As I finish cooking the last omelet, Donna scans through the business section of the paper and mumbles stuff about all her stocks shitting the bed.

I marvel at her—a woman with stocks and business suits and her own house. And then, I’m secretly wishing that she were my mother, which I realize is a terrible thing to wish, but I can’t help it.

“Amber Appleton uses hot sauce in her omelet. Yes. She likes to cook omelets on Tuesday mornings. Yes. Amber Appleton is very pretty and I would like to kiss her under the apple tree because she is Amber Apple-TON! Yes.”

“Good morning, Ricky,” I say to my friend, who is wearing his Tuesday Chase Utley home jersey—number 26.

“Amber Appleton is going to take Ricky Roberts out of Ricky Roberts’ house tonight but he doesn’t know where and Mommy Roberts will not tell him. Mommy Roberts will not tell him where. Yes!”

“We’re going to do a mission tonight. Remember?” I say to the now-seated Ricky while placing an omelet in front of him. “And when the Franks Freak Force Federation does a mission, how does Ricky Roberts receive information?”

“Ricky Roberts receives information on a need-to-know basis. Need to know. Yes,” Ricky says, and then begins eating his omelet. “Need-to-know basis.”

We can’t tell Ricky secret hooey, because he says whatever he thinks, and therefore can’t keep a secret to save his life.

I remove a plate from the oven and place it in front of Donna. “Can you still make it tonight?” I ask her.

From behind the business section, she says, “As your attorney, I advise you to videotape the proceedings.”

“But we don’t have a—”

“As your attorney, I have taken the liberty of securing a video camera and will be personally documenting everything that takes place tonight.” She drops the paper and looks into my eyes. “Just make sure your boys know their lines. I’m counting on you to make this mission successful, because you’re the leader of The Five, right?”

Donna winks at me and I almost crap my pants as she samples my omelet.

“Does this have tequila in it?” Donna asks.

I nod once and swallow.

“Nice. Coffee?”

I all but run to the coffeemaker and pour Donna a large cup. She drinks it black.

“Thanks,” she says. “Are you not eating?”

“Can I use your bathroom first?”

Donna nods once and disappears behind the business section again.

Upstairs, in the bathroom, I strip down quickly, brush my teeth with the toothbrush stored permanently on Amber’s Shelf, floss, use mouthwash, and then I’m in the shower washing my hair, using Donna’s expensive conditioner, trying to keep my long black hair shiny. I do this all super quickly, so I don’t use too much of Donna’s hot water, because hot water costs money. I towel off, use the deodorant and perfume and makeup that Donna buys for me, redress, and then return to the kitchen, where BBB has fallen asleep on the little braided mat in front of the sink.

My hair is soaking wet, but neither Ricky nor Donna say a word about my needing to use their shower. Ricky is used to my using his place as a second home, and Donna is too classy to bring up the sore subject of my needing to freeload off her.

I wolf down my omelet and then do all the dishes and clean up the kitchen while Donna reads the rest of the paper and Ricky does math equations in his workbook. He is a frickin’ math genius. I take BBB out for one last pee, and then I kiss him goodbye just before I lock him up in his room, which is an unused first-floor bedroom with a doggie bed, tons of chew toys, a water dish, and even a radio, which we keep on the classical station to calm B Thrice’s nerves. (B3 loves Chopin. I know because my pup starts jumping in the air like a maniac every time some Chopin-playing dude tickles that piano.) Just like every other morning, BBB starts crying and scratching at the door as soon as it’s shut, which breaks my heart and makes me feel bad about Donna’s door getting all clawed up, even though she says she doesn’t give a crap about that room and has tons of money for buying new doors or whatever.

We hop into her Mercedes—heated leather seats, which are pretty killer. True? True. We rock out to Dinosaur Jr., which is an obscure indie band of olden days. Donna digs unheard-of bands like Dinosaur Jr. She even has cool taste in music. We listen to “Feel The Pain” three times, because Ricky likes that one, and then we are at Childress Public High School, so Donna shuts off the tunes.

“Amber, what do you have after school today?”

“The Korean Divas for Christ at three thirty.”

“You can get Ricky home first?”

“No worries.”

“Ricky, are you going to be good today?”

“Yeah-ssssss,” Ricky says in his goofiest robot voice.

“Are you going to repeat dirty words?” Donna asks.

“Nooooooooooooo!”

“What happens if you do?”

“Amber Appleton will not go to prom with Ricky Roberts. Yes.”

“That’s right. So behave your little behind. Be the gentleman I know you are.” To me, Donna says, “Tell Franks Freak Force Federation that we meet at my house at seven sharp. I’m not picking all of their little butts up individually, because I’m in court all day—murder trial. But if they pull off the mission without screwing up too badly, we’re going to Friendly’s afterward.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, like a moron.

