“I don’t have any money on me,” I admit. It doesn’t seem like the time to tell Zane I don’t have any money, period.

  “Then you. Owe. Me.” Zane pushes his face up so close he fogs my glasses. I smell granola bar on his breath.

  “Sorry about your boat, Frieda,” says Nicholas as we all head back.

  “It’s okay,” says Frieda quietly. “I can always make another one.”

  “I’m double sorry,” I say. “I feel really bad. I’m going to make it up to you, promise!”

  “Okay, cool,” says Frieda in that same easygoing way. I don’t want to give up on my imagination billboard, with its picture of me and Frieda in the sunshine, running alongside our dogs, Oro and Noble. But real life feels so different.

  At pickup, Mom and Gran are together in the car.

  “How was your first day at Young Explorers?” asks Mom as we pull out.

  “I knew the most safety tips. I learned a lot about bugs. And I made a boat, the SS Punkinlunkin. Also, here!” I give my leaf rubbing to Gran.

  “Thank you! What a thoughtful piece of art,” says Gran.

  “Nice job, Becket,” says Mom.

  “I MADE TWO FRIENDS!” Nicholas never talks loud. He wants to be sure Gran hears every word. “FRIEDA AND ZANE.”

  “Oh, Nicholas!” says Gran. “That is wonderful!”

  “You’re so friendly, Nicholas, I’m not surprised,” says Mom. But I can tell that she is, a little.

  “It was really easy,” says Nicholas. “Everyone always says ‘be yourself’ but this time, I really was one hundred percent Nicholas Branch, and it worked! When I talked about my allergies, my new friend Zane said he was allergic to dust, pollen, strawberries, and ragweed. That’s as many allergies as me. I can eat strawberries, but not walnuts. Zane can eat walnuts, but not strawberries. Pretty cool, right?”

  “You can keep Zane,” I tell him. “I think Frieda and I will end up having more in common.”

  “Sure, as long as you don’t keep wrecking her stuff,” says Nicholas as he settles back in his seat and smiles to himself.

  We are both quiet for the rest of the ride.

  Back home, I look at my list.

  I’d checked off everything—but now I have to change my number four. Frieda Franca is a friend, yes. But so far, not a best.

  And I need to add a fifth, less-fun item to the list. I write it in bold letters.

  5. Get Rich Quick

  chapter 10

  Lemon Ache

  “Today is the day!” I tell my family Saturday morning once I come back from the henhouse. “I just need to invent a secret lemonade recipe, so nobody better spy on me.”

  “Cross my heart, I won’t spy.” Caroline doesn’t look up from the newspaper.

  “Zane is coming over for our play date today,” says Nicholas. “We’re planning to build forts and be robot zombies. So, that’s already two things better than watching you stir lemonade.”

  “Fine,” I tell him. “But just to let you know, if you two don’t annoy me too much, then you can be my taste testers.” I wish Frieda and Oro were coming over, too, but I’d already gotten Mom to call over to her house. Frieda said she was busy helping out her family today.

  “She doesn’t want to be my friend because I broke her boat,” I say to Mom quietly when I get off the phone.

  “You didn’t do it on purpose,” says Mom.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Hey, don’t let yourself get down about that,” she says. “Today is still a perfect day for lemonade. But just to remind you, you’ll need lemons. And check to be sure you have all the other ingredients.”

  “Yeah, we have everything,” I say.

  “Come with me to the supermarket, and I’ll buy you all the lemons you want,” says Dad. “Then you can give me a hand with the groceries, okay?”

  Uh-oh. That sounds like a lot of work for lemons, but since lemon trees don’t grow on Blackberry Farm, I’m stuck. “Okay,” I say.

  Sure enough, once Dad and I hit the road, he’s got a million Dad-ish morning errands he didn’t tell me about. Like stopping by the bank and the gas station and the hardware store.

  “You’re turning my morning into boring,” I tell him.

  “There’s a saying, ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,’” says Dad. “That means trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

  I frown. “Okay, but what if my bad situation is how hard it is to get lemons?”

