"Do you ever miss dad, mom?"
She glances down at Jack, bemused. "I don't think about him much. I suppose that sometimes…" her eyes grow distant. "I miss what we could have been. A family." Sadness fills her face, then she blinks it away and smiles at Jack. "But I'm happy that it's just you and me. Your dad wasn't much of a man. It's better that he's gone."
He watches her hands as they shuffle the deck of cards over and over again. She sometimes does repetitive things like this when she's bored or nervous.
The bottom of the deck is facing him, and he watches the different cards as they appear: ace of hearts, four of spades, jack of diamonds, three of hearts, king of clubs, joker.
"Mom, what's the joker for?"
She glances down at the deck in mild surprise. "Is there a joker? I thought I'd taken both of them out." She removes the card and sets it aside, then resumes shuffling. "The joker is used in a lot of different ways. A lot of times it's a wild card. Sometimes it's the card that trumps all. In Old Maid it's to be avoided." She shrugs. "Most of the time it's removed from the deck. Since I'm playing solitaire…" With abrupt precision, she deals out the cards. "I take them out."
He grabs a deck of cards off the stack that his mother keeps on the corner of the coffee table. Quickly he shuffles, then goes through and removes the two Joker cards.
Curious, he examines them. They look like court jesters, which makes him wonder why they're called Jokers rather than Jesters. Probably something in the origin of card games? One has a fake red smile painted on. The other has blackened eyes. Both are wearing ridiculous hats.
He puts them in his pocket and deals for solitaire.
"Why don't you go hang out with your friends, Jack?" his mother asks, turning over a card.
"I don't have friends," he replies. "Just an audience."
She raises an eyebrow. "That's certainly one way to go through life."
He shrugs. "All the other kids ever want to talk about are girls and who's cheated on who and how boring their classes are. Small talk is dull. I'd rather have no friends than have shallow friends."
Her mouth twitches into a smile. "You can't just ignore them all your life."
He flips over a two of hearts and stacks it on the ace he'd found earlier. "Who says? I think I can, and I think I will. Normal people are boring."
"You need to find someone to balance you out." She pulls all her cards back into one stack. "That's the trick of life: balance. If you can do that, the rest falls into place. Now go outside," she says, brushing all his cards into a pile despite his protests. "You need fresh air. And who knows? Maybe you'll make a friend."
"Fine," he mutters.
He walks out and sits on the front porch. There's a group of kids his age walking down the street, laughing and whispering. Plotting.
"Jack!" calls one. "Come join us!"
"What for?"
"We're going to go prank old Mr. Freeman."
Jack's eyebrows pull together. "What, that grumpy man around the corner? Why?"
They all shrug. "Why not? It's summer, man. This is what summer's for, right? Come on!"
"I dunno…"
"Come on, dude, this is right up your alley. There's no harm in a bit of doorbell ditching!"
Jack glances back at his house, then jumps up and runs across the street. They laugh and clap him on the back, and he grins. "Okay, so, are we just doorbell ditching? Because that's sort of boring. Has anybody got some toilet paper?"
"I brought some!" squeals a girl.
"Good. I'll be in charge of the doorbell. I'll do it once. Then you guys toilet paper one of his trees or something. Then I'll do it again. Okay?"
They agree readily.
People are so simple, he thinks, running up to the door. So easy to order around. So easy to toy with.
He knocks loudly on Mr. Freeman's door and darts around the corner of the old man's house.
The window opens next to Jack. "I know you're there, Jack."
"Play along," Jack hisses.
"What're you going to do?"
"Scare them. You open the door, yell. I'm going to ditch your doorbell again in a minute. Leave the door slightly open and pretend to be dead."
The old man sniggers, then stomps to the door, throws it open, and yells, "Where are you, you stupid kids? I'm going to tell your parents about this! How dare you…" he breaks off into a hacking cough, and Jack sniggers. "Don't you come near my house again!"
The door slams shut, and the kids appear from behind the bushes and toilet paper a couple of his trees. Then they vanish.
Jack tiptoes out and rings the doorbell again, then scampers back to his hiding place. He waits for a long minute, then, when the door doesn't open, he creeps out and pushes the door open a little.
"Jack, what's going on?" calls someone.
Suddenly, Mr. Freeman grabs Jack by the collar and jerks him into the house. Jack slams the door shut behind him as the old man steps back, laughing.
"That'll scare the crap out of them," he says.
Jack laughs. "Even better than what I had in mind. But they're going to come investigate, so what should we do now?"
"Pretend to be dead."
"Both of us?"
"Sure. I think I've got some ketchup in the kitchen."
"Old man… I never quite know what to make of you."
Mr. Freeman just winks and limps away, leaning heavily on his cane.
As he's smearing ketchup his neck, Jack fishes the joker cards out of his pocket. Grinning, he shows them to Mr. Freeman. "We should stick these on our bodies. Just for kicks. It'll creep them out more."
The old man takes one and tucks it in his jacket pocket so it's sticking slightly out.
"Sometimes I get to thinking I'm too old for pranks," he says. "But then you come up to my door with that band of hooligans and I just can't stop myself."
Jack laughs and lies down on the floor. "Do I look dead?"
"Very," Mr. Freeman says, settling into his chair.
Not thirty seconds later, the door creaks open and one of the boys peeks in. When he sees Jack lying prone he screams and runs away. Jack bites the inside of his cheek and thinks 'dead puppies' over and over again as the rest of the kids crowd around and run away shrieking.
"I think they're gone," Mr. Freeman says after a few minutes of silence.
"You think they'll go to the police?"
"Certainly." The old man stands up and moves towards the kitchen. "Come on. Clean up, and I'll make tea."
"Don't forget to clean up yourself," Jack says with a laugh.
Exactly eight minutes and thirty-two seconds later, as Jack and Mr. Freeman settle down at the kitchen table with tea and biscuits, the door opens and a swarm of police flood in. Mr. Freeman sighs in exasperation and winks at Jack, who stifles a chuckle.
"We're in here," the old man calls.
The chief of police pokes his head in. "We'd been informed you were dead."
"Well, well, well. Either hell is unexpectedly like earth or somebody has been fabricating stories," Mr. Freeman says, adjusting the card that's still in his jacket pocket. Taking the subtle hint, Jack shifts so that the chief can see the card in his pocket, as well.
Gordan raises an eyebrow. "Well, isn't that interesting."
Jack shrugs. "We've just been having some tea and biscuits. Somebody's been making up stories." Swirling his tea around his cup, he adds, "I'd question Rick first. He's usually the ring leader."
With a roll of his eyes, the chief leaves. "Everybody out," he says. "False alarm."
As the door shuts, Mr. Freeman bursts into laughter.
Jack grins and takes a sip of tea.