I wasn't going to publish this until I had the whole story finished, 'cause it's gonna be slow going, but I decided to publish the first chapter of this for Christmas. Merry Christmas, and enjoy the story! :)

As I stepped out into the hot sunlight from the winter-fresh air-conditioning of the candy lab, I had only two things on my mind: Nutterbutter Newman, and a ride home. I was wishing I could make candy like Nutterbutter Newman, but I guess my own candy-making skills aren't so bad. I'd just made a rainbow lollypop, one of those jumbo ones. I wish it was bigger, because I hate most guys that eat lollypops that size, but I have to be content with what I have. My lolly was a lot sweeter than most guys like theirs, but I am a gumdrop, and most of my neighborhood can't get enough sweet stuff. Besides, I have a giant sweet tooth.

I had a long walk home to our Tootsie-Roll log cabin, and no company, but I usually lone it anyway, for no other reason than I like to have the whole store to myself. When I make candy with someone, it's uncomfortable, like having someone take a sip out of your drink. I'm different that way. I mean, my second-oldest brother, Soda, who's sixteen-going-on-seventeen, never minds other people watching him while he makes candy, and my oldest brother, Dairy, works too long and hard to care about a silly thing like that, so I'm not like them. And no one in our gang digs making sweets as much as I do. For a while there, I thought I was the only person in the world that did. So I loned it.

Soda tries to understand, at least, which is more than Dairy does. But then, Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything, almost. Like he's never hollering at me for always trying to make a new brand of candy, like Dairy does, or treats me as if I was weird because I'm a future chocolatier. I love Soda more than I've ever loved anybody or anything, even chocolate. He's always happy-go-Lucky Charms and grinning, while Dairy's hard and firm, like a fudge popsicle right after it comes out of the freezer, and rarely ever smiles. But then, Dairy's gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast. Sodapop'll never grow up at all. I don't know which way's the best. I'll find out one of these days.

Anyway, I went on walking home, thinking about the candy lab and all the sweet, delectable things inside, and then suddenly wishing I had some company. Gumdrops can't walk alone too much or they'll get jumped, or somebody will come by and scream, 'Gumdrop!' at them, which makes you feel like an ice cream cone that's just given up and melted in the sun. We get jumped by Airheads; the jet set, the rich West-side sourpatch kids. It's like the term "gumdrop," which is used to class all us boys on the East Side.

We're poorer than the Airheads and the middle class. I reckon we've got bigger cravings for sweet stuff, too. Not like the Airheads, who can eat just a cookie or two to satisfy their sweet tooth, or drink a milkshake and be fine with that, or get editorials in the paper for being in a sugar coma one day and a happy, healthy citizen the next. Gumdrops are almost like oompa-loompas; we make candy and eat it, and sing a group song every once in a while. I don't mean I do things like that. Dairy would kill me if I dressed up like an oompa-loompa and sang a song in the middle of the street, because, more likely than not, someone would end up thinking I was on a sugar high, and call the police. Since Mom and Dad were killed in the Great Coke Can Factory Explosion of 1967, the three of us only get to stay together as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble and sugar comas as much as we can, and we're careful not to get caught when we can't. I only mean that most gumdrops do things like that, just like we carry around sharpened pieces of peanut brittle and get on sugar highs, and hate health food. I'm not saying that either Airheads or gumdrops are better; that's just the way things are.

I could have waited to go to the candy lab until Dairy or Soda got off work. They would have gone with me, or driven me there, or walked along, although Soda gets hyper just by looking at all the candy in sweet shops, and they bore Dairy to death. Dairy thinks his life is enough without improving it by getting on a sugar high. Or I could've gotten one of the gang to come along, one of the four boys Dairy and Soda and I have grown up with and consider family. We're almost as close as brothers (actually, I guess you could say we're closer than brothers, seeing as Dairy hates me); when you grow up in a tight-knit, sweets-loving neighborhood like ours, you get to know each other real well. If I had thought about it, I could have called Dairy and he would have come by on his way home and picked me up, or Deep-Fried Twinkie – one of our gang – would have come to get me in his Cheeto if I had asked him, but sometimes I just don't use my head. It drives my brother Dairy nutter-butters when I do stuff like that, 'cause I'm supposed to be smart; I make the best candy in our class at school, and whenever the teachers hand out treats for class participation, I always get the most, but I don't use my head. Besides, I like walking.

