My hair is soaking wet, but neither Ricky nor Donna say a word about my needing to use their shower. Ricky is used to my using his place as a second home, and Donna is too classy to bring up the sore subject of my needing to freeload off her.
I wolf down my omelet and then do all the dishes and clean up the kitchen while Donna reads the rest of the paper and Ricky does math equations in his workbook. He is a frickin’ math genius. I take BBB out for one last pee, and then I kiss him goodbye just before I lock him up in his room, which is an unused first-floor bedroom with a doggie bed, tons of chew toys, a water dish, and even a radio, which we keep on the classical station to calm B Thrice’s nerves. (B3 loves Chopin. I know because my pup starts jumping in the air like a maniac every time some Chopin-playing dude tickles that piano.) Just like every other morning, BBB starts crying and scratching at the door as soon as it’s shut, which breaks my heart and makes me feel bad about Donna’s door getting all clawed up, even though she says she doesn’t give a crap about that room and has tons of money for buying new doors or whatever.
We hop into her Mercedes—heated leather seats, which are pretty killer. True? True. We rock out to Dinosaur Jr., which is an obscure indie band of olden days. Donna digs unheard-of bands like Dinosaur Jr. She even has cool taste in music. We listen to “Feel The Pain” three times, because Ricky likes that one, and then we are at Childress Public High School, so Donna shuts off the tunes.
“Amber, what do you have after school today?”
“The Korean Divas for Christ at three thirty.”
“You can get Ricky home first?”
“No worries.”
“Ricky, are you going to be good today?”
“Yeah-ssssss,” Ricky says in his goofiest robot voice.
“Are you going to repeat dirty words?” Donna asks.
“Nooooooooooooo!”
“What happens if you do?”
“Amber Appleton will not go to prom with Ricky Roberts. Yes.”
“That’s right. So behave your little behind. Be the gentleman I know you are.” To me, Donna says, “Tell Franks Freak Force Federation that we meet at my house at seven sharp. I’m not picking all of their little butts up individually, because I’m in court all day—murder trial. But if they pull off the mission without screwing up too badly, we’re going to Friendly’s afterward.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, like a moron.
“Friendly’s. Reese’s Pieces Sundae. Yes,” Ricky says.
“All right. I have to get to the courthouse. Kisses and then out.”
Ricky kisses his mother as I hop out of the backseat and onto the sidewalk. Ricky gets out of the Mercedes, slams the door too hard, and then says, “Going to play Halo 3 with Mr. Jonathan Franks! Yes! Halo 3.”
CHAPTER 3
Maybe you want to know how The Five came to exist? True?
History of The Five.
It all began when Jared and I failed fifth grade.
Well, neither of us technically failed, but we were both held back, dropped into Chad’s, Ricky’s, and Ty’s class. Jared—because he used to have this awful stutter back in the day and could hardly complete a frickin’ sentence without repeating just about every syllable a bazillion times. Word. And me—I was held back because I missed too many days of school, even though I technically passed all of my tests when I eventually took them. If you miss so many days, you automatically get held back, or at least that’s what I was told. The reason I missed so many days of school was because we were living with Good Boyfriend Gerald at the time, who was Mom’s best pick by far, if you ask me.
GBG was a truck driver and used to make these long hauls across the country, and Mom used to go nuts for road trips, so whenever she didn’t want to be left alone without GBG, she’d have one of the bus driving subs cover her route for a week or so and she’d let me skip school to ride across the country with GBG in his big old red tractor-trailer truck, which he called Melissa. Since GBG was making these trips all the time, I missed tons of school.