When Life Gives You O.J. Read Online Free Page B

doing? With frantic prodding, a tiny bit more of the mess made its way into the now-leaking bag.
    “I’m done, all right?” I said, just as Mrs. Brownell approached, talking to me and the dogs at once. “Hello, Zelda, dear! Luna, stop pulling! Maddy, for heaven’s sake, be quiet!”
    I turned to toss the bag in the trash can before Mrs. Brownell could see what I was doing. But I forgot that I had left the Dumb Old Jug right behind me. I lowered my foot, but I kind of half stepped on O.J., who was empty, so he went flying forward.
    “Rrrrowf! Arr, arr, arr!” Maddy went haywire.
    “Wurf! Wurf! Wurf!” Luna chimed in with her squeaky little barks, skittering toward O.J.
    Everything happened fast. I leaned forward to grab O.J., but Luna’s leash tripped me, making me stumble and almost land on her, so I stepped backward—
    “Whoops—” and tripped over Maddy—
    “Waaah—” and tried not to fall—
    “Whoaa—” and sat down—
    Oof—
    —right in the middle of what was left of O.J.’s poop.
    Maddy stopped barking. She sniffed where I was sitting for about half a second.
    Then she began to chow down.
    “Maddy! NO! Bad girl!” said Mrs. Brownell, trying to pull her off. “I am
so
sorry!”
    “It’s okay,” I told her, trying to stand up and get out of the mushy pile. One of my flip-flops slid off, stuck. “It’s not what it looks like,” I tried to explain to her.
    Mrs. Brownell told me she understood completely. But just then she remembered she had left something on the stove, so she set off down the block, pulling a disappointed Luna and a still-barking Maddy behind her.
    “HEY, KID,” said Ace, who had come out of the house and was standing on the front step watching me. “THAT’S WHAT THE BAG IS FOR.”
    “I know that!” I told him.
    Ace put on his lucky fishing hat and walked past me to the car.
    “COULDA FOOLED ME,” he said.

I gotta say, sitting in a pile of wet, smelly dog poop—even if it was fake dog poop—pretty much convinced me that the deal I made with Ace was a bad one. Luckily, my mom found me a clean pair of shorts and hosed down my flip-flops while I changed. We left to go cherry picking before I got the chance to tell Ace that the deal was off. The whole way there, Ace entertained Sam with one of his famous long-winded fishing stories. This one was about the fishing contest he once had with his old friend Charlie O’Brien.
    “AND, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? AFTER FIVE HOURS ON THE WATER, CHARLIE AND I ARE NECK AND NECK, MATCHED—”
    “Fish to fish,” said Sam.
    “FISH TO FISH!” echoed Ace. “WHEN ALL OF ASUDDEN, KABLOOIE!” Ace smacked the armrest on the car door for emphasis. “OUT OF THE BLUE, THIS CRAZY FISH COMES FLYING AT ME! NO HOOK, NO NOTHING, THIS ONE. JUST PLAIN HURLING ITSELF OUT OF THE WATER INTO MY LAP.”
    “And not just any fish!” added Sam.
    “AND NOT JUST ANY FISH,” continued Ace, “THE MOST MESHUGGE FISH IN THE SEA. A SEA ROBIN! SO WHAT DID I DO, YOU MIGHT ASK?”
    “So what did you do?” asked Sam, on cue.
    Sam never gets tired of Ace’s fish stories. I do. The O’Briens were my grandparents’ neighbors back when they used to live in Brooklyn, right near us. Every time I’d be over at my grandparents’ apartment and we’d run into the O’Briens, Mr. O’Brien would say to me, “Tell that grandfather of yours I’m going to have him arrested for fish fraud!” Ace would bellow back, “QUIT YOUR CARPING!” Bubbles would always shake her head. “You two get more pleasure out of kvetching about those fish than you did catching them,” she’d say.
    Ace kept right on going, through the climactic part about how Charlie had a fish on his line at the time but then suddenly a sea robin—which is this weird, ugly fish with legs like a lobster and wings like a bat—jumped into the boat and onto Ace’s lap, startling Charlie so much he dropped his rod and
his
fish slipped off the hook. Ace was almost at the part where he kissed the