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  This is so beyond ridiculous. How did he even do this? Did he slip some Benadryl in my soda last night to really knock me out? He must have had help, too. Because it would take a few people to get all this done in a few short hours.

  He is so going down.

  I settle for yesterday’s jeans and a reasonably clean Pac Man T-shirt and crawl toward the exit, which could really use a neon flashing light just to spot it amid this mess. I hope my brother realizes that he is totally, completely responsible for cleaning this place. He’ll need about a hundred trash bags and a snow shovel.

  I roll out the door and head into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. Whew. If I never see another gumball in my life, it will be too soon. I can’t believe I was ever obsessed with those things. My mom used to say I was going to break my jaw from chewing so much.

  I glance at myself in the mirror as I climb into the shower. I have a big pink spot on my chin where the door slammed into it and blue and yellow streaks all over my arms from the gumballs. Very stylish.

  I take a long shower, totally ignoring the fact that I’ll probably be late for school. I can blame it on my brother if my mom notices. After I’m totally prunified and I’ve erased the rainbow smears all over my skin, I get dressed and go to find my brother.

  He’s sprawled out on the floor in the den, staring at the coffered ceiling, listening to his iPod. His eyes are droopy, like he’s barely awake, and he’s wearing camo pants with a ratty thermal shirt. He really is a slacker.

  He doesn’t notice my approach. I don’t say a word, I just yank the earbuds out of his ear. His eyes snap open and he sits up, rubbing at his ear. “Ow! What was that for?” he asks, glaring at me.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know.” For good measure, I give him a little kick with my sock-clad foot. His hand darts out and he grabs my ankle and before I can get it back, he yanks and I end up on the ground next to him.

  “I don’t,” he says, moving to put his earbuds back in. “Go take a Midol.”

  I reach for the earbuds again and he stops. “Fine. I’ll play along. What did I do now? Scratch your Superbad DVD? Spit in your Cheerios?”

  I cross my arms and glare at him. Why couldn’t I have had a sister? A wise, helpful one? I can barely be in the same room with my brother without wanting to strangle him or at least take some tweezers to his unibrow. “One word: gumballs.”

  His look is totally blank. No satisfied smirk, no laughter, no twitchy eyes as he realizes I’ve figured it out. Hmm. This doesn’t really add up.

  “Argh! Fine, come with me,” I say, getting up and yanking on his T-shirt so hard it strangles him. He rubs at his neck and gives me another death glare, then sighs and gets off the floor. He knows just as well as my mom how stubborn I am, so he gives in easily.

  We ascend the stairs and head to my room. I’m only halfway there when I see the first few gumballs in the hallway. I step aside and Chase walks past me, and when he gets to the doorway, he bursts out laughing.

  I just stand there, glaring, as he continues to laugh, finally doubling over and holding his sides. He periodically glances up again, peering further into the room to see the candy, and that only sends him into more fits of laughter.

  “Best. Thing. Ever,” he finally gets out between breaths. Then he actually falls over, lying on the floor, still cackling.

  “It is not! It’s a disaster and you need to pick it all up!”

  He stops laughing, though the grin never leaves his face. “Hey, I didn’t do this. I’m not picking it up.”

  “Yes you did! I sure as heck didn’t do it.”

  He shrugs. “Someone did, and as much as I want to take credit for it, I can’t. It wasn’t me. I’m not even sure where one would find this many gumballs.”

  He sits up and leans into the doorway again to get another look, then nods vigorously.

  He has a point. And based on his expression, I almost believe him.

  Almost.

  “Whatever. I’m going to school. This better be gone by the time I get home. I know you’re probably really busy with feeding the homeless and rescuing distressed kittens from trees, but I expect you to pick it up.”

  He sits up and puts his hands up to stop me. “Dude, I am not touching this. I have better things to do.”

  “Fine. I’ll just tell Mom about that stash of magazines under your—”

  “Okay! Okay, say no more,” he says, waving his hands to stop me before I finish my sentence. God, does he think Mom has the place bugged?

