Good One

It was Saturday, and I had asked mom to pick up John at 12:30 from the Music-Go-Round, where he took drum lessons. She had left at eleven something to take my brother to the hospital because he had stabbed himself in the leg.

At around 12:46, they still weren't back yet, so I started watching the Winx Club with Savannah in my room. Flora had just healed the Magical Fairy Flower, told some guy that she liked him a lot, found out that he liked her a lot too, and had been blown a kiss by him before he stepped onto the air ship thing when mom and Denny returned.

"Hey," I said, stepping into the living room. I didn't see John.

"Hey," said mom. "We went to Wal-Mart and got some groceries."

"Is Denny okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, he just needed some stitches and staples and stuff," said mom. "He's right in the kitchen, he's putting some stuff away."

I kind of glanced around the room, just to make sure I hadn't simply missed John coming in.

"Um, mom, where's John?"

Well, mom gave Denny one of those Oh-My-God-We-Completely-Forgot-To-Pick-Up-John looks and said, "Oh my God, we completely forgot to pick up John!"

I freaked out. It was a little past 1:00, I would have imagined, and the thought of John waiting at the Music-Go-Round for thirty minutes wasn't a good one. I ran into my mom's closet to get my shoes, yelling shrilly, "We have to go get him, he's probably been waiting forever! I can't believe you forgot, mom, I reminded you seven times this morning, oh God, I feel so bad!"

I tried to figure out how she possibly could have forgot, and then I decided I should have gone with them to the hospital so I could have reminded her myself, and then I felt bad for blaming everything on my mom because she probably had her mind on other things, like my brother's wounded leg, and then I just felt bad for everything.

I flew out the door and jumped into the front seat of the car. Denny came out a moment later.

"Um, you probably ought to get the last couple bags of groceries first," he said.

I sighed, then grabbed the unnoticed bags and rushed back into the house. I put them on the kitchen floor by the table.

"Mom!" I called, "we really, really need to go! He probably thinks we forgot about him." I saw her standing further in the kitchen, so I took a few steps into the room to hurry her along.

And there, in the corner of the room by the counters, stood John, looking at me with a smile on his face.

I grinned, partly out of relief, partly because it was actually rather funny. I walked across the kitchen and threw a hug on him, saying,"You're so mean, I can't believe you did that!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Mom, who was laughing with everyone else, said,"He walked right past you, you didn't even see him, you were so worried!" She smiled. "It was my idea, don't blame him."

"No," I said, "it was funny."

John and I put on "The Punisher" and before it started playing he apologized again.

"It's okay, you don't have to keep saying sorry," I told him. "It was a good one." I gave him a bit of a sideways glance. "Just make sure you don't play anymore mean jokes on me."

He apologized again. He hasn't played anymore mean jokes on me since then.