by Thomas Tosi
Since I had seen the birthday cash that Peg had gotten a couple of weeks earlier in the birthday cards, I just knew that the chubby little ceramic porker still had some money in it.
“Abe?” Peg whispered. She had woken up.
“What?” I asked.
“Can I come over?”
“If you’re having nightmares, you have to go to Mom and Dad’s—”
“I’m not having nightmares. Can I?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Because then I’ll have nightmares.”
Everything was quiet for a minute, but then I heard the unmistakable sound of sniffles. Peg was crying.
“Peg,” Faye said softly. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”
“You know,” Peg said. “Down under the covers with Abe.”
Under the covers with me? What the heck could be under the covers with me that would make Peg cry?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. At the same time, I couldn’t help but slowly and timidly slide my feet back and forth under the sheets. Something tickled my big toe. Something furry.
I jerked up and away from it and banged my head on the headboard.
“Shush!” Faye said.
“Give it to me,” Peg said.
Brian and James made no sound.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Just give it to her and be quiet,” Faye said.
Wait a sec. That’s not fur. It’s fuzz—or hair. Fuzzy hair. I slid back under the covers and stretched my foot as far down as I could.
“Mrs. Fuzzy Hair,” I said. Peg must have left her ratty dolly behind after she fell asleep in my bed. “I thought you weren’t supposed to sleep with her anymore?”
“Abe don’t—” Faye said.
“What?” I said, digging Mrs. Fuzzy Hair out. “It doesn’t matter to me. I just thought Mom and Dad said Peg couldn’t go to Franny’s sleepover if she still had to sleep with a doll.”
I got up, stuck the hand holding Mrs. Fuzzy Hair through the opening between the two blankets of the wall, and waited. I heard Peg pull her sheets back, swing her legs out of bed, and take three creaking steps across the floor. She gently took the doll from me.
“Thanks,” Peg said timidly.
I got back into bed but, instead of lying down flat, I propped myself up against my pillow and headboard. Sleep didn’t stand a chance. In the moonlight, I looked around the newly arranged—and suddenly much smaller—attic and thought of crullers and dunkers.
“Hey, Abe?” Peg spoke quietly from her side of the divider.
“Yeah?”
“You won’t tell, right?”
Well, ol’ Peg made the mistake of asking me not to tell at the exact moment my eyes happened to scan once more across her “Peggy” bank.
I sat up a little straighter in bed and thought for a moment. It’s important you understand that it was only for a moment. If I had thought any longer, I might have made a different decision.
“No, Peg, I won’t tell.”
“Thanks.”
“But—” I said.
“Abe—” Faye said from the other side of the blanket wall.
“It’s nothing bad,” I assured Faye. “It’s just a trade. You know, Peg, like in Monopoly.”
Peg was silent.
“There’s something that you want me to do or not to do,” I said. “And there’s something you have that I want.”
“What?” Peg said.
“Peg, how much do you have in your ‘Peggy’ bank?”
“That’s not Monopoly,” Faye said. “That’s called blackmail. Don’t do it, Peg.”
“I really wanna go to that sleepover, Faye,” Peg said. “I think I have three dollars. You promise not to tell?”
“Absolutely.”
“Abe,” Faye said, “you’re a stinker.”
Why Peg Felt Dumb
Saturday morning arrived with the wheezing and farting of our old push lawnmower. The smell of freshly cut green grass drifted in through the window. The grass wasn’t the only pleasant green sensation. I matted down my sleepy hair, sat up in bed, and noticed three crumpled one‐dollar bills when they tumbled down from my chest to my lap.
I also noticed that I was alone in the attic. Just as I picked up the money, I heard footsteps creaking on the stairs.
“Knock, knock,” Faye said from the other side of the blanket wall.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and Faye came through to the boys’ side.
She looked at the dollar bills. “Peg left it out for you before she went down to breakfast.”
“Excellent.”
“She’s a good kid, Abe. You shouldn’t take advantage of her.”
