Nikki and Alexis crush the perfect green Emily DeCamp grass under their feet as we hide behind her mother’s van. The porch is a still life of wicker furniture. Emily’s window, the window from which the notes of her flute drop like soft petals, is dark with sleep.
I stare at the house where I was light as a feather and stiff as a board and laughing all night. “I don’t think we should do this,” I say. We could change our minds right now. We could turn around, jog back to my house, and stick the eggs in the fridge where they belong.
Alexis turns slit eyes on me. “Nikki doesn’t think it was your fault she got in trouble. But I’d be mad at you if I were her.”
“Shut up,” Nikki says. Her eyes radiate with daring and excitement.
She slips to the corner of the van and motions for us to come over. Laying down the carton, she lifts the lid. The ammo is ready.
Alexis bends for an egg, but Nikki stops her.
“Hailee throws the first one,” Nikki says.
My heart beats in my throat. Blood whooshes to my feet, and a nervous, shaky feeling flows in its place. Nikki holds out a smooth white egg. I search her face for some way out, but her eyes spark like fireworks.
“Emily got us both in trouble. Come on,” she says. She bobs the egg in front of me. “Eggs are good for you.”
Alexis swipes two eggs and pitches them at the house. The night air cracks with egg yolks. My stomach drops but Nikki and Alexis laugh, grab more eggs, and hurl them. Nikki wraps my hand around one, but keeps up her own attack. A light comes on in the back—Mrs. DeCamp.
“Hurry!” Alexis urges. Her arm is an egg-throwing machine gun.
Nikki sees me standing, not throwing. She grabs my arm and launches it like a catapult. My egg arcs high in the air. It spins like a football and shatters against Emily’s window.
“Run!” Alexis jackrabbits down the street.
My leaden feet don’t move. My shameful eyes stay on Emily’s window.
Nikki shoves me into action. We sprint down the street. I rocket past her, leap over a split-rail fence, and dart through shadows all the way to my own back porch.
All three of us gasp for breath, Alexis laughing between gasps and Nikki saying, “That was great!”
Their eyes are wide and bright under the porch light; energy beams from their bodies like sound waves. They’re jazzed, pumped-up, happy. Alexis keeps breaking up as she describes the egg throwing.
Tonight, I’ll pray for rain to wash Emily’s house so the DeCamps will never know what happened. Tomorrow, I’ll put one of my own dollars in Mom’s purse for the eggs. On Monday, I will be extra nice to Emily. If I do all that, it will erase tonight.
Alexis is still laughing.
“We have to go in now,” I say. I open the back door and hold it.
“Got any more eggs?” Alexis cackles as she passes through.
I close the door behind Nikki and myself. We head upstairs, and I let Mom and Dad know we’re back. I’m quick about it, because the guilty feeling I have is so strong, it’s like another person standing behind me, ready to pop out.
I pad into Libby’s room and peer into her crib. Her sleeping face is innocent. She breathes easily. Her pajamas are white and decorated with green and pink outlines of elephants.
I wish I could stay in here all night.