Eggs by Jerry Spinelli

But she did not let it show until they had been talking nonstop for well over an hour. Then she paused and sipped her coffee and looked away. Her smile wilted, and when it came back it was no longer real. “Well, I shudder to think what he must say about his grandmother!” She said it with a laugh and a forced not-that-I-care airiness.
    But he wasn’t buying it. His heart went out to her. He knew what she was hoping for. She wanted him to refute her fears. She wanted to believe that the boy was unkind only when he was with her, that when he was with other people he spoke of her with affection.
    He gave her exactly what she craved. “Hey” — he pumped up two thumbs — “he loves his grandma.”
    She winced, blinked, brought back the fake smile. She knew he was lying. She reached for his empty cup. “More?” From then on he did most of the talking. He was careful not to say anything that would give away the boy’s late-night escapes from his bedroom. He talked about Primrose, about the two of them practically living at his house. As soon as he said “practically living,” he regretted it.
    It was midmorning when he got up to leave. At the door her smile was real once more, but not quite so big. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad he has you two.” He shook her hand and walked away and heard the door close softly behind him.

32
     
    Several days later, David woke up to find a note on his bed. It said:
Meet me at my place. Now!
     
    A minute later he was on his bike, wondering,
Is this another trick?
But still pedaling.
    She was outside, sunning herself on a lawn chair by a birdbath inside a shin-high white picket fence that surrounded the white and blue van-home. Bare feet. Sunglasses. She did not move as she said, “I stopped over for you. I Baloneyed for you. Where were you?”
    The last two weeks, the separation, vanished.
    He said, “Shopping for school clothes.”
    “With your grandmother?”
    “Yeah.”
    He didn’t like her in sunglasses, lying there so still. “Is this a trick?”
    She got up laughing, wagging her head. “You still think everything’s a trick, huh? Well, you’re right. I’m gonna . . .
kidnap you
!” She lunged for him. He jumped back. She howled.
    “I still don’t like you,” he told her.
    “Good,” she said. “I still don’t like you either. And I’m still waiting for you to say something.”
    “About what?”
    She rolled her eyes. “About
what
?” She spun around, thrust her arm toward her new home. “Didn’t you happen to notice anything a little different?”
    David looked. “Mm, yeah.”
    “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    “What do you think?”
    He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
    She stared at him. She nodded thoughtfully. “ ‘Okay,’ he says.” She tapped the fence with her toe. “You hear that? You’re okay.” She knocked on the birdbath. “You too, you’re okay. That’s spelled O-K-A-Y. Did you ever get such a monumental compliment before? I sure didn’t. I don’t think I can
stand
it. I think I’m gonna
faint.
” She struck the back of her hand to her forehead, she swooned. “Oh! . . . Oh! . . .”
    Ignoring her, David said, “You got egged.” He was looking at three egg splatters on what used to be the back window, now painted white.
    Primrose ditched her swoon, led him to the window, and placed his hand on one of the splatters, then the other two. David’s eyes bulged. “They’re fake!”
    “Somebody was selling them at the flea market, along with fake dog poop and vomit. I glued them on.”
    “Why?”
    “I figured, maybe if they see them there, they’ll say, Hey, look, she’s already egged, let’s hit somebody else.”
    “Did it work?”
    “Nope.” She snickered. “Sometimes they even come in the daytime now.” David could only stare. She shrugged. “I don’t care. I got what I want. They’re just jealous because of my new place. They wish they could have a place of their own too.”
    She pulled him around to the door,