  “Then I guess this saying is extra perfect for you.” Dad wriggles his eyebrows.

  The supermarket is far away. I unroll my window and go “Ahhhhhhhhhh” to listen to my voice bump in the wind.

  “Maybe enough of that,” says Dad.

  “I’m making lemonade out of this long lemony drive,” I explain. “A subway could have gotten us here way faster.”

  “Then you’d miss out on the sunshine,” says Dad.

  Good point, Dad.

  When we finally get home with a trunk full of groceries, I help Dad put them away, except for the high cupboards where I can’t reach. Finally, the kitchen counter is clear and I can get to work. I empty the bag of lemons onto a cutting board, stopping a few before they roll onto the floor and disrupt Mr. Fancypants’s nap. Then it’s time to juice. I squeeze the lemons through a sieve until my hands hurt and my palms and fingers taste sour. Next, I add my secret ingredients—ripe berries from our berry patch, plus some mint! Ta-dah!

  Plonk, plonk, plonk. Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and mint leaves all drop into the pitcher. Next go ice cubes, water, and a dollop of Bee Sweet honey. We are almost out, but I manage to scrape one last bottom-of-the-jar spoonful for Mr. Fancypants.

  Berry mint lemonade, invented! This is such a great idea! I’m almost rich! I get paper napkins and paper cups from the pantry, plus a shoebox to hold my profits. Gran points out some wooden crates by the barn for me to stack into a table, and I use the leftover crate as a chair.

  Gran also finds me a red-checked tablecloth so my table looks super cute.

  In my tidiest letters, I make a poster board:

  And I tape the sign at the corners so it doesn’t blow away.

  Lastly, I bring out Mr. Fancypants on his cushion. He’s not my first choice for company. In fact, he’s more like my last choice, but what are my other options? I can’t think too hard about the fact that Frieda was busy, and that Nicholas landed a play date before I did, or I’ll just feel low. Mr. Fancypants wheezes and snorgles and coughs, but then he gazes up at me like he’s glad for the change. Sunshine probably feels good on dogs’ faces, too. He gives a big satisfied sniff, one last rearrangement of himself, then falls asleep. Soon his snores are louder than Dad’s.

  “You sure aren’t fun, Mr. F,” I tell him, “but you’d get a gold medal for naps.”

  When I look up, Nicholas and Zane are standing right in front of me.

  “You said we could be taste testers,” says Nicholas. Zane grunts.

  I pour an itsy-bitsy taste into a single cup for them to share. No point in wasting my precious lemonade on non-payers.

  “PHHHFFFT!” Zane spits out his taste. “There’s no sugar in your lemonade!”

  “What are you talking about?” I frown. “It’s lightly sweetened with honey.”

  “PHHHFFFT!” My brother spits his sip, too. “Maybe you mean it’s barely sweetened with honey!”

  I give Nicholas the frown that I can’t give to Zane, because Zane is our guest. “It’s got a lemon kick!”

  Nicholas takes one last sip, throws down the cup, and makes a scrunched-up face like he’s a clown acting in a circus skit. “Your lemonade almost kicked my tongue out of my mouth!” It makes me so mad I could smack him.

  “Yeah, you’d need first aid after this lemonade!” says Zane. Then the boys run off howling with laughter before I can think of a single excellent comeback.

  I pour myself a small cup of lemonade.

  Pow. Whoa. Okay, the boys were right. It’s sour. But. Sour can be delicious. Sour means not too icky sweet. I take another sip, but that tastes even worse because I know exactly what kind of sour it will be. My face is all pre-scrunched for it.

  The Bee Sweet jar is empty. When I check in the kitchen, we’re out of sugar, too. I should have checked my ingredients when Mom told me to. “Dad!” I call. “We forgot to pick up sugar from the grocery store!” That’s when I remember Dad and Mom had gone into work for a couple of hours. Gran is the grown-up in charge.

  “What do you need, sweets?” she asks when I come into Branch’s Farm Store. “We were just about to have some lunch.”

  Caroline’s expression is not as helpful.

  “Can I have a sack of sugar for my lemonade stan—?”