I about decided I didn't like it so much, though, when I spotted that creamy-colored Carmel trailing me. I was almost two blocks from home then, so I started walking a little faster. I had never been jumped before, but I had seen Johnny after four Airheads got hold of him, and it wasn't chocolaty. Johnny was scared of any sort of dental stuff after that. Johnny was sixteen then.

I knew it wasn't any use though – the fast walking, I mean – even before the Carmel pulled up beside me and five Airheads got out. I was scared stiff, as stiff as taffy that's been setting in the cold too long and won't stretch anymore. I'm pretty small for fourteen even though I have a good build (despite all the candy I eat), and those guys were bigger than me. I immediately hitched my thumbs in my jeans and slouched, like taffy that's been in the sun too long and is too stretchy and floppy. I wondered if I could get away if I made a break for it. I remembered Johnny, his teeth all white and clean, and I remembered how he had cried when we found him, with newly-installed braces, in the Chocolate Square. Johnny's mom was a dentist, so he had it awful healthy at home – it took a lot to make him cry.

I was sweating like the outside of an ice-cold Pepsi on a hot day. I could feel my palms getting clammy and the perspiration running down my back. I get like that when I'm real scared – or when I've gone too long without sugar. I glanced around for an empty pop bottle or a licorice whip or something – Steve Skittles, Soda's best buddy, had once held off four guys with a busted pop bottle – but there was nothing. So I stood there like a bump on a Tootsie-Roll log while they surrounded me. I don't use my head. They walked around slowly, silently, smiling.

"Hey, gummy," one said in an over-sweet voice, like chocolate pudding that someone's added too much sugar to. "We're gonna do you a favor, gummy. We're gonna clean all those gum-chewing, cavity-filled teeth."

He had on a marmalade shirt. I can still see it. Blueberry marmalade. One of them laughed, then muttered something about dentists in a low voice. I couldn't think of anything to say. There just isn't a whole lot you can say while waiting to get your teeth brushed, so I just kept my mouth shut.

"Need a cleaning, gummy?" The medium-sized blond pulled a toothbrush and a bottle of Listerine out of his back pocket and took the cap off the Listerine.

I finally thought of something to say. "No." I was backing up, away from that toothbrush – it was probably used! Of course I backed right into one of them. They had me down in a second. They had my arms and legs pinned down, and one of them was sitting on my chest with his knees on my elbows, and if you don't think that hurts you're crazy. I could smell bacon-scented shaving lotion and stale toast, and I wondered foolishly if I would suffocate before they did anything. I was scared so bad I was wishing I would. I fought to get loose, and I almost did for a second; then they tightened up on me and the one on my chest splashed some Listerine in my face – it was the spearmint kind, and it burned bad. So I lay still, gasping. A string of floss was held against my gums.

"How'd you like that dental work to begin on the lower right bicuspid?"

It occurred to me that they really could clean my teeth. I went wild. I started screaming for Soda, Dairy, anyone. Someone put his hand over my mouth, and I bit it as hard as I could. I heard a muttered, "Fiddlesticks!" and got splashed again, and they were stuffing a toothpaste-covered toothbrush in my mouth. One of them kept saying, "Shut him up, for Pineapple's sake, shut him up!"

Then there were shouts and the pounding of feet, and the Airheads jumped up and left me lying there, gasping and spitting out toothpaste. I lay there wondering what in the world was happening – people were jumping over me and running by me and I was too dazed to figure it out. Then someone had me under the armpits and was hauling me to my feet. It was Dairy.

