      “Okay, we’ll take care of him later,” Mem said cheerfully and way too loudly. “We’ll take care of him. Later.”

      “Yeah, right,” Dirk scoffed and went back to shooting hoops.

      Yeah, right? That was all? No—no way. Knowing Dirk, it wasn’t going to be over that easy. But I didn’t have time to worry about it because the second thing went wrong a minute later. We weren’t halfway down the street when Mem scrunched up his face and came to a dead standstill in the middle of the road.

      “What’s the matter?” I said.

      “My shoes hurt.”

      “You got a stone in them or something?”

      “A stone or something? No, they just hurt.”

      I eyed his sneakers, the same sneakers he was wearing yesterday and all morning today. “You gotta get rid of them then.”

      “No!” he bellowed so fiercely you’d think I was trying to turn off The Weather Channel.

      “Fine, we’ll keep them. But let’s go back and get you another pair for now.”

      “Don’t have another pair,” he pouted, and then he just stood there, right in the middle of the road. Even when a car backed out of a driveway and headed toward him, he played statue, and I had to motion the car around him.

      “All right, Mem,” I sighed once the collision was averted. “Here, you wear my flip flops.” I walked barefoot the rest of the way, carrying his sneakers and wishing I could throttle him on the spot. He was the reason I had to get up so early, the reason I’d gotten into it with Dirk, the reason I was going to be late to meet my friends, the reason my whole summer was going to be a bust. And what was he doing? Humming “Zippity Doo-Da,” that’s what.

      When we finally reached Niko’s Pizza Palace, my best friends, Reed and Mo (for Montgomery), were lounging at our regular table by the window. And—what was this?—Mo’s twin sister Jo (for Josephine) was with them. The guys were negotiating pizza toppings, and Jo was inspecting a pile of coins in her hand.

      “Mem, you know Mo and Reed,” I said, pulling up two chairs. “And this is Jo.”

      “She’s pretty,” Mem said, his eyeballs popping out as if to touch her. It was the first time I ever saw him look someone in the eye for longer than a flash.

      On cue, Mo started snickering and motioning Mem to take the seat next to Jo, sticking me at the far end of the table. Then Mo started whistling “Here Comes the Bride.”

      “Knock it off, Mo,” Jo said. “I’ve seen Mem around. Nice to finally meet you.”

      “Yup,” he said, staring at his lap. “Really, really nice. To meet you.”

      “You’re not at Hull Central. Do you go to private school or something?”

      “Yup.”

      “Do you board?”

      “I’m never bored.”

      “No, I mean…” She glanced at me and back at Mem, who was still staring at her all gaga. Then she started studying her pocket change again.

      “Whatcha doing with all that money?” Mem asked.

      “Looking for American Samoa,” she answered, turning a coin over.

      “American who?” he asked, and if he hadn’t, I would have.

      “American Samoa,” she said. “I’m collecting all the state quarters. I have almost all of them, but not American Samoa.”

      “Not American some more,” Mem said. “American some more.”

      “Hey, let’s order already,” she said, standing up and shoving the coins in her pocket. “Half cheese, half pepperoni, right?”

      “Can I come?” Mem asked, prompting more laughs from Mo and Reed.

      “Uh, I’m only going to the counter, but sure.”

      When the two of them were out of earshot, Mo leaned toward me and said, “How’s it feel, having your cousin move in on your crush?”

      “Yeah, right.” I couldn’t think of any other comeback, so that’s how I answered,

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