The Hole in the Wall by Lisa Rowe Fraustino Page B

the Easter egg.

    On my way past the computer, the screen saver flashed a photograph that made me jump. It was Miss Beverly when she was younger, at a dog show with a blue ribbon around her neck and a poofy giant poodle licking her face! A dog that looked just like the statue! Yikes! Get me out of here!

    I was a superhero blur of motion. Celery didn’t have a chance to resist.

    Miss Beverly walked with Barbie to meet me at the front gate. “You’ll have to come back soon for some Easter candy,” she said, feeling her neck and massaging the back of it with her fingers. Her eyes had welled up with tears. I felt bad for her.

    “Does your neck hurt?” I said.

    She made a painful noise that I took as a yes.

    “I know how you feel,” I said, my arms over my chick bump. “I’ve had a stomachache for days from eating raw cookie dough.”

    Miss Beverly blinked hard, took a tissue from her housecoat pocket, and dabbed her eyes. “Raw cookie dough? Sebby, that’s not good for you!”

    “Oh, he knows,” Barbie said.

    Miss Beverly used the tissue to blow her nose, sniffed, and said, “Stanley will figure out how to set things right. He always does.”

    The wind shifted, shaking the leaves overhead and sending a burst of water down on us.

    “See? It was raining.” I gave her the charming Daniels eyebrow again. She smiled a little. Pa was still good for something.

    By now it was almost time for Ma to pick us up. As we ran back to Skate Away, Barbie said, “This one time I won’t tell on you, Seb, because I’d get in just as much trouble for going along. But don’t expect me to cover for you. You’d better get a story ready for when Ma asks what happened to your raincoat. Or why you suddenly have a twin chicken. Or what’s in your pocket.”

    Innocently I peered down around the chick bump to the lump in my telltale pocket. Oh, booger. I didn’t want Barbie to notice that. She has a little problem whenever I borrow stuff without permission. Even if it isn’t her stuff.

    “Don’t worry, Shish,” I said. “If Boots still needed these, he wouldn’t have left them with a bunch of fossils in his closet, would he?” I pulled out the broken glasses and showed them to her. They only had one arm. Except for the cracks in the thick, milky lenses, they looked like the ones he’d put on to gaze around our yard the day he stopped for eggs.

    She pushed my hand away and peered over her shoulder, as guilty as if police were watching us from behind every tree. “Oh, Sebby. Wasn’t it enough for you to walk away with his paints?”

    “Very funny,” I said, scrunching my shoulder blades. My back tingled where the paint had landed. It felt kind of nice, like a massage.

    Getting into the SUV I made sure Ma didn’t see my back with the new improved color scheme.

    “Did you have a good time skating?” she asked.

    Barbie stared at me with her arms across her chest. She’d never tell a lie.

    I avoid lying whenever and however possible. “Oh, Ma, you know we always have a good time when we go skating.”

    “Awww, that makes me happy,” said Ma. “Money well spent. And speaking of spending money, while I was at the grocery store I noticed a big empty space on the shelf where the Zenwater usually is.”

    “See?” I gave Barbie a so-there punch in the arm. “Not only did the Dogstars disappear, so did their business. Now aren’t you worried, Shish?”

    “I wouldn’t worry yet,” Ma said. “The cashier said they were just sold out. The water is on backorder. She hadn’t heard any rumors about the Dogstars.”

    Barbie punched me back and said, “And anyway, if the Zenwater really is contaminated, doesn’t that explain why they left so fast? I sure wouldn’t want to live there anymore. Take the money and run.”

    “Good point, Barbie,” Ma said. “I hope the Dogstars took Boots to the cleaners.”

    Good point, Barbie, nyah nyah nyah. After that I gave quite a bit of thought to her advice