Free Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli Page A

like, Huh? We hung around for a couple minutes to make sure he wasn’t coming back out. As we coasted up the street we started talking.
    “He’s lying,” said Bump.
    We all agreed.
    “Unbelievable,” said Nacho. Because goobers don’t lie.
    “And he acted like he didn’t hear you the first time,” said Burke, “but he did. So that’s like a lie too.”
    We pedaled for a while, trying to make sense of it. I figured I might as well ask the obvious question. “So why’s he lying?”
    We came up with lots of theories:
    His father is in the mob and they’re in witness protection.
    His mother is a shoplifter and they were kicked out of Indiana.
    His parents lost their jobs and had to move.
    Soop has allergies (most goobers have allergies) and Indiana was bad for his health.
    Soop is a firebug and they had to get out before he was caught.
    They lost their house in a flood.
    Or an earthquake.
    Or termites.
    Soop is a shoplifter.
    We stopped to pick up hoagies and went to the hideout and kept making theories. Most of them were just silly and we didn’t believe them ourselves. We were mostly just laughing and scratching our heads over the whole thing, but then I started to notice something. The longer the list of theories got, the more it bothered us that we didn’t know the real answer. Then Burke said something. It seems pretty innocent, even now when I think of it and write it down. He said, “It was just a simplequestion.” That’s all. “It was just a simple question.” But now that I look back on it, and I remember his face as he said it and the sharp edge in his voice, I think maybe that was the moment things turned in a different direction. Because then the guys started saying stuff like:
    “Yeah, a simple question. ‘Why did you move here?’”
    “So why can’t he answer? Don’t we deserve an answer?”
    “He didn’t have to go in and do something for his mother. He made that up.”
    “He lied.”
    “We come over every day. We keep him company. Look what he does.”
    “He lies to us.”
    By the time we were done saying all this, something had changed. Soop was still funny, but funny wasn’t the only thing he was. Something else was in there too, I wasn’t sure what. Then Bump said, “He didn’t just lie. He lied to the Death Rays.”
    There it was. It was like the last skinny sunbeam went behind a cloud and the sky was darkand getting darker and you knew you better pedal for home before you got wet.
    And then Bump rolled his hoagie paper into a ball and threw it across the hideout and said, “He’s gonna pay.”

Lily
    “I ’m getting scared,” I told Poppy.
    We were in his kitchen. He was making me a PB&J sandwich. Without the J. He forgot to get jelly. There are lots of things his house doesn’t have yet.
    So he said, “This about your brother by any chance?”
    I told him it was.
    He handed me the sandwich. “Milk?”
    “Yes, please,” I said. “Do you have chocolate syrup by any chance?”
    “Sorry,” he said. “So—it seems like you were mad at first. Then sad.” He gave me a glass of milk. “Now you’re scared?”
    I stared at my lunch. “Yeah.”
    “How so?”
    “We’re writing our journals, you know? Like you said?”
    “Right. Good.”
    “Well, we always kind of knew what the other one was writing. But now I don’t know. I, like, try to tune in to him. But I can’t.”
    “Eat your sandwich.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “I’m not going to talk to you unless you eat.”
    I took a bite. “Talk.”
    “So why does that scare you?”
    “Because it means I’m losing him.”
    He chuckled. “You’re not losing him.”
    “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”
    He came over to my chair, lifted me off, sat down, and plunked me onto his lap. “I don’t think it’s funny. I just think you’re wrong, that’s all. You’re never going to lose him. He’ll always be your brother. This is just a phase.”
    I pounded the table. “Phase, my hiney. It’s bad