CHAPTER TWO

Breakfast that morning was brutal, even with my help. And Andrew was right—breakfast resembled a brick!

"What is this?" Cicily asked. "A rock?"

Tyler frowned. "Nooo…it's a waffle."

"Whatever," Jaime said. "As long as it's food and that's for me!" He started to drown his rock—brick—waffle!—in maple syrup. Our house is surrounded by maple trees, so we make our own syrup.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Andrew said once his plate was incredibly sticky. "Take it easy on the syrup, pally." Jaime didn't hear this, or, if he did, he didn't care.

Bailey and I were raiding the fridge, looking for the butter. "Has anyone seen the butter?"

"The what?" Andrew asked.

"The butter," Bailey said, finally speaking up. Then she spelled it in case he still hadn't heard. "B-U-T-T-E-R."

"I can spell," Tyler said. "H-O-B-O spells hillbilly."

Andrew and I groaned. When Tyler spells like that, you can't shut him up. "B-E-E-R spells whiskey," he continued. "And—"

"Shut up!" Jaime yelled. And he did.

Later I was in the bathroom, doing the girls' hair, when Andrew yelled/whispered, "Jaime Austin Brown! Not again!"

He knocked on the bathroom door but didn't wait and barged in. "That idiot," he yelled/whispered.

I was tying Bailey's hair up in a ponytail. "What?" I said in a normal tone.

"Shush!!" Andrew snapped in another yell/whisper.

"What?" I asked in a whisper.

"COPS!!" he yelled/whispered, looking frightened. "Three of them! And a dog! Oh, Jaime's going to pay this time…."

We had completely forgotten about the girls. Both of them almost screamed, until Andrew and I lunged and covered their mouths.

"Windows?" I mouthed, going over our checklist entitled "What to do in Case Jaime Brings Home Cops".

"Check," he mouthed back.

"Bags?"

"Check.

"Doors?"

This time he whispered instead of mouthed. "JAIME!!"

"Jaime?" I asked.

"It's his job!! And they have him!!"

"Shit!" I heard cops ramming against the door, trying to get it. Cicily was scared, Bailey was scared, Andrew was scared, I was scared! None of that, however, compared to how Jaime was.

"Come on!" Andrew said, moving his hands in a "shoo, shoo" motion.

"What with the hands?" Cicily asked as I had released my grip over her mouth. Andrew glared.

"Forget about his hands!" I said. "Let's just worry about saving our butts."

"I'm tired," she complained. "Can we do this later?"

"Nooo," Andrew said in his "snobby girl voice".

I looked at our possible exits. The only one we could use without being seen was the heating vent. I pulled off the grate.

"What are you doing?" Andrew asked.

"Well, do you want to sit here and get killed or crawl through this vent to freedom?"

We got on the toilet and hoisted the girls up. Then Andrew got in and helped me up. He grabbed my hand doing this. There was an awkward silence. But the girls seemed very excited.

"Is this anything like our trip to the zoo?" Cicily asked.

Our "trip to the zoo" wasn't really a trip at all. Once Tyler and I went outside to get some stuff to make syrup from. There was, like, a bunch of animals there. Seriously. There must have been at least 50. We went and got everyone. It was awesome, incredible.

"No," I finally replied.

"Not at all," Andrew said.

Suddenly something hit me: "Where's Tyler?" I knew we would have one less person, but I realized we only had four.

"On the roof," Andrew replied.

"On the what now?"

"He said he wanted to have fun with the cops, so I said he could go on the roof." Yeah, stupid. I know. I'm used to it.

Somehow our vent led to the chimney. You should try climbing that sometime. It gets exhausting. Plus, I think a spider crawled down my freaking shirt. We ended on the roof to our little cross dresser of a friend, Tyler.

"Tyler," I hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Having fun!" he said. "Watch." He pulled out his water gun—water blaster, rather—and sprayed a very bald cop on the head. We could see a drenched cop next to him, Jaime in front of them both. He tried not to laugh.

The two cops started to argue with one another.

"You! Bateman!" yelled fat bald cop. "Stop spraying me with that prank walkie talkie!"

"I ain't spraying you with it!" tall thin cop yelled, obviously an Oaky. "I'm standing in front of you'n!"

"Don't play dumb with me!"

"I ain't playin'!" When the fat cop rolled his eyes, the other one thought his answer over again. The two got into a fight. Jaime ran off, and we all jumped after him. We ran quite a distance, and could have sworn we had ditched them. But then we heard a call not far behind us…

"Stop!! THEIF!!"

"Crap," I heard Andrew yell. The girls slowed a little and me and Andrew whisked them up so that we were carrying them.

We finally ditched them after running two mules. We were inside a 7-11 store.

"God, Jaime," Andrew said. "What did you do?!"

"I robbed a few stores, maybe a bank or two. It's not the end of the frikkin' world."

"Well, yeah," I continued. "But it could be the end of our world!"

"Can we get some food?" Bailey asked.

"Yeah, I'm hungry!" Tyler said.

"Ladies first!" Cicily argued.

As they started fighting, people started staring. "Guys, I hate to rain on your parade," I said. "But we've got no money!"

"Oh, contraire, my little blonde friend," Jaime said, pulling out a huge wad of cash, and—I can't believe this—a credit card.

Sorry for slamming so much down your throats so quickly, but I had to get the action going ahead of time so that you guys wouldn't get too bored too quickly. So I hope you like!!

--Maddie Marie