Nikki and Deja Read online

“Yeah. What do you want to play?”

  Richard shrugs and plops down on the sofa. “You have Fight Night?”

  Gavin stops tossing his sock ball and sits on the floor, staring at the blank screen of the television. He hates to admit that his mom doesn’t allow “overly violent” video games. “No, I don’t have that one.”

  “You have Slam!?”

  Gavin shakes his head.

  “Slam2!?”

  Gavin shakes his head again.

  “Well, what do you have?” Richard asks, frowning.

  “I have Animal Incredible.”

  Richard looks at Gavin as if he’s grown a third eye. “Man, that’s a baby game.”

  Gavin doesn’t say anything.

  Richard sighs. “Okay, we’ll play that.”

  After twenty minutes, Gavin can tell, without even looking at him, that Richard is getting tired of the game. He’s sighing and making mistakes and Gavin knows it’s just a matter of time before the complaints begin. They’re both sitting on the floor now with controls in their hands, trying to rack up points to add particular animals to their kingdoms. Gavin is racking up more points than Richard, so he isn’t surprised when Richard puts the control down and says, “This game sucks.”

  Gavin looks over his shoulder quickly. His mother doesn’t like that word. “It has a rude sound,” she’d explained the one time Gavin tried it out. “I don’t want to hear that again.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m winning,” Gavin says to Richard.

  “Because you play this baby game all the time.” Richard gives the control beside him a shove, to show that he is totally finished with trying to populate his kingdom. “Who cares, anyway? Why don’t you at least have Spooky Mansion? Carlos has it, and it’s way more fun.”

  “My mom likes games to be kind of educational,” Gavin admits.

  Richard sighs extra loud. A big sigh that begins with a long intake of breath. “Whatcha got to eat?”

  Before Gavin can answer, he hears his mom on the stairs. She stops in the room with her purse over her shoulder. “Hi, Richard,” she says.

  Richard looks like he’s suddenly on guard. “Hi, Mrs. Morris.”

  “I’ve got to go to the mall,” she tells them both. “Your dad’s in his office, and Danielle is right across the street at the Meyerses’. You guys going to be okay?”

  Gavin stifles a smile. It’s always a relief when his sister is out of the house. If she isn’t pinching him for no reason when she walks by, she’s pointing out that his ears are too big for his head. He knows his ears are too big for his head. But everyone has a little something that can be improved upon. Danielle is sprouting little pimples on her forehead, signaling more to come. (He can’t wait.) That Deja girl in his class is probably going to need braces, and Richard’s nose is kind of big and funny-looking.

  “We’ll be okay,” Gavin says. He doesn’t ask what there is to eat, because then his mom will tell him all the things he’d better not get into. Like the cookies or the chips or the fruit bars she usually lets him have for an after-dinner treat.

  As soon as the door closes behind her, he smiles broadly, feeling the glow of freedom. Even though his dad is two rooms away, it’s almost like he has the house all to himself. He looks over at Richard, who’s now tossing the sock ball up to the ceiling. “Want some of Danielle’s candy?”

  “Yeah. Where is it?”

  “In her room. Under her bed.” Gavin grins mischievously. “She doesn’t know that I know where she keeps it.”

  They both start up the stairs, and the closer they get to Danielle’s candy, the more thrilled Gavin gets.

  “She’s gonna know we took some,” Richard says.

  “No, I’ve done it before. You just rearrange the pieces in this tin thing they come in. Kind of spread them out to take up the empty space. You just can’t take too much. I do it all the time.” He walks through to Danielle’s room to the window and checks the Meyerses’ house across the street. All’s clear.

  Richard is still cowering in the doorway as if he’s afraid to enter the room.

  “Come on. What are you afraid of?” Gavin asks.

  “She could come back any minute, and she doesn’t look very friendly.”

  “I can tell you now, Danielle is definitely not friendly.

  Richard steps into the room but stays near the door. He looks around at the bed with the pink canopy, the pink throw rug, and her collection of tiny ceramic animals on a shelf above the dresser. Three photos depicting ballet dancers are framed in pink.

  “Lotta pink in here,” Richard says.

  “If you had a sister, you’d know they love pink.”

  Richard picks up a tiny ceramic giraffe and squints at it.

  “Put that down—and I mean right where you found it!” Gavin cries.

  Richard places it back on the shelf. Gavin moves to the shelf and squints at the giraffe. “Is that exactly the way it was?” he asks.

  “I—I—I guess,” Richard stammers.

  “‘Cause if it isn’t, she’ll know I’ve been in her room! Look at it closely, Richard.”

  Gavin dashes to the window and checks the house across the street again. All’s still quiet. No Danielle stomping back across the street. “Come on, let’s hurry,” he says over his shoulder. He drops to the floor beside Danielle’s bed, reaches way underneath, and pulls out the tin of candy.

  “Why does she keep it under her bed?” Richard whispers as if there is someone to hear him.