I knew what Faye was getting at. Peg was the youngest, sure, but Faye meant more than that.
Peg stayed back in school last year. She did first grade twice. Peg’s birthday is near the end of August. Back when she had turned five, it was a really big deal for Mom and Dad to figure out whether they were going to let her start kindergarten then or wait a year. Peg started.
I guess it was tough, being so much younger than the other kids and always feeling you were behind. I heard her call herself dumb once. She didn’t think anybody heard, except maybe Mrs. Fuzzy Hair. But I did.
I never told her. I felt kind of funny about it and didn’t think Peg would like it so much if anyone else knew how she felt. I kept her secret.
“What do you want from me?” I asked Faye.
“You know why she wants to go to that sleepover so badly—Franny and those guys are all her old friends from before she stayed back.”
“So?”
“So think, genius. Why don’t Mom and Dad want her going if she still has to sleep with a doll? They don’t want her feeling like she’s behind again.”
Faye wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t really get it, either. My going after the doughnuts had nothing to do with how Peg felt.
“Look,” I said, “even if I’d told Peg that I wouldn’t blab, no strings attached, it wouldn’t make her feel any better. And I’d miss the chance of a lifetime.”
“Chance of a lifetime?” Faye’s eyebrows went up, and her lips squished to one side—that oh‐so‐superior Faye look.
“You’re the oldest girl,” I said. “You don’t have a clue. Look at me. Brian’s old Star Wars jams and James’ old Star Trek sheets.”
Faye’s oh‐so‐superior look turned baffled.
“They’re two different things! And I don’t like either!” I said. “You ever been giggled at by a gang of girls because your old uniform drawers are drooping? I don’t think so. With thousands of doughnuts, I could finally have something that was my own—something amazing and entirely my own. And Peg doesn’t care about the three dollars anyway. She cares about the sleepover.”
“Thousands of doughnuts for three bucks? What are you up to?” Faye said.
“I’m not taking advantage. Peg and I have a deal. She’s kept up her end, and I’ll keep up mine.”
Sweetly Crisp Saturday
I was going to pedal to the Sweetly Crisp that morning until I walked into the garage and saw that my bike was missing its front tire. Brian and James had the wheel on its side, spinning like a top on the floor. They were recording it with their phone.
“Dude, it’s totally gyroscoping,” Brian said.
“It’s still going,” James said. “That’s so sick.”
“Are you kidding me? What don’t you guys get about the concept of hand‐me‐downs?” I stepped on the rubber part of the tire. It left a short skid mark on the concrete garage floor and stopped spinning. “Once something’s handed down to me, it’s not yours anymore.”
“Relax,” James said. “It’s a physics project for Science class. The bike’s hardly yours anyway. You only had it for one summer. I had it for five years.”
“What does that even mean? I’m telling.”
“Can y’all use your physics to make my backpack any lighter?” My cousin Celia h
ad come out the front of the house and was standing in the driveway. She leaned back against her car, shifted her weight, and slipped off the shoulder strap of her pack. It landed heavily on the hood. That thing must’ve been loaded with books. The pack settled with a hollow metallic clunk that I was sure would leave a dent.
“Shoot. You don’t want to be studying law unless you got a strong back,” she said.
“Is there any law I can use to put my brothers in jail for wrecking my bike?” I said.
“Abe, darlin’, you need a ride? I still feel bad puttin’ y’all out like that. Least I can do is give you a ride. You don’t wanna be pedalin’ away on your little bicycle today anyway. It’s supposed to rain cats ‘n dogs later. So, you just tell me where to.”
“I was going down to the Sweetly Crisp this morning.”
“Doughnuts!” Brian and James said together.
“Not invited.”
“Hold on now,” Celia said, “there’s room for everybody.”
The Sweetly Crisp was packed. There were lots of moms and dads with kids in football and soccer uniforms. Some of the games they played in were already over. The smell of turf and dirt from their cleats mixed with the rich aroma of maple, chocolate, frying dough, and coffee.