“Friendly’s. Reese’s Pieces Sundae. Yes,” Ricky says.

“All right. I have to get to the courthouse. Kisses and then out.”

Ricky kisses his mother as I hop out of the backseat and onto the sidewalk. Ricky gets out of the Mercedes, slams the door too hard, and then says, “Going to play Halo 3 with Mr. Jonathan Franks! Yes! Halo 3.”

CHAPTER 3

Maybe you want to know how The Five came to exist? True?

History of The Five.

It all began when Jared and I failed fifth grade.

Well, neither of us technically failed, but we were both held back, dropped into Chad’s, Ricky’s, and Ty’s class. Jared—because he used to have this awful stutter back in the day and could hardly complete a frickin’ sentence without repeating just about every syllable a bazillion times. Word. And me—I was held back because I missed too many days of school, even though I technically passed all of my tests when I eventually took them. If you miss so many days, you automatically get held back, or at least that’s what I was told. The reason I missed so many days of school was because we were living with Good Boyfriend Gerald at the time, who was Mom’s best pick by far, if you ask me.

GBG was a truck driver and used to make these long hauls across the country, and Mom used to go nuts for road trips, so whenever she didn’t want to be left alone without GBG, she’d have one of the bus driving subs cover her route for a week or so and she’d let me skip school to ride across the country with GBG in his big old red tractor-trailer truck, which he called Melissa. Since GBG was making these trips all the time, I missed tons of school.

When we’d head west, we would drive right through the night, hardly ever stopping, because Good Boyfriend Gerald got paid more if he got the load there early. We’d all sit in his truck, Mom in the middle, holding both of our hands, and it was fun to drive on the highways of America like that, sorta like a family. GBG was pretty damn old and didn’t ever say much, but he had a kind, wrinkly face—he loved to smile, and even though he was really big and was rough-looking with a gray bushy beard, he was the type of guy you trust right away, sorta like Santa Claus or something like that.

After he’d drop his load off, we’d drive back east a little more leisurely, and GBG used to take us to see cool stuff too. The best thing he ever showed us was the Grand Canyon. Word. We went there in December when there was snow all around the edge, and looking down into that big beautiful gap in the earth was sorta like a spiritual experience for me. I remember that there were so many shades of brown and tan inside that majestic hole that it didn’t even look real. And the clouds—those were like looking at something too beautiful, like it actually hurt your eyes to see something so gorgeous. I wanted to hike down into that canyon, and will one day—word—but Mom was against it, saying that it wasn’t safe in the winter, even though tons of other people were doing it with huge backpacks and spikes strapped onto their boots. Hard-core.

GBG paid for a hotel in Arizona, and after eating dinner at this little greasy diner of sorts, Mom and I went for a walk while GBG took a shower in the hotel room, because he never could shower if I was in the room, saying it wasn’t proper, which was sorta noble of him, like he was a knight from olden times. I remember walking, holding hands with my mom in this dumpy little town, and once we got away from the main drag, once we walked far enough down this empty road, my mom told me to look up.

Holding her hand, I tilted my head back and then watched my gray breath climb up toward a billion stars. Tiny blue diamonds the color of gas flames were everywhere. It was so beautiful. My mom and I just stood there in the road looking up for—like—forever. And looking up at winter stars in Arizona—this is Amber-and-her-mom moment number five. It was very cold, but I didn’t care. I had never seen so many stars—and out in the open, with no one else around, I remember praying to JC, thanking him for the stars and my mom and that moment and for sending us GBG so that we could see things like the Grand Canyon, which is one of God’s masterpieces if you ask me. It was a nice moment. Word.

That winter we took a lot of trips like that with GBG, who never said much but seemed to like having us around. I really thought he was going to be the one for Mom—the one who would make her an honest woman. But then one day at the end of the school year, GBG went on one of his trucking runs and simply didn’t come home. Mom held out hope for weeks, saying he would be back, but then the landlord visited us, saying that the rent hadn’t been paid for two months, and soon after that Mom and I moved in with yet another one of her boyfriends—Crazy Craig, whom I don’t even want to talk about, that’s how crazy he was—and GBG was nothing but a memory.

I often wonder what happened to GBG, the silent abandoning one who got away.

The second week of fifth grade, take two, I was removed from class by a strange woman who wore a frilly blouse. In the hallway, the woman said, “I’m Mrs. Pohlson. I’m not a teacher, but a social skills coach, and I’d like to invite you to join a very special club.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked her, because it seemed like Mrs. Pohlson might be lying to me.

“No. Why would you think that? Did you do something wrong?”

“You don’t have to do something wrong to be in trouble,” I told her.

She nodded appreciatively and led me to a small room at the end of the hall that had no windows and sorta reminded me of a big closet. Inside the room was a round table that took up almost all of the space, and seated around the table were four boys, the very boys that would eventually become my boys—Franks Freak Force Federation.