Pennybaker School Is Revolting, стр. 38

AN EXPLOSIVE ILLUSION

The next day, I woke up to cold again. My window was open, and when I went to close it, my suspicions were finally confirmed. A butterscotch candy, the kind Grandma Jo kept in her pockets at all times, was lying on the windowsill, half in and half out of the window. I picked it up and rushed downstairs.

Grandma Jo was watching TV, her usual solitaire game laid out on the TV tray in front of her.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked.

Grandma Jo motioned toward the kitchen. “Last I saw, she was making oatmeal for your sister,” she said. “If you hurry, you can probably get some, too. If you like boring old oatmeal, that is.”

I walked over and set the candy on the TV tray, right on top of the ace of spades. Grandma Jo gazed at it, then went back to her show without so much as batting an eye. I picked up the candy and dropped it on the two of hearts.

“You can eat that as far as I’m concerned,” Grandma Jo said disinterestedly. “But if you spoil your breakfast, you’ll have to answer to your mother.” She pushed the butterscotch to the edge of the tray.

I slid it back over the two of hearts. “This was in my room this morning.”

“Okay,” she said. She gave me a light shove with her pointer finger so that I shuffled two steps to the right. “You make a better door than window,” she said. Man, she was good.

“I know you’ve been sneaking in and out through my window,” I said. She finally gave me a steely stare.

“Oh, do you, now? And how do you suppose you’ll prove it?”

I picked up the butterscotch and waved it in her face. “You’re pretty bad at concealing evidence.”

“I put that there yesterday afternoon,” she said. I raised my eyebrows at her. “In case … a bird … got hungry.” She matched my raised eyebrows.

“I also found your racing bib.”

She sat back and crossed her arms. “Prove that it’s mine.”

“There’s a trophy in your room,” I said.

“It’s always been there,” she countered.

“I saw you get into a car with a racing helmet on.” I crossed my arms to match hers.

We stared each other down. Her eyes narrowed and her nose twitched. “Okay, kid. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” I said. Again, she raised her eyebrows at me. “For now,” I added.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “So you want your owesies on retainer.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

She scooped up her cards and sifted them into a tidy deck, then began casually shuffling them. “It means if I want you to keep my secret—and I do—then I owe you one.”

“Oh. Yeah. That.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“Just … why are you sneaking around in the first place?”

She began laying out her cards again. “Because if your mother had her way, I would never leave the house except to drink tea and read books and make quilts. She’ll never understand the exhilaration of feeling the wind in your hair as you fly down a stretch of drag track or the excitement of engines revving so hard and loud you can feel it in your teeth. To her, that stuff is dangerous. To me, it’s what makes me want to get out of bed every morning.”

“Why don’t you just tell her that? Mom is understanding.”

We both snickered. Okay, so Mom was understanding about almost everything—but not about Grandma Jo’s need for adventure. Or anything even slightly dangerous.

“Your Grandpa Rudy spent his whole life making things disappear and tying himself in knots and doing water escapes. How could I go from that life to the one your mother would have me lead?”

I supposed she couldn’t. That was one of the things I loved about magic—there was a certain level of daring to most of it. Maybe, in a way, I was just like Grandma Jo. Even if on the outside I was kind of a chicken, on the inside I liked adventures.

“So I will owe you one, young man,” Grandma Jo said. “But I will also continue to use your window. Barf and the others will be here tonight. There’s a demolition derby going on over in Winville.” She stretched out her arms like she was holding onto a steering wheel, then made car noises with her mouth, acting like she was crashing into things. “I’m the reigning champ,” she whispered. “I have to go defend my title. But if you don’t keep my secret, I’ll be stuck listening to golden oldies radio in my room tonight instead.”

I tried to imagine Grandma Jo being happy doing something like that, and I just couldn’t. Grandma Jo would never be a golden-oldies type of grandma.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said. I popped the butterscotch into my mouth and headed off to find breakfast. “I’ll let you know when I need payback.”

I was halfway through a homemade blueberry muffin when the doorbell rang. I heard Erma’s bare feet slap on the entryway floor and the door open.

“Thomas! It’s for you,” she yelled, and I was surprised that she didn’t add any sort of insult to it. Erma liked Chip—or, as she was known to call him once or twice, Chippy Wippy—but she wasn’t afraid to call me a name when Mom and Dad weren’t around. Maybe Erma was growing up a little.

I shoved the rest of the muffin into my mouth and headed toward the front door.

“It’s about time,” Erma said. She grinned and added, “Cow-pie face.”

Nope, not growing up at all.

I wiped the side of my face and stuck my hand in her hair. She squealed and ran away. Of course, my face had been completely cleaned of cow pie for a whole day, but even just the thought of cow pies was enough to make fifth-grade girls scream. To Erma, my head was probably forever cow pied.

Chip wasn’t alone. All the guys were standing behind him. Colton and Buckley were giggling. I scowled.

“Hey, Thomas,” Chip said. “You want to come over?”

“No,”