"Are you alright, Peanutbutter?"

He was shaking me as hard as you shake a milkshake when it just won't blend together, and I wished he'd stop. I was dizzy enough anyway. I could tell it was Dairy though – partly because of the voice and partly because Dairy's always rough, like Rocky Road ice cream, without meaning to be.

"I'm okay. Quit shaking me, Dairy, I'm okay."

He stopped instantly. "I'm sorry."

He wasn't really. Dairy isn't ever sorry for anything he does. It seems funny to me that he should look just exactly like my fun, chocolate-loving father and act exactly the opposite from him. My father was only forty when he died and he looked twenty-five and lot of people thought Dairy and Dad were brothers instead of father and son. But they only looked alike – my father was never rough with anyone without meaning to be.

Dairy is six-feet-two, and broad-shouldered and muscular. He has dark brown hair that kicks out in the front and a slight chocolate-milk-cowlick in the back – just like Dad's – but Dairy's eyes are his own. Meaning he didn't steal them from anybody. (Hard to believe, right?) He's got eyes that are like two ice cubes. They've got a hard, determined set to them (like rock candy), like the rest of him. He looks older than twenty – tough, like beef jerky, cool, like a popsicle, and smart, like those little Smarties candies. He would be real handsome if his eyes weren't so much like ice cubes. He doesn't understand anything that is not plain, hard fact. But he uses his head.

I sat down again, wiping my face where I'd been splashed the most.

Dairy jammed his fists in his pockets. "They didn't clean your teeth too much, did they?"

They did. My mouth was minty-fresh with the awful taste of Listerine, and I was still spitting out toothpaste and I was so nervous my hands were shaking and I wanted to start bawling, but you just don't say that to Dairy.

"I'm okay."

Sodapop came loping back. By then I had figured out that all the noise I heard was the gang coming to rescue me from the evil Airheads. He dropped down beside me, examining my teeth.

"You got a little dental work done, huh, Peanutbutter?"

I nodded, looking away.

"And you got cut–"

"I did?"

He pulled out a handkerchief, wet the end of it with his tongue, and pressed it gently against the side of my head. "Your head. And you're frothing like a rabid pig! Whatever you do, don't swallow the toothpaste. Did they pull a string of floss on you?"

I remembered the voice: "Need a cleaning, gummy?" The floss must've slipped while they were trying to shut me up. "Yeah."

Soda is handsomer than anyone else I know. Not like Dairy – Soda's movie-star kind of handsome, the kind people stop on the street to watch go by. He's not as tall as Dairy, and he's a little slimmer, but he has a finely drawn, sensitive face (meaning no mud masks for him, or he'll break out into red splotches) that somehow manages to be reckless and thoughtful at the same time. He's got dark-gold hair that he combs back – long and silky and straight – and in the summer the sun bleaches it to a shining wheat-thins gold. His eyes are dark chocolate brown – lively, dancing, recklessly laughing eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing like a red-hot the next. He has Dad's eyes, but Soda is one of a kind. He can get sugar-high at a slumber party or a candy carnival without ever getting near sweets. In our neighborhood it's rare to find a kid that doesn't get on a sugar high once in a while. But Soda doesn't need to. He gets on a sugar high just on plain, unhealthy living. And he understands everybody.

He looked at my newly-cleaned teeth more closely. I looked away hurriedly, because, if you want to know the truth, I was starting to bawl. I knew I was as pale as white chocolate and I was shaking like someone on a sugar high.

Soda just put his hand on my shoulder. "Easy, Peanutbutter. They ain't gonna clean your teeth no more."

"I know," I said, but the ground began to blur and I felt hot chocolate tears running down my cheeks. I brushed them away impatiently. "I'm just a little spooked, that's all." I drew a quivering breath and quit crying. You just don't cry in front of Dairy. Not unless your teeth have been dramatically altered like Johnny's had been that day we found him in the chocolate square. Compared to Johnny, my teeth weren't clean at all.