  “You know better than that!” interrupts Caroline. “Taking from the store messes up the inventory. Why can’t you use honey?”

  Gran nods. “Honey would be tasty.”

  “Okay, can I have some honey, then?” I ask. “We’re out of that, too.”

  Caroline frowns. “No, for the same reason.”

  But then Gran finds me two mini honey sample jars that Bee Sweet gives out for free tastes. She also gives me a raspberry lollipop to make me feel better. “Join us upstairs, if you like. We’ve made a twice-baked mac and cheese, and it’s heating up right now.”

  “Maybe.” It’s hard to feel overly invited when Caroline’s face looks like she drank the rest of my lemonade.

  Outside, I pour in the honey samples. Blerk. My pitcher’s still got pucker.

  My Get Rich Quick plan is taking longer than I thought, but as I unwrap my lollipop to chase away the sours, I’ve got another idea.

  chapter 11

  Try, Try Again

  I wait a few minutes before I tuck my shoebox under my arm and head back into the store. Gran and Caroline are upstairs. I hear the clanking of plates and can smell the warm waft of baking, bubbling cheese. Resisting mac and cheese turns out to be the hardest part of this plan so far.

  I won’t even let myself think about it. I just shake all the lollipops from Gran’s glass jar by the register into my shoebox. Lollipops are free for anyone who comes into the store. So it’s not like I’m stealing. Gran would never see it that way. But I’m glad Caroline is upstairs. If Caroline saw my shoebox of lollipops, she might have a different opinion. She’d definitely have a different opinion about the individual butter pound cake I pocket, but I helped Gran make these pound cakes, and a girl’s gotta eat.

  I can feel that tiny pinch of Bad Idea, but it’s so small. Like a bug bite. I ignore it.

  Outside, I set the lid on my shoebox and wait for the first car to pull in. “Get a cup of three-berry lemon-ade when you’re done shop-ping,” I singsong to the mom and her three little kids heading into Branch’s.

  “We’ve already had some o-range juice at break-fast,” sings the mom back to me.

  When they come out of the store, I’ve got another chance.

  “Free LOLLIPOP with every kid’s cup of le-mon-ade,” I sing. “The kids can use the lollipop as a stirrer to add sweet-ness.”

  The kids start jumping around. “Please, Mom? PLEASE?”

  The mom gives me a look, but then she buys four cups of lemonade.

  I give one lollipop to each kid, and get four dollars in return. I fold the bills into my hatband. The kids unwrap their lollipops before they’ve even had a sip of lemonade, but then they seem happy for both.

  When the mom takes a sip, her mouth twists. “You didn’t go nuts with the sweetener, hmm?”

  “Nope. That’s part of the secret family recipe,” I say, looking mysterious. If Dad can have his buttermilk trick, then I can have my sweet-and-sour trick.

  The mom drains her drink quick.

  Alone, I eat my pound cake and refill my cup of lemonade to drink in full view of any potential new customers. It’s important to show customers that you enjoy your own product. Mr. Fancypants is awake and panting. He seems to have forgotten where he is.

  “You’re okay, ole guy, you’re okay,” I tell him as I fill up a bucket of spigot water, which he drinks in huge gulps like he just finished running through a field, instead of waking up from a nap. He finds a pee spot, and then when he’s done, he settles back to sleep. He really is a very boring dog.

  Cars stop, parents hand me dollars, and kids stir in the sweetness with their free lollipops. When I see Caroline walking over from the house, my hatband is stuffed. There’re only three lollipops left in the shoebox, and my lemonade pitcher is empty.

  “I know you took a pound cake from the store,” she says. “There’s crumbs everywhere. Hand over four dollars, Becket. I have an eagle eye on inventory.”

  Then she plucks four of my hard-earned dollars out of my hatband in a way that makes me not want to argue it. “Also Nicholas and Zane said your lemonade tasted pretty bad.”

  We eye the pitcher. There’s nothing but melting ice cubes at the bottom.

  “They didn’t stick around to find out about my many improvements.” I lean down to scratch Mr. Fancypants between the ears.

