The Pal List

Chapter 37

Friday, February 15th

"I feel like I just ate a whole Thanksgiving turkey," Kaisey says, laying on the floor of my living room and rubbing her stomach with both hands.

Since dinner was planned so last-minute, I thought that my mom wouldn't have as much food as she usually does when we plan a dinner, but she called my dad before court and told him to start getting food ready when he got home, and he did just that. We had enough food for two Thanksgiving dinners, and we had plenty of people over to eat it. Ben's parents and brother, Kaisey's mom and siblings, Jude's mom and sister, and Uncle Troy are all here. On top of that, my mom invited a couple of her colleagues over, and Jude was able to convince his grandparents to come. Needless to say, we have a full house.

After dinner, all of us kids migrated into the living room so that the adults could have the dining room to talk. In the past, I would be angry that the adults got to sit at the table and talk about adult things while I was forced to watch a movie with "the kids." But now? I'm so sick of having adult conversations and worrying about things that a kid shouldn't have to worry about. I may be seventeen, but I'd much rather lay on the floor and try to fight a full stomach to play some board games than sit at a table and try to be one of the adults.

The eight of us play board games for about an hour before my mom announces that desert is out. She made ice cream cookie cake, and even though we all ate too much food an hour ago, none of us can resist the smell of my mom's deserts. The adults let us have our pick of the cake first, so we make our way into the kitchen and then quickly back out once we get our helpings.

"Just don't get any on the carpet, okay Hal?" my mom says from the dining room.

Kaisey's mom chimes in, "She means you, Kaisey!"

The adults all laugh as Kaisey struggles to carry her plate to the living room. Ben grabs it from her and waits until she sits down to hand it back. In her defense, the plates are small and the ice cream is runny. But in my mom's defense, cookies and ice cream wouldn't blend well with our mostly white carpet.

Jude and I sit on one end of the coffee table and the six of them spread around the other three sides. It's a tight squeeze, but at least no one will spill.

As we eat, I can hear the adults telling stories about us when we were little. My dad is in the middle of the story about how Kaisey and I had a lemonade stand when we were nine, and it was rather unsuccessful.

We decided to put up a lemonade stand on a Saturday in early September. It was the first week of 4th grade, and we wanted to do it all by ourselves without any help from our parents. So, we set up a card table on the sidewalk in front of Kaisey's house and made our own lemonade. The problem was that the forecast called for rain later on in the day and it was anything but warm outside. The sky was nearly black with rain clouds, so there wasn't a soul roaming the streets and looking for lemonade.

After an hour of sitting in our folding chairs with our feet not touching the ground, we finally got our first two customers: Ben and Jude. They both bought two lemonades, which totaled two dollars. Ten minutes later, we got two more customers: Ben and Jude, but in different clothing. They both bought two more lemonades and then went giggling back into Ben's house until they returned ten minutes later in different outfits. They came back six times, and wouldn't have stopped if our parents didn't make us come inside when it began to rain. It's my dad's favorite story to tell because he says that if Kaisey and I were to have a lemonade stand today at seventeen years old, Ben and Jude would do the same thing. He says it's the story that defines our friendship and shows that it never changes.