Soda rubbed my hair "You're an okay kid, Peanut."

I had to grin at him – Soda can make you grin no matter what. I guess it's because he's always grinning so much himself. "You're crazy, Soda, out of your mind."

Dairy looked as if he'd like to knock our heads together. "You're both nutter-butters."

Soda merely cocked one eyebrow, a trick he'd picked up from Deep-Fried. "It seems to run in this dysfunctional family."

Dairy stared at him for a second, then cracked a grin. Sodapop isn't afraid of him like everyone else and enjoys teasing him. I'd just as soon tease a full-grown gummy bear; but for some reason, Dairy seems to like being teased by Soda.

Our gang had chased the Airheads to their Carmel and heaved rock candy at them. They came running towards us now – four lean, hard-as-peanut-brittle guys. They were all as tough as beef jerky and looked it. I had grown up with them, and they accepted me, even if I was younger, because I was Dairy and Soda's kid brother and kept my mouth cavitied up good.

Steve Skittles was seventeen, tall and lean, with thick, greasy-as-potato-chips-and-no-not-the-healthy-veggie-ones-either hair he kept combed back in complicated swirls. He was cocky, smart, and Soda's best buddy since grade school. Steve's specialty was machines. He could lift a hubcap for a peppermint wheel quicker and more quietly than anyone in the neighborhood, but he also knew machines upside-down and backwards, and he could operate anything. He and Soda worked at the same factory – Steve part time and Soda full time – and their store got more customers than any other in town. Whether that was because Steve was so good working the machines to make the plastic cups or because Soda attracts girls like honey draws flies, I couldn't tell you. I only liked Steve because he was Soda's best friend. He didn't like me – he thought I was a tagalong and a kid; Soda always took me with them if they weren't taking girls, and that bugged Steve. It wasn't my fault; Soda always asked me, I didn't ask him. (I begged.) Soda doesn't think I'm a kid.

Deep-Fried Twinkie was the oldest of the gang and the nutcracker of the bunch. He was about six feet tall, stocky in build, and very proud of his long coffee-colored sideburns. He had gray eyes and a wide grin, and he loved all things deep-fried. Hence his name. Even his teachers forgot his real name was Two-Bit, and we hardly remembered he had one. Life was one sugary joke to Deep-Fried. He was famous for shoplifting and his chocolate-covered peanut brittlestick (which he couldn't have acquired without his first talent), and he was always smarting off to the coppers. He really couldn't help it. Everything he said was so irresistibly funny that he just had to let the police in on it to brighten up their dull lives. (That's the way he explained it to me.) He liked food fights, blondies, and for some unfathomable reason, school. He was still a junior mint at eighteen and a half and he never learned anything. He just went for kix. I liked him real well because he kept us laughing at ourselves as well as at other things. He reminded me of Wet-Walnut Rogers – maybe it was the love of everything greasy.

If I had to pick the real character of the gang, it would be Dallas Donut – Dally. I used to like to draw his picture in icing when he was in a dangerous mood, for then I could get his personality down to a few lines. He had a Keebler-elfish face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, small, sharp animal cracker teeth, and ears like a lynx. His hair was almost white it was so blonde, and he didn't like haircuts or canola hair oil either, so it fell over his forehead in wisps and kicked out in the back in tufts and curled behind his ears and along the nape of his neck. His eyes were the color of blueberry pie, but ice cream-cold with a hatred of the whole world. Dally had spent three years on the wild side of The Big Candied Apple and had been arrested at the age of ten. He was tougher than the rest of us – tougher, like extra-hard beef jerky; colder, like an ice cream bar; meaner, like…like…well, have you ever heard of a candy that was mean? Yeah, me neither.

