My Brother's Grave

Chapter One

As soon as the bell rang for the end of school, I ran as fast as I could down Main St., making a few stops along the way, before I finally ended up at my destination: Al’s Diner, where my brother worked. When I opened the door, the bell chimed and only my brother looked up. He had a gigantic smile on his face when he saw that it was me, though I’m pretty sure he could pinpoint the exact moment I would burst through that door every week day.

“Johnny! Guess what, I got an A on my English essay!” I shouted, running through the diner. My brother always had a lot of different jobs while I was growing up. He’d been working at the diner for almost six months at that point.

“Damn. Nice work,” he said smiling, leaning on his broom. “When I get done here, we’ll go get some ice cream to celebrate.” I felt my eyes widen and a grin stretched across my face. I threw my arms around him, quickly releasing him from my grip when girls around my brother's age started snickering. Johnny ignored them like he always did. He kissed the top of my head and pushed me toward the booth in the back where I always sat and did my homework.

“I’ll read your paper when I get a break,” my brother promised as those girls started to call for him again. I glared at them and made faces. The girls always came in wearing massive amounts of make-up and promiscuous clothes. They only liked coming to Al’s Diner when Johnny was working. I hated them. They said disgusting things and they flirted shamelessly, and when Johnny ignored them, they complained to the owner, or did other horrible things to him.

There were three of them that came in regularly, Margret Ann, Samantha and Ginger. They all went to the college down the street. You know, I always thought they probably hated me more than I despised them, which made sense. At eleven years old, I had nothing better to do than play tricks on them.

“Oh, waiter!” Margret Ann sang. She always pretended not to know his name. Johnny smiled at me and rolled his eyes. When he saw my face, he laughed.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered into my ear, “you know you’re my number one girl.” I grinned at my brother and pushed him away.

“Get back to work, liar.” Johnny laughed again and went to wait on the Three Witches. I leaned over the back of my booth and watched them. Maggie Ann (she hated when I called her that) had a smile on her face and her eyes were staring at John hungrily. She said something and her two minions fell silent, Johnny smiled, but it wasn’t his real smile, and I watched him shake his head.

“Boo!” Somebody grabbed me from behind and I had to cover my mouth with both hands to keep from screaming. The booming laughter from the man who was still latched onto me sounded in my ear. I squirmed out of his grasp and turned around, putting my finger to my lips.

“Shut up Cade,” I whispered, ducking down in my seat. Cade pushed me over and slid into the seat next to me. A huge smile formed on his face when he recognized my devious behavior.

“What do you have planned?” he asked as we peeked over the back of the faded red booth. I shrugged.

“Not sure yet. I have a few ideas though. Picked up some new water balloons at the dollar store on my way home.” I watched as Maggie Ann’s face grew angry. She started speaking very fast and very low. Her friends were glaring at my brother. Maggie stood up and pushed Johnny, she grabbed the shake he’d just brought her and dumped it right on his head. Other customers were watching too. Most laughed, some just sat there. Maggie Ann stormed to the bathroom crying.

Cade pulled me down and looked at me. “Water balloons?” he asked. I grinned and nodded. “I thought you were banned from that place.” I shrugged, choosing not to respond to his comment.

“I’ve got something extra special already inside them. A whole batch is already on the roof, I set it up yesterday.” Cade whipped his head in my direction. His eyes were wide and he was glaring at me playfully.

“You lied to me,” he scoffed. I nodded.

“The last time I let you in on a prank, you told Johnny and I got in big trouble.” I poked his chest. “And nothing happened to you.” Cade laughed.

“Alright, alright.” Cade stood up and stretched his gigantic tree trunk-like arms. He smiled and ruffled my hair. “Go on, play your prank. But when you get into trouble I didn’t know anything about this.” I held out my pinky and Cade linked his with mine. “I’ve gotta get into the kitchen or Al will think I’m being lazy.”

I watched Cade walk away. Before I tip-toed through the diner and slipped unnoticed into the kitchen where the roof access was. I climbed up the ladder and made my way across the roof. It was windy, but I didn’t care. I went to the edge, and looked down at the place where the front door was located. I grabbed a balloon that I filled with slimy creek water and held it just above the spot where Maggie Ann and her two annoying friends were going to come out.

If I would have known precisely what was about to come out of my prank… I might’ve done something differently. I’ve always wondered, if Cade had just ratted me out, would things have been different? I don’t know about that, probably not. All I know is that as soon as I spied little miss bitch, I dropped that balloon. There were quite a few people out and about that afternoon. Maybe if less people had seen what I did, then all of the events that happened later wouldn’t have happened. It really doesn’t matter how much I wish things turned out differently. These events happened exactly the way I’m writing them.