“I don’t think Maggie wants us to do this,” Petal whines.
“She will when she sees how good it will work,” I tell Petal.
“But she said we needed to do somethin’ special!”
“That’s girl talk. I’m a guy and Jansen’s a guy. He’ll like this better, I promise,” I mumble. We’re standing in a supply closet at the school, watching the door to Mrs. McCallister’s room.
“But what if we mess it up?” Petal whines, pulling on my shirt.
“I’m telling you this will fix everything. You like Jansen, right?”
“Well, yeah. He had a tea party with me yesterday! He even made sure Dolly drank tea too. He’s nice.”
“Then, we need to do this. Maggie is waiting too long.”
“But she said it would be special because of Valentine’s Day,” she reminds me.
“That’s over a week away. The way Mom keeps bitching about him, she could have him run off before then. Do you want to chance that?”
“No. Dolly would be sad. She likes Jansen.”
“Then, we need to do this.” I relax when I see Mrs. McCallister leave her room. She’s so pretty. Whenever I pick out a woman she’s going to look just like her, with pretty blonde hair and blue eyes. I even want her to wear glasses just like her too.
“But I’m hungry. It’s lunchtime,” Petal whines.
“We can go eat as soon as this is done,” I mumble, watching Mrs. McCallister lock her door.
I was born too late. If I was just a few years older I’d be at the middle school with Black and Blue. They’d be a lot more help. I’m stuck here and the only ally I have is Petal. I could have asked one of my buddies, but I don’t want them blabbing all over the school that I’m helping to get my mom a man. Everyone talks enough shit about her. It pisses me off. She’s the best mom around. She sure beats the hell out of my friend Joey’s Mom. She barely knows Joey’s around. Everyone thinks she’s great cause she never misses one of Joey’s football games or his practices. Of course, she wouldn’t, because she’s screwing around on Joey’s Dad with the coach. Yet she loves to talk about my Mom. Maybe once I get Jansen and Mom together, I can be nice and help Joey’s Dad figure out what a ho-bag he’s married to.
“Okay, Petal, the coast is clear. Do you know what you have to do?”
“Gee, I’m not dumb, Cyan. I stand in front of the door and if Mrs. Mc-caster comes back or any other teacher, ‘specially the principal, I cry and distract them and get them away so you can hide or get away.”
“Right,” I tell her, pulling her hand and walking quickly to the room.
“How are you going to get in there? She wocked it.”
“Locked,” I correct her. Petal talks really plain, especially for someone in kindergarten. She has trouble with some words, though—locked being one of them. She’s really bad with sword. It always makes me laugh because it sounds like she says turd. Reverend Slone gets really mad when she does that because he always calls his Bible his sword. The congregation laughed for twenty minutes when Petal asked him why he thought the Bible was his turd.
It was awesome.
“That’s what I said,” she mumbles reminding me of what I’m doing.
“Black showed me how to break in.”
“He did? I wanna know!”
“Later. You watch and make sure no one comes down the hall while I do this.”
“Okay, fine. But you better show me later,” she warns. “You better hurry.”
“I am hurrying, hush before someone hears you.”
“But I need to pee!”
I ignore her and use the fake credit card I stole out of Mom’s mail and slide it back and forth in the crack of the classroom door, trying to push the lock open. Black makes this look a lot easier. He’s a master at it. Finally, there is a clicking noise and I can turn the knob.
“Hurry, Cyan!”
“Petal stop bouncing! I’ll be right back,” I growl. Little sisters are a pain in the ass.
“But, I got to peeeeee!”
“I’ll hurry,” I mutter. I sneak in the door, leaving the light out and walk up the aisle to Mrs. McCallister’s desk. This isn’t the first time I’ve broke in here, although Joey usually helps me. Only because he wants some of what I take.
Condoms.
Mrs. McCallister keeps a ton of them in the bottom drawer of her desk. She teaches Sex-Ed, though the school puts some big title on it like personal relationship health and education or some crap—mostly because a bunch of the parents got all pissy because we were putting rubbers on bananas. I’m just glad because I get free rubbers. I’ve even used two of them, which I think is really good. I mean, I’m eleven. My brother Blue is fourteen and he’s still a virgin. I think Black is too, but he’d never admit it. Joey is too, which means he never uses the condoms I give him, but he still likes to get new ones.
“Cyan!” I hear Petal hiss. She really doesn’t know how to be quiet. Next time, I’ll just ask Joey and if he tells anyone I’ll clobber him.
I reach down and grab several handfuls. I fill both my jacket pockets and my back and front pants pockets. Jansen is older though, so he might need more, so I zip my jacket and before I zip it all the way up, I throw a bunch in there. I’m just about to leave when I see the 3D diagram of a girl’s thing and beside it is the book that Mrs. McCallister always brings to class. I’ve always liked it, because it’s kind of a mystery down there and the book has really big pictures. I bet Jansen would like it too and if he doesn’t I can always keep it. I grab the book and hide it in my jacket too. It barely fits, but it will work until I can get back to my locker.
I walk quickly outside, turn the lock and shut the door.
“Okay I’m ready,” I tell Petal, not bothering to turn around and look at her. “Let’s go.” I take a few steps before I realize she’s not there with me. “Petal,” I whisper, although more loudly than I should and kind of urgent at that. She’s going to get us caught. “Let’s go!” I say again.
“I can’t, Cyan,” she says and she has tears falling down her face, her blonde hair all rumpled.
“What’s wrong?”
“I peed,” she cries. The words are somehow magical too, because when she says them she sobs and cries uncontrollably. I look down where she’s standing and there’s a big puddle under her. She pissed more than old Duke does.
Crap. Things are never easy with little sisters.
Never.