In The Big Apple, Dally blew off steam in gang food fights, but here, organized gangs are rarities – there are just small bunches of friends who stick together, and the warfare is between the layers of the food pyramid. A food fight, when it's called, is usually born of a grudge fight, and the opponents just happen to bring their friends along. Oh, there are a few named gangs around, like the Listerine River Kings and the Tastycake Tigers, but here in the Southwest there's no gang rivalry. So Dally, even though he could get into a good food fight sometimes, had no specific thing to hate. No rival gang. Only Airheads. And you can't win against them no matter how hard you try, because they've got all the breaks and even a licorice whipping isn't going to change that. Maybe that was why Dallas was so bitter, like a lemon.

He had quite a reputation. They have a file on him down at the fluff station. He had been arrested, he stole ginger ale, he rode in rodeos, lied, cheated, got on sugar highs, jumped little kids for lollypops – he did everything. I didn't like him, but he was smart and you had to respect him.

Johnny Cake was the last and least. If you can picture a little dark chocolate puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you'll have Johnny. He was the youngest, next to me, smaller than the rest, with a slight build. He had big black eyes – as black as black licorice – in a dark tanned face; his hair was as black as his eyes and heavily greased and combed to the side, but it was so long that it fell in shaggy bangs across his forehead. He had a nervous, suspicious look in those black licorice eyes, and that dental work he got from the Airheads didn't help matters. He was the gang's pet, everyone's kid brother. His father was always beating him up, and his mother ignored him, except when she was hacked off at something, and then you could hear her yelling at him clear down at our Tootsie Roll cabin. I think he hated that worse than getting whipped with a licorice whip. He would have run away a million times if we hadn't been there. If it hadn't been for the gang, Johnny never would have known what love, affection, and chocolatey goodness are.

I wiped my eyes hurriedly. "Didya catch 'em?"

"Nup. They got away this time, the dirty…" Deep-Fried went on cheerfully, calling the Airheads every healthy name he could think of or make up.

"The kid's okay?"

"I'm okay." I tried to think of something to say. I'm usually pretty quiet around people, even the gang. I changed the subject. "I didn't know you were out of the freezer yet, Dally."

"Pretended to have healthy behavior. Got off early." Dallas covered a dipstick in sugar and handed it to Johnny. Everyone sat down to have a dipstick and relax. A dipstick always lessens the tension. I had quit trembling like someone on a sugar high and my color was back, so I wasn't pasty like white chocolate anymore. The dipstick was calming me down. Deep-Fried cocked an eyebrow.

"Nice lookin' burn you got there, kid."

I touched my cheek gingerly. The Listerine must've left a mark. "Really?"

Deep-Fried nodded sagely. "Nice cut, too. Makes you look tough."

Tough and tuff are two different words. Tough is the same as rough (like Rocky Road ice cream); tuff means cool, like winter-mint – like a tuff-looking M&M, or a tuff record. In our neighborhood both are compliments.

Steve flicked some of his dipstick's sugar at me. "What were you doin', walkin' by your lonesome?" Leave it to good old Steve to bring up something like that.

"I was comin' home from the candy lab. I didn't think–"

"You don't ever think," Dairy broke in, "not at home or anywhere it counts. You must think at school, with all those good candies you bring home, and you've always got your nose in something chocolaty, but do you ever use your head for common sense? No sirree, bub. And if you did have to go by yourself, you should have carried a brittlestick."

I just stared at the hole in the toe of my Twizzler shoe. Me and Dairy just didn't dig each other. I could never please him. He would have hollered at me for carrying a brittlestick if I had carried one. If I brought home grade-B chocolate, he wanted grade-A, and if I made grade-A chocolate, he wanted to make sure it stayed grade-A. If I was playing popcornball, I should be practicing making candy for school, and if I was making candy, I should be out playing popcornball. He never hollered at Sodapop – not even when Soda dropped out of school or got tickets for speeding. He just hollered at me.

