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Peas and Carrots Chapter 9 I woke up to the sound of giggling just outside my bedroom door. I managed to si up a bit and unglue my eyes from the sleep in them. Just as I opened my eyes, I saw a short, toe-headed boy run by my door. As I swiveled my body on the bed and set my feet on the ground, I realized there was something rather-show shall I put this?-disgusting-yes, I think that's the right word for it-on the floor, and I just happened to put my feet in it. I surpressed a slight scream of disgues and looked at my feet. They were sitting in a nicely prepared bowl of green JELL-O. Ick. So that's what all that gigglins was. As I stood up, I found my towel from my shower near by and wiped my feet off as best I could. Not realizing most everyone was still asleep aside my me and the little prankster, I started shouting, "Ok! Whoever put JELL-O at my bed so I would step in it, come out here right now!" I saw another flash of the blond head and ran off after him. "Come back here, you little clown!" I shouted as I was funning after him. I don't know why I was so intent on catching him, I guess I just wanted to see who did it, and mostly, WHY he did it. The kid rounded a corner and I went right after him. Just as I got around the corner, a door opened, and out stepped a half-asleep person. I was going so fas that I couldn't stop and I plowed into him. Right before the impact, he turned around and I recognized him. "Woah!" He cried in surprise and tried to dodge me, but it was too late. We were a jumble of arms and legs for a while, but we managed to untangle ourselves. "Um, hi!" I said, embarrased. "Sorry about that. I was trying to catch someone." "Who are you?" he said in bewilderment. "And why are you in my house chasing my little brother?" "I can't believe you don't remember me Nick!" I blurted out as he was helping me up from the floor. "Should I remember you?" Nick asked, puzzled. He ran his fingersthrough his hair and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes so he could seemore clearly. "Well, let's see, we only grew up together in New York!" I exclaimed. "Now tell me you don't remember New York, a tomboy, andgremins," I said, putting my hands on my hips and staring at him. "Andrea? Is that really you?" Nick looked pretty surprised. "The one and only! I heard you and the other Boys on the radio. When the DJ said your name, I didn't believe it, but then when Ibought your CD, I knew it was you. Pretty cool, eh?" I said in aboutone breath. "Wow." That was pretty much all he could say for a few seconds. "It's been practically FOREVER since I've seen you! And I didn't evenwrite! I feel so bad about that!" he said, looking as guilty as someone could look. "It's ok, don't worry about it, at least we're here now, right?"I said as I fixed the collar on my jammies. "Yeah, I guess, but I still feel guilty about it," he said. As a final note, he added, "You sure have grown up! You look good." "What are you talking about? I have major bed-head, I haven't brushed my teeth yet, and I'm still in my jammies. Besides, you're the one who's 6 feet tall, not me. You're the one that grew up! I remember before you left, you were a little shrimp," I said, teasing him a bit. "Oh hush. I wasn't THAT short!" he said, pretending to be all defensive. "Speaking of shrimps," I said, "someone put a bowl of JELL-O onthe side of my bed so I would step in it when I woke up and got out ofbed. Any idea who this might be?" "Haha, it's most likely my little brother, Aaron," Nick laughed. "He's always doing stuff like that." "Well, let's go find him!" I said, grabbing Nick's arm and takingoff in the derection Aaron had gone. "No, don't go that way," Nick said, tugging me back so hard thatI almost fell over again. I looked at him, puzzled. "Why not? This is the way he went,unless when we took that blow it disoriented me and now I don't knowup from down anymore, let alone left from right." "No, that's not it, it's just that I know all of his hiding places for when he does stuff like this." "Ah, ok, lead the way, oh fearless leader," I said, mockingly. We backtracked and headed towards the bathroom I used the night before.Nick opened the door to the cabinet below the sink. No Aaron. He pulled back the shower curtain. Still no Aaron. "Shhh," he said, putting his index finger up to