“The door was closed. What are we going to do now, Sam?” worried Bev. She was always worrying about something.

“Relax, Bev. I have the key, remember. Mom just said to stop by the store and empty the register. She forgot to do it since she had to pick up Kevin from the sitters.” Kevin was my baby brother, and lately he had a cold, so naturally mom was frantic that he might have some life threatening- disease. She and Dad own the Sip & Dip, a drink and snack shop down on Main Street. I walked up to the door and unlocked it. When I stepped in the shop, I heard a crash.

“Did you hear that?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“Yeah. What do you think it was?” I could her the worry in Bev’s voice.


I knew exactly what it was, but I didn’t have the guts to tell Bev. “It was probably just the can pyramid I set up today,” I whispered, “It looked kind of unstable to me.” I looked around, hoping my gut was wrong. My pyramid was still standing. “Bev, can you go get my coat from next door? Its cold, and I left it in there.” During weekends, I spent my time out of the shop next door at the arcade with Mr. Whepler. He was really nice, and always gave Bev and me free games. “While you’re there, ask him to come over. I can’t lift this by myself. Bev said she would and I breathed a sigh of relief. Bev would only make it worse if there were a “situation.” I grabbed the nearest thing I could use as a weapon and I decided on the mandatory- for-all-shops fire extinguisher.

The fire extinguisher was heavier than I thought it would be, but it was worth it if I would live. I walked toward the drink isle, where I thought I heard the crash come from. I rounded the corner and screamed when I saw something come hurling toward me. I ducked just in time for McFurry, Mr. Whepler’s dog, come over my head. He came up to me and licked me. McFurry, named after the famous McDonalds desert, had gotten tangled in a 6-pack of cola. Mr. Whepler came running in.

“I heard what happened, Sam. Is everything all right? Was there a robbery?” Mr. Whepler was as bas as Bev when it came to worrying, but at least he had a reason. The man was 72 years old, for heaven’s sake!

“Relax, Mr. Whepler. It was only McFurry. He got stuck in the soda again. Did he escape sometime today?” Mr. Whepler and McFurry lived on top of the arcade in a little loft, and the emergency stairwell joining our two buildings was McFurry’s favorite escape route. He has been known to jump in our upstairs window, where my brother, Jason, had his web design company.

“Not that I was aware of, but you know McFurry. Quiet as an ant, but always in trouble.”

I laughed, told Mr. Whepler thanks for getting McFurry, and went upstairs to shut the window. When I got up there, I checked in Jason’s office. He hadn’t come home for dinner, and mom was a bit worried. I saw something lounging in his chair. Jason had fallen asleep again. I swear he works himself way too hard. I went over to wake him up when he jumped up and went “boo!” Me, being the scardey cat that I was, screamed and ran downstairs as fast as I could. Mr. Whepler came sprinting in, looking frantic. “Sam, what’s wrong?”

“It’s that jerk of a brother. He did it again!”


Mr. Whepler chuckled. He had grown up the only boy in his family of eight- he knew you had to tease your sisters in order to survive. “Sam, you should learn to expect him to scare you. It’s the law of nature. Why, when I was your age…”


I rolled my eyes. Mr. Whepler loved telling stories about his youth. He didn’t have any grandkids, so Bev and I got all the stories of him in the glory days. It was sweet, until he starts repeating the stories about his experiences- his time serving in the Army during WWII, his family, his everything. Speaking of Bev, where was she? I looked around, hoping to see her. She had fallen asleep in the bakery isle on top of an angel cake. It wasn’t unusual. Bev was skinny, especially for how much she ate. It seemed that whenever she came over, she was always eating. I guess she had just been to tired to eat her way through the delicious bagel she had snagged. I shrugged, walked over, and grabbed my own angel cake. I nestled down and, while drifting off to sleep next to by best friend, realized that I lived an extraordinary life that most kids would define as crazy.


But I loved it.