“Keme,” Indira said.
“I’m still in the queue.”The only hint of Keme’s concern was the tightening of his voice.“They’re going to put me in a game!”
“I think it’s more important to spend time with your friends in real life,” Indira said.It was a bit of a pronouncement, actually, and the tone sounded eerily similar to a comment she’d made at Christmas aboutthe spirit of the season.When Keme and I had not fully engaged in the spirit of the season, the Xbox’s power cord had disappeared for two weeks.
Keme must have had a similar thought because he was silent for several seconds before saying, “Fine.What do I have to do?”
“You don’thaveto do anything,” I said.“Yougetto do fun, awesome things outside in beautiful weather and spend time with your friends.Here, I’ll show you.First, we’ve got cornhole—”
A beanbag whizzed through the air, and I barely managed to scramble out of its path.
Bouncing another beanbag in one hand, Keme looked at me.
“Ha ha,” I said.“But the point of the game is to get the beanbag—ah!”
This time, I wasn’t fast enough, and the beanbag caught me in the shoulder.
“This is pretty fun,” Keme said as he picked up another beanbag.
From under their cape, Fox asked, “Do we all get a turn?”
“I’ll take that,” Bobby said, plucking the beanbag from Keme.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my shoulder.“Fine.Message received.We’re not going to play cornhole.Because certain people aren’t able to act like adults and—”
“Dash,” Bobby said.
I blew out a breath.“Over here,” I said, walking our little group across the lawn, “we’ve got the water-gun race.Now, see how there’s a cup on a string?The point of the game is to shoot a stream of water into the cup, and that will propel the cup along the string.The first person whose cup reaches the end of the string—”
Water filled my mouth, and I gargled the rest of the words.
Keme wasn’t smiling, not exactly.But as he pumped the water gun, he did look…evilly gleeful, if that’s a thing.
“You’re hilarious,” I said, wiping my chin, “but in case it wasn’t clear—”
“It was clear,” Keme said and shot me in the face.
I screamed.
And then I grabbed a water gun.
And then everybody grabbed guns (except Indira), and it was all-out war.
It’s impossible to explain the madness of combat to someone who hasn’t lived it.I remember it in bits and pieces that come back in the middle of the night: Keme strafing me as I dove for cover behind a hemlock; Fox spraying Bobby at point-blank range while Bobby tried to block the stream with his hands; the adrenaline rush of catching Keme unaware and blasting him in the ear.(My God, I wish you could have heard him scream.)
Everything was going—well,fineisn’t exactly right, but everybody was having fun—until Millie erupted from the woods like a guerrilla fighter.
I spun around.
Bobby shouted, “No!”
Indira stepped into my line of fire.She turned at the sound of Bobby’s voice.
And I shot her right in the eye.
Everyone froze.
And then, with a wild laugh, Indira grabbed one of the water guns, pumped it, and sprayed me.