  “Like what?”

  “A smidge of this, a dash of that. As the saying goes—if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

  “I wish you’d saved some for me to try.”

  “Sorry, I succeeded too much. That’s why there’s none left.”

  Caroline thinks I’m being mean, but she wasn’t the queen of sparkling sweetness when I needed her help finding sugar and honey.

  “Another expression is ‘I did it my way,’” I call to her back.

  And if Gran gives out the lollipops, or I give them—free is free, right? Right?

  So why do I feel so sneaky?

  chapter 12

  Out in the Field

  Looks like I’m rich. In my cozy bedroom, I move my money—eight smackeroos—from my hatband to my shoebox.

  Then I take one dollar out to give to Zane. No more debt for me!

  I hide the shoebox all the way in the back of my closet.

  Maybe I should do something smart with my earnings. Like buy Noble a magnificent red dog collar with a silver buckle for when he comes home. Or maybe I should get a tiny little camper for Punkin since he’s got nowhere to sleep.

  Or maybe I should donate it all to an animal shelter?

  Because this money, now that I’ve got it, doesn’t feel like sunshine on my face. More like a stormcloud in my head.

  Does it really belong to me? Or does it belong to Gran?

  I put a checkmark next to “Get Rich Quick” on my list, but I feel strange about it. So I lie on my bed and cover myself with penguins until I hear Dad and Mom pull into the driveway, back from the clinic.

  As usual, they are very talkative about what’s going on at work, which always sounds like major animal drama. The Peabody Farm calf just got birthed, and Mrs. Jenkins’ best pointer, Dixie, might be going blind.

  In all the years I’ve hung out with my parents, which is pretty much all the same years I’ve been alive, Mom and Dad never have run out of things to talk about. Sometimes it’s the animals, sometimes it’s bills or home repairs, sometimes it’s us kids—but it’s always way more interesting to them than to me. Mom and Dad are more alike than Nicholas and I—and we’re twins. It’s funny how families work.

  There’s extra food for lunch on account of Zane the Giant. Each of us has a saucer of chopped-up carrots and apples next to our bowls of pasta. Also, everyone gets a loopy paper straw in our strawberry milk.

  “How were your lemonade sales, Becket?” asks Mom with a smile.

  “She didn’t have enough sugar,” says Nicholas.

  Dad bops his hand to the side of his head. “How’d we miss that? I’ll pick some up later.”

  “She made it anyway,” says Zane. “Unfortunately.”

  “I used Bee Sweet honey and it was delicious. We’re out of honey, too.” I hand over my dollar to make Zane be quiet. He pockets it quietly, with a smirk and without a thank you. He and Nicholas tell dumb jokes through the whole lunch. As soon as Dad and Mom leave the kitchen to have grown-ups lunch on the porch, Zane shows Nicholas a lunchroom oldie—how he can take a sip of milk and make it come out of his nose.

  “Every weird kid I know does that,” I say, “and it’s bad for your system.”

  But then Nicholas makes milk come out of his nose, too. I didn’t know he could do that trick. I’m secretly impressed.

  “Don’t come crying to me when you’ve destroyed your systems,” I tell them.

  “Nobody’s crying to you. Today is boys against girls day,” says Zane.

  “There’s only one girl,” I remind him.

  “Fine. Boys against the girl.” Zane chomps his carrot like it’s a cigar.

  I know Nicholas feels sorry for me, but since this is his first country play date, he’s letting Zane say whatever he wants. Still, I make sure both of them see the annoyedness on my face. If only Frieda were here to be on my team!

  After lunch, Nicholas and Zane get fishing lines and nets. “We’re gonna catch some sunfish in the pond,” Nicholas explains.

  “They wriggle and flop like crazy when you bring them up,” I tell him. I know Nicholas has never caught a fish in that pond in his life. He looks nervous.

  “Let my sister come with us,” he suggests to Zane.

  Zane looks at me. “You don’t seem right for our club,” he says.

  That gets me feeling spiky. “What do I need to do to get in your club?”

 

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