his lips, indicating for me to be quiet. "What?" I asked, looking around for movement or sound. Nick walked over to the clothes hamper, which was vibrating slightly, rhythmically, almost like breathing. "AH HA!" Nick yelled as he pulled off the lid to the hamper. There, scrunched up in a small ball, was Aaron, the little toe-head that put the JELL-O at the side of my bed. "Hi Nick. Uh, how ya doin' buddy ol' pal?" he asked timidly. "I'm doing just fine, aside from the bruise I'm going to get from a collision earlier this morning," he said, rubbing his ribs on the right side. "Sorry about that," I said, feeling guilty about it. "It's ok," Nick accepted. "Anyway, Aaron, I'd like you to apologize to Andrea and then go clean up teh mess you made." Aaron stood up and climbed out of the hamper with a dirty sock on his head. "Ew! Nick! Your socks are so smelly! What died in there?!" he said in disgust. "Too bad," Nick said with a smile, "serves you right." Aaron walked over to me an mumbled some sort of an apology and took of to clean up the JELL-O mess. "Hey, sorry about that," Nick said. "He's quite the handful." "Haha, so I've noticed!" I said, laughing. "Well, I think I'd better go get dressed, since I'm only in my boxers and an old shirt." Nick said, looking down at himself. His hair was sticking up in all directions, a result of rushing home, taking a shower to get the sweat off from the concert, andblasting off to Sleepy Land right away. "Yeah, I'd better go do something with my hair and jammies, too." We stood there for a few seconds, and then gave eachother a hug. "I'm so glad that I was able to come and see you. This vacation is going to be so much fun!" I said into his shoulder, since he was so tall, and we were still hugging. "I'm glad that you could come, too, but this is such a surprise! If I had known ahead of time, I would've gotten you a present or something," he said. His chin was on the top of my head, he was so tall. "Oh! I never though of a present, so I didn't get you one, either." "Oh well, I guess we're even then, huh?" "Yup, sure looks that way to me," I said, and headed off to my room to get dressed and to mess with my hair. I guess all my yelling hadn't been that loud, because my mom and Jane didn't get up unitl about 9:30, and I think I was awakened at 7:30 or so. And I guess their little surprise was ruined, too, since Nick and I had already seen eachother. As we ate our breakfast, Mom and Jane were talking about something we could all do together, but I wanted to spend some more time with Nick, without parent supervision, just the two of us, like a movie or a trip to Disney, something like that. "Mom, you and Jane haven't seen eachother in years, wouldn't you like to spend some more time together, without Nick and I around?" I asked, hoping she'd let us go. "Well, now that I think about it, yeah, I would like to spend some more time with Jane. You and Nick go to the beach or something and have fun." "Thanks a lot, Mom," I said, getting up from the table. "So," I said, as Nick and I stepped out of the house, "what do you want to do today?" Just then, we were blinded by flashbulbs from cameras and deafened by the screaming of girls. "Oh, how could I forget this?" Nick complained and threw his hands up in the air with exasperation. "We're going to have to call Erik, my body guard, he has to excort us about because of all the girls." "Yeah, I remember comeing here yesterday and there were a bunch of screaming girls here." Then I yelled out to the fans: "Don't you have anything better to do with your time than stalk people?!?! Give him some privacy. He's human too, you know!!!" "Wow, nicely done," he said, and waved to the crowd. "Thanks. I just think it's dumb how people swarm everywehere just to get a glimpse of you," I replied. "Yeah, it gets pretty annoying after a while, but it was flattering at first." We turned around and went back into the house. "Mom, I kinda forgot about the girls at the edges of the yard. We need to call Erik to take us wherever we're going." "Oh yeah, how could we forget that?" Jane replied as she got up to call Erik. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door. Nick went to answer it. We had decided to go to a deserted beach for a while. It would be nice and quiet there. A couple cars followed us, but Erik knew which ways to go to get rid of them. |