  I grin and turn around, triumphant as I descend the stairs and head out the door. It’s a twenty-minute walk to school, and class starts in ten minutes.

  Normally I find the walk relaxing, especially when the weather is nice like it is today. It’s warm enough that I don’t need a jacket, just a reasonably thick hoodie. The cherry trees that line Marrymoor Lane, where I live, are half bare, their leaves scattered on the sidewalks, crunching beneath my feet as I head to school.

  But instead of enjoying the walk, I feel distracted and annoyed. I can’t stop the nagging feeling that something strange is happening.

  Because my brother never did ask me what I thought of his pink pony. Plus if the gumballs were from him, wouldn’t he sit outside my door and wait for the payoff? Why would he play those pranks if he didn’t even get to be there for his moment of glory?

  Something isn’t right here.

  8

  BY THE TIME school is over, I don’t feel like going home. It seems like the whole house is becoming a disaster zone, and if my brother isn’t done cleaning up the gumballs yet, I sure as heck don’t want to show up in time to help.

  Avoidance has always been my best coping mechanism. Why stop now?

  So I make a rash decision: I’m going to Ben’s motocross event tonight. It’s nothing huge, but it’s close enough that I can walk there in a half hour. I know if I go, I won’t think about anything the whole time he’s riding, and that is exactly what I need.

  I’m going to test for my license Friday. With a little luck, this will be the last time I have to walk all over town. Especially if I get to use my brother’s old Ford Ranger. So why not make the most of it and take a nice leisurely walk tonight?

  The event is held at a privately owned outdoor dirt track, one filled with giant jumps and ramps and crazy things that no sane person would launch themselves off of but that Ben handles with ease. There’s a set of stands about ten rows high and thirty or forty feet long, so it only holds a hundred spectators at best, and today it’ll be less than half full. Wednesday nights are the weekly expo night, a day for the riders to practice without paying massive entry fees or stressing the competition. Basically, they goof off, and people come out to watch.

  It’s warm for fall, and I stop at a gas station along the way and buy a Mountain Dew. It’ll go nicely with the Tupperware container filled with Nicole’s famous mint-chip brownies. True to her word, she baked a batch just for me to make up for missing most of my party. I’m still pretty ticked at her, but the brownies melted a little bit of my anger.

  I walk along the dirt shoulders of the country road, my snack in hand, feeling relaxed for the first time in days. It’s hard to be uptight when you’re walking along cattail-filled ditches, surrounded by big grassy fields filled with horses and cows, and the sun is shining, warm and bright, for what might be the last time this fall. I walk under a row of maples, the big orange leaves so thick on the ground they’re ankle deep.

  This was exactly what I needed—a night to get away from everyone and stop worrying about things.

  I weave my way between the cars in a grassy field that doubles as a parking lot, my black Converse sinking into the mud. The trucks in the field outnumber the cars at least three to one. I shouldn’t find it so amusing, but I do. In Enumclaw, trucks will always reign supreme.

  I make my way up the rickety wooden stands, picking my way between a handful of strangers, and find a place to sit where the white paint isn’t peeling
. Winters in the Pacific Northwest aren’t kind to structures like this, but on a sunny autumn day like today, I’d never want to live anywhere else.

  The riders have already started goofing around. A guy on a bright orange two-stroke launches off a big dirt jump and clears several riders who are sitting below him, their helmets on, talking.

  Ben is easy to spot: he has a bright-yellow bike and a blue helmet, plus a jersey with a black-and-royal-blue design on it. His number is 9, which has been my favorite number since the day I went to a race with Nicole.

  Nicole says the expo nights and Ben’s races are long and boring, loud and dirty. Ben doesn’t care if she goes, because it’s not like they get to talk any.

  It kind of kills me that they have so little in common. I’ve spent so much time avoiding being around both of them at the same time that I don’t really understand their relationship at all.

  I don’t even know if she loves him, like I do. And if she does love him, why isn’t she here?