  “To hide it from me.” Gavin laughs his cackle laugh. “Haa, haa, haa.” He’s been practicing. He’s gotten it to sound almost like Mr. Muddlemouth on the Captain Radical cartoon. Laughing makes him feel less nervous.

  Richard looks over at him and smiles with appreciation.

  The pink tin of candy has a snug top that’s kind of hard to pry off when you’re in a big hurry. Gavin tugs and tugs at it. He can feel his heart beating. Suddenly, he stops and listens. “What was that?”

  “What?” Richard asks.

  “Shhh,” Gavin says. Was that the Meyerses’ front door? Is Danielle already on her way back home? Gavin jumps up and dashes to the window once more. Across the street, nothing is happening at the Meyerses’ house. No Danielle. He looks over at Richard, who’s peering at Danielle’s animal collection.

  “No more touching Danielle’s things, Richard.” Gavin picks up the tin and gets the top off. Those gold-foil-covered chocolate nougats inside always look like treasure to him. He picks two, then carefully spreads out what’s left over the empty spaces. He replaces the lid and pushes it back in its place under Danielle’s bed. Then, just as he stands up, before he can turn toward Richard, he hears, “Hey, catch!”

  Richard is sailing Danielle’s snow globe—the one she got the previous winter when her middle-school choir traveled to New York City for a festival, the one made of heavy glass and not plastic—right at Gavin. But unfortunately, Gavin is a half second too late getting his hands up, and the heavy glass globe hits the corner of Danielle’s dresser and shatters. Water and suds and the tiny Empire State Building and shards of glass fly everywhere.

  Gavin and Richard stand there for a full five seconds silently staring at the mess that was once Danielle’s precious snow globe, her prized souvenir from New York City. Gavin scoots to the window again to look across the street at the Meyerses’ house. They have to work quickly. “First we have to get the glass up!” he says to Richard, who seems to be stuck in place. Gavin dashes to his room and gets his trash can. Carefully, he begins to pick up the biggest pieces of glass first.

  “You should have caught it,” Richard says. “I said, ‘Catch.’ Why didn’t you catch?”

  Gavin is being super careful as he deposits the larger pieces of glass into his trash can. Next he needs to vacuum up the tiny pieces.

  Gavin hurries to the bathroom to get a towel to sop up the water. He throws it at Richard. “Get the water up so I can vacuum!” He runs to the hall closet for the vacuum cleaner.<
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  Within minutes, the tiny plastic Empire State Building and the big pieces of glass and the plastic base are in Gavin’s trash can hidden under some wadded-up paper towels and the rest of the glass is inside the vacuum cleaner. The only telltale sign that something has happened is the slightly darkened spot on Danielle’s bedroom rug next to the dresser.

  Richard breathes a big sigh of relief. Gavin steps out of the room, then quickly steps back into the room to see what can be noticed at first glance. How fast do his eyes go to the wet spot? he wonders. They go to it pretty fast. Maybe because he already knows it’s there?

  They tiptoe down the stairs. He doesn’t know why they’re tiptoeing. They go out the front door and sit down on the top porch step to wait—for whatever’s going to happen.

  “Maybe I better go home,” Richard says.

  “No,” Gavin insists. “You’re in this with me. Just wait. As soon as my mom gets back home, I’ll ask if we can go to the park. Then we can be gone when Danielle gets home.”

  Ignoring that, Richard says, “What will your sister do”—he swallows—“if she finds out we went into her room?”

  “You mean what will she do if she finds out we went into her room, stole her candy, and broke her snow globe from her one-time trip to New York?”

  “Yeah,” Richard agrees in a small voice, after a moment.

  “You don’t even want to know,” Gavin says. Then it’s his turn to swallow with fear.

  The Meyerses’ front door opens then, and Danielle steps out.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” Gavin says. Apparently Mrs. Myers came back from her supermarket trip sooner than he thought. She stands in the doorway with Luna, her two-year-old, on her hip. She waves Luna’s hand at Danielle. Danielle calls out to Luna, “Adieu, ma chérie! Bisous!” The two-year-old waves back. Danielle’s taking French this year, and Gavin has to hear this kind of stuff all the time. Her French is driving him crazy.

  Danielle skips across the street and stops in front of Gavin and Richard. She looks down at them with a tiny smirk. “What are you two up to?”

  “Nothing,” Gavin says, looking past her. “We’re just sitting here.”

  She frowns and then squints. “I’m picking up a funny vibe. What’s going on?” She looks at Richard. Richard looks down.

  Danielle makes a sound of blowing air through her lips. She steps past them, and Gavin hears the door close behind him. He holds his breath to see if he can hear her running up the stairs to her room. Gavin looks over at Richard. “Where was the snow globe before you threw it at me?”

  “It was on her nightstand,” Richard says.

  Gavin’s heart sinks. “Shoot. She’s going to know it’s gone right off.”

