Chapter 12
Maple
Forty-five minutes later, we pull onto our drive, and I jump out of the car.
I’m desperate to lie on my bed and scroll my phone.
Check out Dylan’s grid and text my friends without Mom peering at my screen.
Taylor will freak out, for sure, but she’ll be jealous too, which might just make me feel better.
Coco will be chill about it, maybe even have some advice on how I should handle it.
The front door flies open before I have chance to turn the handle.
‘Oh hi, Maple.’ Aspen grins at me.
Mom walks past us, ruffling Aspen’s hair as she steps inside, but otherwise ignoring her. Not that it seems to bother Aspen, whose excitement only seems to ratchet up.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I ask her. ‘What’s with the grinning?’
‘I saw something really cool,’ she says, grabbing my hand. ‘Wanna see?’
‘Well, I was going to …’ I eye the stairs.
‘Please, Maple?’
I look at her earnest, cute face. ‘What did you see?’
‘There’s a chipmunk in our yard!’ she yells.
I blink. ‘Wait, really? A chipmunk?’
‘Come on!’
I let Aspen lead me through the house and then out through the back door, but when we reach the deck, she pulls up abruptly.
‘Woah!’ I call out, almost knocking into her. ‘Why d’you stop?’
‘Do you think he might bite me?’
‘The chipmunk? Of course he won’t,’ I say, while considering how much I know about chipmunks, which is basically nothing. ‘But how about I go first, just in case?’
Her face lights up. ‘Thanks, Maple! He’s over there in the bush.’
I follow Aspen’s pointed finger with my eyes, then step off the decking toward it. But I stumble slightly as I catch my foot on a bit of rope. Shit. I’m going to fall. But no, I steady myself. I’m fine. Except …
I scream as a bucketful of water empties on my head. Ice cold. Heavy. Soaking. I shudder as it runs down my back and fight the urge to cry. Aspen squeals with delight. Then Ash appears from behind a tree, also giggling.
My little brother and sister. They must have rigged the prank up with Dad while I was at the mall, then coaxed me out here with their fake chipmunk story. ‘You little …’
‘No swearing, Maple honey!’ Mom calls out. ‘Remember this is a kids’ channel!’
And it’s Mom, not Dad, who emerges from behind a camera that’s attached to a tripod. So she was in on the prank too. I think about her phone call with Dad in Swig, how she walked outside in the middle of it. Is this what they were talking about? A plan for their youngest kids to prank their eldest?
Tears smart my eyes and I flick them shut.
Silently tell my family that I hate them all.
I know that’s not fair – we’ve always been into pranking, like pretty much every kidfluencer on YouTube.
I was lowkey obsessed with it when I was younger.
One time when the twins were toddlers, I swapped their clothes around to see how long it would take my parents to notice, and it’s still one of the most popular videos on my channel.
But today has been a lot. The poop scoop cringe fest followed by the Dylan Dope bombshell. And Mom knows this, so how could she think it was okay to add to the shit pile with an embarrassing prank?
‘Ah, don’t look so sad, honey,’ she says, handing me a towel.
‘You did great. Honestly, your face was a picture. But cute too, I think you’re going to love it.
And your subscribers definitely will. It’ll do wonders for the twins’ channel too, so it’s a double win.
’ She puts her arm around my shoulder. ‘Thanks for being such a sport about it.’
Like I had a choice.
I push my lips together – I don’t have the energy for a fight. Then I wrap the towel around my shoulders and head inside.
‘Hey, remember to take your sneakers off!’ Mom calls after me. ‘I don’t want wet patches on my cherry wood!’
I pause in her kitchen, consider my options. Then I wring out my hair, watch droplets splodge on her precious floor, and squelch in my shoes all the way to my room.