“How can I help you?” asked the man behind the counter as I reached the front of the line. His face was as round as a jelly doughnut.
“I’d like to get some doughnuts please, sir.” I figured that with what I was going to hit him up for, I’d better be as polite as possible.
“Sure. Assorted?”
“Um, yeah, great.”
He expertly folded together a thin paperboard doughnut box, grabbed a piece of tissue paper, and stood there with his hand hovering above the racks.
“Ready when you are.”
“All right,” I pulled a crumpled list from my pocket. “I guess I’ll have three jelly sticks, two honey‐dipped, thirty Bavarian crème, three hundred thirty‐five maple frosted, three thousand forty‐eight apple spice, twelve glazed crullers, one thousand six‐hundred eighty chocolate‐frosted, eight hundred eighty‐nine cinnamon…and one plain—please.”
The doughnut guy made it to the fourth Bavarian crème before he stopped and turned to me. That’s actually a lot further than I thought he’d get.
“Don’t listen to him, Dad,” said a girl behind the counter. “He’s just a kid from my school.”
I looked at her stupidly for a second. At first, I didn’t recognize her. It was Marlene Paczki. She was in the other fifth‐grade class. Weirdness. She used to be shorter and had super thick glasses. You could never see her eyes right. Her hair was always kind of stringy, like it needed to be washed and pulled back with mismatched rubber bands.
She sure didn’t look like that now. Her new glasses were thinner and let you see that she had these pale blue eyes that looked like the community swimming pool on Wallis Island on a hot sunny day. Her hair was washed and looked soft where it was loose. A couple of strands curled on one side of her forehead near a small, soft, white smudge of powdered sugar. In the back, she had a braid I bet her mom helped her with because it was pretty fancy and—
“What are you staring at?” Marlene asked.
Staring? I am not staring.
Okay, maybe I did look a little longer than I should have.
“It’s just the way your hair’s tied,” I fumbled. My face felt hot, and I fidgeted with the crumpled paper doughnut list in my hand. “I always liked knots and stuff—I used to look ‘em up online, no big deal.”
I could tell Marlene wasn’t too crazy about my answer, but that didn’t stop her from sneakily checking her reflection in the shiny side of the silver coffee machine. She reached up to swipe back one of the loose strands of hair from her forehead.
“Uh‐huh,” she said.
“No, really.”
Mostly, what got me was how she was dressed. She had on a light‐colored skirt thing instead of pants and a smooth white shirt that buttoned and had a kind of shine to it—the kind of shirt my mom would call a blouse. She was dressed way too nice to be behind the counter of a doughnut shop. I guess she knew how much she’d changed over the summer and—
“You’re doing it again,” Marlene said.
I turned my eyes away from her and down at my hands. I saw I’d twirled the doughnut paper list into a tight rope while I had been staring…I mean looking at her.
“C’mon, kid, it’s Saturday morning, and we’re busy,” the doughnut man, Mr. Paczki, said. “See all those people behind you? They’re hungry, and they don’t think this is funny. Now, what do you really want?”
“I really want what I told you,” I said. “You aren’t going to make me say it all again, are you?”
“Well, we don’t have that many doughnuts in the entire shop. Even if we did, do you have any idea how much ten thousand doughnuts would cost?”
“It’s not ten thousand. It’s six thousand. And I have the money right here in my pocket.”
“Why would anyone need six thousand doughnuts? You have enough money on you to pay for six thousand doughnuts? In cash?”
“Sure.”
I dug Peg’s three dollar bills out of my pocket, slapped them on the counter, and tried to iron them out with my hands.
“Ha!” Marlene said.
Cousin Celia chuckled a little behind me, but I wasn’t bothered.
“That looks like three dollars,” Mr. Paczki said.
“That’s right.” I dug out the game piece and held it up. “Three dollars for six thousand doughnuts.”