  They both sit very quietly, listening.

  As if on cue, Danielle’s voice starts low, then builds up like an ambulance siren. “I don’t believe it! I don’t BELIEVE it!”

  Why does Gavin’s mother have to pull into the driveway just then? Before she can even get out of the car, the boys hear Danielle taking the stairs three at a time. She comes barreling out the front door, then leaps off the porch to stand right in front of Richard and Gavin with her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t BELIEVE it!”

  “Believe what?” Gavin asks. He keeps swallowing as he widens his eyes to look as innocent as possible.

  “Yes, believe what?” Gavin’s mom says. She’s gotten out of the car and is coming up the walkway toward the three of them, a shopping bag in her hand.

  It’s as if Danielle has not even heard their mother. She doesn’t take her eyes off Gavin. “WHERE’S MY SNOW GLOBE?”

  Gavin’s mouth falls open with dread. “It was an accident,” he finally manages to say.

  “What happened? And you’d better tell me the truth!”

  “Danielle, please keep it down,” their mother says.

  Gavin stays silent and looks to his mother for help.

  “He’s always messing with my stuff, Mom! I tell him to stay out of my room, and he goes in it anyway.” She turns her angry, pinched face back to Gavin. “What were you doing in my room, Bozo? Did you take this clown into my room too?” She tosses her head toward Richard, and Richard leans back. Gavin sees him gulp.

  “No name-calling, Danielle,” their mother says calmly. “Let’s go in the house.” She turns to Richard. “Richard, I think it’s time for you to go home.”

  Danielle immediately protests. “He needs to explain himself first. I know he had something to do with it, and he needs to stay here and explain himself!”

  Gavin looks over at Richard again. He’s lost all his toughness. He looks petrified.

  “Let’s get this straightened out in the house.” Something in their mother’s voice tells them she isn’t going to say it again. She sighs. “Come on in, Richard.”

  Once inside, they all stand in the entry hall while Gavin’s mother taps gently on his dad’s office door. Gavin’s dad steps out and looks from one to the other. “What do we have here?”

  Danielle elbows Gavin hard and scrunches her face at him. “Tell him, Gavmeister!”

  “Let’s go in the dining room,” Gavin’s mother says. She leads the way. When they’ve all taken a seat, Gavin’s dad says, “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  Danielle doesn’t wait for Gavin to explain. “Dad, I’m all the time telling this guy to stay out of my room. And he totally disrespects my space and—”

  Gavin’s dad turns to Richard. “How do you figure into this?”

  “Me?” Richard’s eyes widen. He looks to Gavin.

  Gavin looks down and mumbles, “I told Richard that Danielle keeps some candy under her bed. And I asked him if he wanted a piece. He said, ‘Yeah,’ so we went in there just to get one piece each, and—”

  “Did you ask Danielle?” Richard’s father asks.

  “I couldn’t, because Danielle was across the street.” Gavin looks to Richard, and Richard nods his head.

  “So you thought it was okay to just go in there and take some candy anyway.”

  Danielle looks from Gavin to Richard and gives them a smile that looks more like a sneer.

  “I’m really disappointed in you, Gavin. First, you set out to do something wrong, and then you involved your company.”

  Richard looks down as if he’s an innocent victim of Gavin’s as well.

  “But, Dad . . . it wasn’t like that. Anyway, Richard was the one who messed with Danielle’s snow globe. He’s the one who threw it at me.”

  Richard pipes up with, “But I said, ‘Catch,’ and you should have caught it. Then it wouldn’t have broken.”

  “I think we’ve heard enough, Gavin,” his mother says. She turns to Richard. “Richard, you may go home now.”

  “And I didn’t even throw it hard,” Richard adds as he gets up and starts for the door, looking very relieved. He doesn’t even glance back.

  “See, Mom? And Dad? See how he’s always disrespecting my space? I think he needs to be put on punishment. It’s only fair.”

  Gavin looks down at his hands, waiting for the verdict. He listens to the front door close. Now he’s on his own.

  “I’m going to think about this,” his mother says.

  “There will be a punishment,” his father says. “You can count on that.”

  Danielle raises her chin in triumph. She smiles at him. One of her snarly smiles.

  “You can be sure we’ll come up with something,” his father says. “Something appropriate.”

  “Right now I have things to do. Your great-aunt Myrtle and uncle Vestor are coming over for dinner tomorrow.”

  Oh, no, Gavin thinks. It can’t get any worse than Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Vestor coming to dinner. He has a feeling his troubles are just beginning.

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  About the Author

  KAREN ENGLISH has been an elementary school teacher in urban neighborhoods fo
r many years, and she wrote these books with her students in mind. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

  About the Illustrator

  LAURA FREEMAN has illustrated many books for children. Her drawings for this book were inspired by her own childhood. Laura lives with her husband and two children in Dunwoody, Georgia.