"But mother said not to," Joyce warned her brother Joey.
"Mother's not here," Joey replied, then popped a small bubble with his chewing gum. "And besides, she doesn't have to find out…unless you tell her."
"I'd never tell her."
"Good, then you find an empty box and I'll go inside and get the kitchen knife."
"Mother said you were supposed to stay away from the knives."
"I know. And she said you were supposed to stay away from her perfume. I can smell it on you from here."
"I just took a little. You won't tell her, will you?"
"Go find a box. There's probably one in the garage."
Joey headed back into the house through the kitchen door and left his sister alone in the backyard. It was only ten o'clock, but the sun had already moved the mercury up past eighty-five degrees. Joyce felt relieved when she stepped into the coolness of the garage. There she found a number of empty cardboard boxes, most of which were too big for their forbidden game.
"Is a shoebox O.K.?" she shouted to her brother, but he hadn't returned from the kitchen yet. She picked up the shoebox she had found and the smallest of the large cardboard boxes and carried them out into the backyard.
"Joey," she called. "Is a shoebox O.K.?"
Joey emerged from the house with a meat chopper in his right hand. He was sweating, and he wiped his brow with his left hand, the little finger of which was bandaged in clean white gauze.
"Mother must have hidden the kitchen knife we used before, but I found this," he said, holding the cleaver out toward her. "It's even better, huh?"
"What about this shoebox?" Joyce asked. "Is it too small? This is the only other one I could find. The others are too big."
"The shoebox is fine," Joey answered. "Now you go stand in the garage while I get the box ready and wait till I call you to come out. And here, put this other box back where you found it."
Joyce did as her brother instructed. It was cool and dark in the garage, and although she was anxious to begin the game, she didn't mind waiting there. She used the time to think about what Joey might be hiding in the box.
One time it had been a rose. She liked that, but it had been much too easy to guess. The petals and leaves were like those of any other flowers in the garden, but the thorns had pricked her fingers and given the game away. Another time, Joey had put a dead June bug in the box. She had been able to guess that one too, even though she detested the gooey feeling it made between her fingers.
In fact, the last time they had played the box game-the time Mother had forbidden them to play it again-was the only time she hadn't been able to guess what Joey had hidden in the box. She remembered how he laughed almost hysterically when she had screamed upon seeing what was inside.
"Ready!" Joey called out from the backyard. "Come out now Joyce. The box is ready."
Joyce came out the garage into the hot sunlight. Joey was standing over the shoebox, his weight shifted on his left leg, his bandaged left hand on his hip, and a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"You'll never guess this one," Joey teased her. "Never in a million years."
Joyce approached the box cautiously.
"Is it anything that bites?" she asked.
"No hints," her brother answered. "Come on. Stick you hand in and take your first guess."
Joey had used the meat chopper to make an asterisk-shaped cut in one end of the shoebox. Joyce slowly put her hand through the center of the cut, groping carefully toward the middle where the mystery object was sure to be. But all she felt was the cardboard bottom of the box and hot air inside.
"Did you cheat?" she asked. "It has to be something from in the backyard."
"It is," Joey snickered. "Go ahead and guess."
Joyce thought for a few seconds. He has to be playing a trick on her again. After what he had done the last time, she was sure he was capable of anything, yet she loved the suspense and excitement of their summer game.
"I know," she said suddenly. "It's just air. You put air from the backyard in the box, right?"
"Ha-ha," he laughed. "Nope. You're wrong. I put something in there all right. Feel around a little more. You'll find it. And you've only got two more guesses."
Joyce pushed her hand a bit further into the shoebox and felt along the inside edges. Still nothing met her touch but cardboard and air. Then, as her fingers approached one of the far corners of the box, she felt something warm, wet and sticky on the bottom.
"Yuck," she moaned. "What's this?"
"Go ahead. Guess. You'll never get it."
Joyce looked at her brother's face and saw that he was sweating heavily. He was no longer chewing his gum. Instead, he seemed to be biting his tongue behind a grimacing smile.
"I know!" she exclaimed. "It's your gum, right? And it's still wet with spit. How gross!"
"Wrong again!" he shouted with glee. "Only one more guess. Hurry up, though, would you? I've got to go to the toilet."
Egged on by his urgency, Joyce reached further forward and touched what was in the corner of the shoebox. It was rather soft, and wet, and a little sticky like the bottom corner.
"Not again!" she cried, tears coming to her eyes. "You can't put the same thing in twice. It's not fair."
"It's not the same," Joey protested, sweating even more and shifting more weight to his left leg. "Hurry up and guess. I really have to go."
"OK," Joyce sobbed, and then she touched the object once more. It was soft and sticky, and it wasn't moving. "It's a dead earthworm, or maybe some part of a dead earthworm. Quick, tell me I'm right. I don't ant to look. I feel sick."
"Wrong!" Joey shouted. "Three misses. I win. You thought I cut off the end of my finger again and stuck it in the box, didn't you? But even that would be wrong! It's the little toe from my right foot!"
Joyce screamed and pulled her hand out of the box. When she saw the blood on her fingertips, she screamed again and kicked the box away without looking to see if he had told the truth. Joey laughed and limped off to toward the house, leaving the box, the cleaver, and his sister in the backyard in the hot summer sun.