By now, everyone in the shop who was within earshot was looking over at us.
Marlene squinted at the game piece with her swimming pool eyes. “That says you’ve won a doughnut—one doughnut.”
“No, no, no. This says I can buy twenty doughnuts for a penny.”
“Where?”
Mr. Paczki took a jelly stick out of the box and set it on the counter in front of me. Some of the granulated sugar coating fell off, and some stuck to his fingertips.
“This…is one doughnut,” he said slowly. “And, as you can see on our sign, it costs a buck.”
“Y’all’s sign says ninety‐nine cents,” Celia said from behind me. She slid her backpack off her shoulder again. This time, it hit the doughnut shop floor with a thud. She was probably thinking that we might be in here a while.
Mr. Paczki stared at Celia before saying anything. I don’t know if it was the thud or the y’all that made him pause.
“Whatever! The point is, it’s right there in writing.”
“It’s right here in writing, too,” I said, flipping over the game piece. “Cash equivalent, one‐twentieth of a cent.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Mr. Paczki said. “The prize is on the other side. That’s just the lawyer gobbledygook fine print stuff.”
“Lawyer gobbledygook fine print stuff!” Celia said. “That there’s a disclaimer outlinin’ the scope of rules and obligations of the contest and definin’ the legal relationship of the parties, i.e., it is a contract.”
Celia got a kind of hard shine in her eyes when Mr. Paczki dissed the subject she was studying at school. Behind her, Brian and James each had the look of a dog whose owner put a treat on top of its nose and told it to stay. They sensed that something great was about to happen but, for the moment, had to wait to find out what it was.
“What’re you talking about?” Mr. Paczki said as Celia unzipped her backpack and began to rummage through the books in it. “What obligations? What contract? I didn’t sign no contract—that stuff comes from corporate.”
Celia turned to me.
Wow, she looks scary.
“Abe, where’d that little game piece come from?”
“Dad’s coffee cup.”
She turned to Mr. Paczki and hefted just about the thickest book I ever saw right in front of his face. “And you sold that coffee.”
“You better put that oversized doorstop right back wher
e it came from,” he said.
“‘Oversized doorstop!’” Celia was about to explode. With two hands, she held the book as high as she could for everyone in the shop to see. “This here’s Dawson’s Contracts: Cases and Comment—tenth edition!”
Celia slammed the Dawson book down on the counter.
Except, there was a problem. Dawson didn’t hit the counter directly. The textbook first smashed the jelly stick Mr. Paczki had set there, and the doughnut exploded.
Marlene looked like she’d been shot. Deep red raspberry jam had splattered her white shirt.
Since Celia’s book hitting the jelly stick was technically an accident, I guess you could say what happened next was started by Marlene. I’d seen food fights in movies and on TV, but I didn’t think they actually happened like that in real life. They do.
Marlene didn’t just fling the first doughnut. Instead, red in the face, she flung an entire tray of Boston creams that was on the shelf behind her. They hit Celia and about five other people.
“Marlene!” Mr. Paczki shouted.
Two of Marlene’s victims were girls about my age. They had on blue soccer uniforms and were still wearing their cleats and shin guards. They even had blue headbands, and their hair was back in ponytails. You would’ve thought they’d be mad about getting hit like that, but they looked at each other and laughed.
Those two jumped to their feet, grabbed the food off the table in front of them—bagels with blueberry cream cheese that matched their uniforms and headbands—and threw, not at Marlene, but at a table full of girls in red soccer uniforms.
“Hey! Stop that,” Mr. Paczki said. “You girls there…”
“I got it, I got it,” said a guy at the blue table. He was trying to get the girls to sit down when the red table returned fire. A chocolate chip muffin knocked over his tall, iced coffee, and it splashed all over his T‐shirt—which, when he turned around, I saw had the word Coach on the back.
“Who threw this?” the blue coach yelled as he stood, his T‐shirt plastered to his belly and side where it was soaked with his iced coffee.