  Although I recognize two people from school sitting in the front row, they don’t look at me or talk to me. Nicole will never know I was here, because she’d never show up and Ben’s wearing a helmet and riding by at a zillion miles per hour.

  Ben rights his bike and kick-starts it in one try. It revs to life, a deep rumble that gives away all of the after-market parts he’s painstakingly installed. I know, because he talks about it in math class. I feel like I know as much about his bike as he does. I wonder if Nicole knows he spent all of last weekend installing an extended swing arm.

  His boots are almost knee high, with a color pattern that matches the shirt and pants. He wears goggles over his big helmet, so I can’t even see his face.

  It doesn’t matter that no one else recognizes him. I know what he looks like underneath all that gear. I’ve memorized it.

  He takes off in a wheelie that lasts what must be a hundred feet, then drops the front wheel and shifts into a higher gear as the bank ahead of him looms closer. He rides around the half circle, going higher up the wall, until he’s nearly sideways on it and the only thing holding him to the dirt is speed and centripetal force. By the time he comes out of the curve, he’s hitting third gear and heading for a series of small bumps.

  He launches off the first one and sails over the next two without touching the ground, then lands and quickly guns the engine. The jump ahead of him is sharp and angled, and as he hits the crest, the bike flies into the air.

  Ben takes both his legs off the pegs and puts them on the same side of the bike—the right side—and does this crazy scissor walk. He manages to get his left leg back onto the correct side so he’s straddling the bike again just as he lands. His toned legs bend with each bump and jump.

  My heart is flying with him. I can’t believe he can do all this and not die of fright or the adrenaline rush. I wonder if he would ever let me ride his bike, ever show me what it’s like to be weightless for those precious seconds.

  He slows only slightly as he rounds another corner and heads for the next part of the course, three large hills in a row. One after another he hits them, sails into the air, lands and rides another twenty or thirty feet, and then launches again. Occasionally, he throws in a trick, turning the wheel or letting go with both hands midair.

  I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until my lungs start to scream for oxygen, and I have to take in a long, ragged gulp.

  I don’t know how Nicole could be bored by this.

  Ben hits another jump and turns his bike sideways for a minute—on purpose—and then turns it straight again just in time to land. The crowd screams and claps. I get to my feet with them and holler at the top of my lungs, clapping and whistling.

  Ben is one of the best racers in the area. He says he doesn’t want to get into the really intense circuits yet, but he definitely could. The first day of math class, I saw all these stickers on his binder, and I asked him about them. He said the local bike shop pretty much gives him any parts he wants so they can put their sticker on his bike and a patch on his shirt. I believe it. He’s that good.

  My cell rings, and I flip it open without thinking. “Hello?”

  “Hey Kayla,” Nicole says.

  My heart wrenches in my chest, landing somewhere in my feet. I totally forgot we were going to get together tonight to work on the cell diagram. If I left right now, I might be able to get home in time to meet her there. Maybe.

  “Hi,” I say. I put my hand over the mouthpiece. Can she hear the bikes in the background? Jeez, this is so shady.

  “My dentist appointment was short. Do you still want to come over?”

  “Dentist? I thought you said it was a doctor’s appointment.”

  She pauses. “Sure. But a dentist is a doctor. Just a different kind.”

  I scrunch my brow. I guess it makes sense. But it seems weird. “Oh. Well, I’m, uh, I’m kind of busy now. What about tomorrow?”

  Guilt seems to be swelling and building in my stomach. I put my hand back over the mouthpiece again as a bike rounds the corner and heads in my direction. I seem to hold my breath as the rider revs the engine.

  “What was that?”

  “The lawn mower,” I say quickly. Too quickly.

  “You’re mowing the lawn? Doesn’t your mom pay someone to do that?”

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Yeah, my mom says these landscaping guys aren’t keeping up. So . . . I got stuck with it. Can we work on the diagram tomorrow?” I ask again.

  “I can’t. We’ll have to do it this weekend or something.”