Soda was glaring at him. "Leave my kid brother alone, you hear? It ain't his fault he likes to make candy, and it ain't his fault the Airheads like to jump us, and if he had been carrying a brittlestick it would have been a good excuse to brush his teeth down to nothing."

Dairy said impatiently, "When I want my kid brother to tell me what to do with my other kid brother, I'll ask you – kid brother." But he laid off me. He always does when Sodapop tells him to. Most of the time.

"Next time get one of us to go with you, Peanutbutter," Deep-Fried said. "Any of us will."

"Speakin' of sweets–" Dally yawned, flipping away his dipstick – "I'm walkin over to the Double Dip tomorrow night. Anybody want to come and hunt some action?"

Steve shook his head. "Me and Soda are pickin' up Evie and Candy for the game."

He didn't need to look at me the way he did right then. I wasn't going to ask if I could come. I'd never tell Soda, because he really likes Steve a lot, but sometimes I can't stand Steve Skittles. I mean it. Sometimes I hate him.

Dairy sighed, just like I knew he would. Dairy never had time to do anything anymore. "I'm working tomorrow night."

Dally looked at the rest of us. "How 'bout ya'll? Deep-Fried? Johnnycake, you and Peanut wanta come?"

"Me and Johnny'll come," I said. I knew Johnny wouldn't open his mouth unless he was forced to. "Okay, Dairy?"

"Yeah, since it ain't a school night." Dairy was real good about letting me go places on the weekends. On school nights I could hardly leave the house.

"I was plannin' on havin' a ginger ale party tomorrow night," Deep-Fried said. "If I don't, I'll walk over and find ya'll."

Steve was looking at Dally's hand. His ring pop, which he had jumped a senior on a sugar high to get, was back on his finger. "You break up with Sylvia again?"

"Sugar Baby? Yeah, and this time it's for good. That little broad was goin' on a diet again while I was in jail. I don't dig vegetarians."

I thought of Sylvia Snickers and Evie Allspice and Candy Bar and Kathy Carmel, Deep-Fried's girl. They were the only kind of girls that would look at us, I thought. Tough, loud girls who wore too much eye makeup and giggled and talked healthy too much. I liked Soda's girl Candy just fine, though. Her hair was natural blond and her laugh was soft, like her blueberry pie-colored eyes. She didn't have a real good home or anything, just a gingerbread house, and was our kind – gummy – but she was a real nice girl. Still, lots of times I wondered what other girls were like. The girls who were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and acted as if they'd spit on us if given a chance. Some were afraid of us, and remembering Dallas Donut, I didn't blame them. But most looked at us like we were health food – gave us the same kind of look that the Airheads did when they came by in their M&M's and Caramels and yelled "Gum!" at us. I wondered about them. The girls, I mean…Did they cry when their boys were arrested, like Evie did when Steve got hauled in, or did they become vegetarian to forget their troubles the way Sylvia did Dallas? But maybe their boys didn't get arrested or get dental stuff done.

I was still thinking about it while I was doing my homework that night. I had to read Grilled Steakspectations for English, and that kid, Pickle, he reminded me of us – the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn't a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him. That happened to me once. One time in biology I had to dissect a gummy worm, and the hardened shard of sugar wouldn't cut, so I used my brittlestick. The minute I flicked it out – I forgot what I was doing, or I never would have done it – this girl right beside me kind of gasped, and said, "They are right. You are an oompa-loompa." That made me feel like a Pepsi gone flat. There were a lot of Airheads in that class – I get put in the A classes because I'm supposed to be smart – and most of them thought it was pretty funny. I didn't, though. She was a cute girl. She looked real good in lemon sherbet-yellow.

We deserve a lot of our trouble, I thought. Dallas deserves everything he gets, and should get worse, if you want the truth. And Deep-Fried – he really doesn't want or need half the things he swipes from stores. He just thinks it's fun to swipe everything that isn't nailed down. I can understand why Soda and Steve get into drag races and food fights, though – both of them have too much energy, too much feeling, with no way to blow it off.

