Uchenna's Apples by Diane Duane

that Uchenna’s dad would believe. “Sounds good,” Uchenna said as they made their way back across the boards over the Condom Ditch and across the lane. “But the horses— We need to make some kind of plan. Nobody else is doing anything for those poor guys. It’s up to us to get them something more than apples.”
    “If they’re still here in the morning—” Emer said.
    They broke into a trot, all three of them, as they got out into the next open field. “Yeah,” Uchenna said. “If they are, then we can think what else to do. I’ll get up real early and I’ll—” Then she stopped. “Oh no, I have that hockey game, Mam’ll already be up early to get me ready for that, I won’t be able to get away—”
    “I’ll go,” Emer said. “My mom doesn’t mind if I get up early. She’s always bugging me about getting more exercise. Tonight I’ll tell her somebody at school got me interested in jogging. Getting up early, going out for a nice run, all that fresh air..”
    Through her panting—for Uchenna was no great runner—she still had to giggle. Except where baseball was considered, Emer went to great trouble at school to paint herself as a jaded couch-potato type. If anybody saw her out running first thing in the morning, it was going to take a lot of explaining next week. “Okay,” Uchenna said. “That’s tomorrow handled. Now let’s hurry up!”
    They ran faster. It was only a matter of a few minutes until they were within sight of Uchenna’s wall again. “Slow down,” Uchenna said, “we can’t be too out of breath when we get back—”
    The three of them paused under the wall. Jimmy glanced around, looking as nervous as if he thought Uchenna’s dad might come over the wall after him. “Okay,” he said, “so when will we meet?”
    “Wait a minute,” Uchenna whispered. “We all need to have each other’s phone numbers first—”
    Everybody got their phones out. Uchenna was half expecting Jiimmy to have an old tired one, but to her slight surprise he came out with one that was newer and shiner than either of theirs. “Beam us yours,” Emer said, “we’ll beam you ours—”
    It only took a few seconds. “I’ll text you when the coast is clear tomorrow,” Uchenna said to Jimmy, “and we can meet up with some more apples—then go over to the field. We’ve got to get them more than just that, but for the time being it’ll have to do.”
    Jimmy nodded. “But listen,” he whispered. “You can’t tell anybody I’m in on this. You hear? Nobody!”
    “Okay, okay,” Uchenna said, wondering why he was so uptight about it. “Not a problem. Emer?”
    Emer shook her head. “Not a word out of me,” she said.
    Jimmy nodded, then ran off.
    “There goes a paranoid guy,” Emer said under her breath.
    Uchenna shrugged. “Who knows what his problems are like at home? Sounded like he had some. Come on, my Dad’s going to start having second thoughts…”
    Climbing the wall was as usual a little harder than just jumping off it: but Uchenna knew where the handholds were. It took only a minute or so to get up to the top. Uchenna paused there, checking out the lay of the land as well as she could through the branches of the apple tree. The backyard security light attached to the back of the house was turned on, but that was all: nobody was actually out back at the moment.
    “All clear,” Uchenna said. “Come on, let’s get down there—”
    “Take your time!” Emer said. “Don’t want you coming down faster than you planned.”
    Uchenna grinned and climbed down carefully to the main branches of the tree, from which it was just a jump to the ground. She stood there and brushed herself off while, amid more rustling and twigfall, Emer knocked down another couple of dozen apples from the tree. Shortly thereafter Emer herself followed them.
    “Good thinking!” Uchenna said as they headed for the door
    “Why have to climb again tomorrow if we don’t need to?” Emer said,