  I nod, then realize she can’t see me. “Oh, sure. See ya tomorrow at school.”

  And then I flip the phone shut just as another group of riders is flying by the stands.

  This is so . . . not right. I mean, if I’m hiding the sound of the bikes from Nicole, there’s something wrong with this picture. If I feel guilty, it’s because I’m one big liar, secretly coveting her boyfriend.

  I shouldn’t be here, watching the one guy I can never have. I mean, how long am I going to do this to myself? How long am I going to torture myself and watch him from afar and obsess over him, all the while hiding it from my best friend?

  I’m not in the mood to be here anymore.

  I have to stop this. I have to stop wanting to be with him. It’s stupid to put myself through it. Maybe I could do some kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind sort of thing. Maybe I could learn to just get over my crush and let Nicole be with him and just forget Ben Mackenzie even exists.

  This ends. Now.

  I get up from the stands and start to trek down them, carefully picking my way between the spectators. I’m only halfway to the bottom when everyone around me stands, and a rumble of laughter builds and surrounds me.

  For a second, I think I must have something mortifying stuck to my butt, and I try to wipe discreetly at my jeans.

  But then I realize they’re looking out at the track.

  And pointing.

  I look up, and my stomach drops to my knees.

  Uh-oh.

  It’s the pony. The pink freakin’ pony.

  9

  THE PONY is racing across the track, leaping and bucking and having the time of its life. It kicks its heels up and twists and then leaps into the air, all four legs so high off the ground I think it could have cleared a three-foot jump.

  My mouth goes dry.

  It scurries up one of the larger dirt jumps, its little hooves digging into the clay, and then stands and whinnies with its head held high, looking rather proud of itself as it stomps and digs at the top of the jump, like it’s king of the freakin’ mountain.

  Or queen, maybe. It is pink, after all. It prances around, its stubby little legs bouncing and dancing, merrily oblivious to the destruction it is causing to my poor, frail little heart.

  A bike revs loudly, and I tear my eyes away from the pony. A racer, obviously unaware that a ferociously pink miniature horse is already occupying the jump, is gunning the engi
ne of his big black bike, racing straight toward it.

  “Stop!” I screech, scrambling down the stands and leaping off the last one, then racing to the fence line. I tumble over the white-painted rails, crashing to the ground and landing in a puddle of mucky wet clay. It immediately seeps through my pants and sneakers. Ugh.

  I climb to my feet, my Converse reaching maximum saturation and soaking through to my socks. I race toward the jump, waving my hands, screaming at the top of my lungs. It’s probably hopeless—he’ll never hear me over the whine of his bike, and he’ll just smash right into the horse. Body parts will probably fly all over the place.

  By now, the racer is at the bottom of the jump. Just when I think it’s time to close my eyes and hope a miracle happens while I’m not looking, his helmet turns, just a bit, and I know he sees me. He slams the brakes and jerks the handlebars, sending the bike toward the edge of the dirt mound. He flies off the side of the jump, straight into a group of riders who are sitting in the middle of the track.

  He misses most of them but rams into the back tire of the last bike—Ben’s bike.

  The whole bike gets knocked over, Ben going with it, and the other rider falls to the ground in a heap.

  I stand there, in the middle of the track, the silence engulfing me as I stare. The crowd on the stands are still on their feet, watching the whole graceful display of awesome.

  Oops.

  The pony whinnies again, a ridiculously high-pitched, shrill little blast of a whinny. And then it scrambles down the hillside and lopes across the track, its bright pink mane and blue tail flapping happily in the breeze.

  It’s loping straight to me, like I’m its long-lost best friend. The peanut butter to its jelly.

  No, no, no. Not good.

  Stay away! I try to channel my thoughts to the pony, hoping, praying that it runs back to wherever it came from. But it bounds right over and skids to a stop, shoving its nose up against me and nibbling on my hoodie.

  There must be a hundred eyeballs on me right now.

  I’m afraid to look up—in any direction—because I don’t know what I’m going to say.