"Rub harder, Soda," I heard Dairy mumbling. "You're gonna put me to sleep."

I looked through the door. Sodapop was giving Dairy a back-rub. Dairy is always pulling muscles; he builds gingerbread houses and is always trying to carry more than one packet of icing at once. I knew Soda would put him to sleep, because Soda can put about anyone out when he sets his head to it. He thought Dairy worked too hard anyway. I did, too.

Dairy didn't deserve to work like an old man when he was only twenty. He had been a real popular guy in school; he was captain of the popcornball team and he had been voted Flavor of the Year. But we just didn't have the money for him to go to a confectionary, even with the athletic scholarship he won. And now he didn't have time between jobs to even think about confectionaries. So he never went anywhere and never did anything anymore, except work out at Slim Jim's and go to the donut factory to get a full-body glaze with some old friends of his sometimes.

I rubbed my cheek where it'd been burned. I had looked in the mirror, and it did make me look tough, though it wasn't anything serious. But Dairy had made me put a stick of taffy on the cut.

I remembered how awful Johnny's teeth had looked after he got the braces put on. I had just as much right to use the streets as the Airheads did, and Johnny had never hurt them. Why did the Airheads hate us so much? We left them alone. I nearly went to sleep over my homework trying to figure it out.

Sodapop, who had jumped into bed by this time, yelled sleepily for me to me to turn off the light and get to bed. When I finished the chapter I was on, I did.

Lying beside Soda, staring at the Tootsie-Roll wall, I kept remembering the faces of the Airheads as they surrounded me, that blueberry marmalade shirt the blond was wearing, and I could still hear a thick voice: "Need a cleaning gummy?" I shivered.

"You cold, Peanutbutter?"

"A little," I lied. Soda threw one arm across my neck. He mumbled something drowsily. "Listen, kit-kat, when Dairy hollers at you…he don't mean nothin'. He's just got more worries than somebody his age ought to. Don't take him serious…you dig, Peanut? Don't let him bug you. He's really proud of you 'cause you're so good at making candy…it's just because you're the Baby Ruth. I mean he loves you a lot. Smooth?"

"Like peanut butter," I said, trying for Soda's sake to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

"Soda?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you dropped out?" I never have gotten over that. I could hardly stand it when he left school.

"'Cause I'm a dum-dum. The only things I was passing anyway were candy wrapping and Slim Jim's PE class."

"You're not a dum-dum."

"Yeah, I am. Shut up and I'll tell you something. Don't tell Dairy, though."

"Okay…" I said.

"I think I'm gonna marry Candy. After she gets out of school and I get a better job and everything. I might wait till you get out of school, though. So I can help Dairy with the bills and stuff."

"Tuff enough. Wait till I get out, though, so you can keep Dairy off my back."

"Don't be like that, kit-kat. I told you he don't mean half of what he says…"

"You in love with Candy? What's it like?"

He sighed happily. "It's real sweet."

In a moment his breathing was light and regular. I turned my head to look at him and in the moonlight, he looked like some angelic candy-maker come to earth. I wondered how he could stand being so handsome. Then I sighed. I didn't quite get what he meant about Dairy. Dairy thought I was just another mouth to put candy in and somebody to holler at. Dairy love me? I thought of those ice cube eyes. Soda was wrong for once, I thought. Dairy doesn't love anyone or anything, except maybe Soda and grade-A chocolate. I didn't hardly think of him as being human. I don't care, I lied to myself. I don't care about him either. Soda's enough and I'd have him until I got out of school and into a confectionary. I don't care about Dairy. But I was still lying and I knew it. I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.

Ta-da! There it is. Some of the lingo is weird, so if you don't understand something, PM me and I'll try to clear it up for ya. :)