Placebo 3 by Lacey Mitchell

++++++++++

On Saturday morning, Nelson took his second pill then ate his usual breakfast of Cheerios with fruit and milk. This time he added sugar to his cereal, something he wasn't sure he liked.

His mother, Maggie, cooked him a hard-boiled egg, too; just the way he liked it, five minutes so it had no gooshy, disgusting parts. She sliced it, buttered, salted and peppered it and Nelson ate it all.

"That wasn't so hard," she said to him. "I remembered not to mash it up this time."

"It was very good, Momma," said Nelson. "I enjoyed it."

"I think you'll be able to get hard-boiled eggs for breakfast at camp, since you don't like fried ones," she said. "I'm going to make rice tomorrow for breakfast, with brown sugar and cinnamon."

"Sounds good," said Horace, looking up from his paper. "Cut a sausage up into mine and skip the brown sugar, I'll add an over easy egg, some tobasco and be set."

Nelson made a face, reminding himself not to watch his dad mix the squishy egg into the rice, sausage, hot sauce and cinnamon. How could his father eat something so disgusting?

He sipped a small glass of orange-pineapple juice while waiting for his mother to finish eating. No one left the table at the Fredericks' house until everyone was done. Nelson liked the rule since it made sure they kept each other company for at least a few minutes every day. His sister had hated it when she was home, he remembered, always in a hurry to rush off and do something.

"What's the plan for the weekend, punkin," Horace asked his son, taking a sip of his black coffee.

"I've got an English paper due Monday, and studying for History and Math," said Nelson. "Carmody is gonna help me with the paper and I'll help him with the Math and we'll quiz each other on History."

"Don't say 'gunna'," his mother commented, taking a last bite of her toast with peanut butter. "You sound like a kid someone raised in a box in the garage."

Nelson did not point out that he hadn't said 'gunna', he'd said 'gonna'. It had been more than two years since he made that mistake. "Yes, ma'am," is what he said.

His mother refilled her coffee cup and topped off Horace's. Nelson took the funny pages from his father who had moved on to the sports section. Maggie retrieved the discarded front page and read about the people starving in Africa because the price of rice had doubled and felt sad and a little guilty for planning to have rice for breakfast tomorrow. She decided to go through her cabinets later in the day and cull canned goods to send to the downtown mission.

The loud knocking at the back door surprised none of them. They'd all heard Carmody running up the path that led over fences and through several yards to his own back door on the other side of the block. "Nelson!" he called through the screen.

"C'mon in, Carmody," Horace called out. "It's not latched."

"Would you like some peanut butter on toast? Orange juice? Milk?" offered Maggie.

"No, thank you, Miz Frederick," said Carmody. "I need to talk to Nelson – outside."

Horace nodded so Nelson put down the funnies, finished his juice and followed Carmody out into the backyard. They walked out past Maggie's flower garden and climbed on the old curved concrete bench under the grapefruit tree, sitting on the back with their feet on the seat and their heads up among the branches.

Carmody had said almost nothing even though he seemed bursting with some sort of news.

"Huh?" said Nelson, hoping to prompt his friend to tell him what this was about.

"Mom says we can't afford for me to go to camp this year," Carmody finally mumbled.

"Wow," said Nelson.

"We've gone to camp almost every year. And we've always gone together," said Carmody. "What am I going to do for eight weeks with you gone?"

"I dunno. What am I going to do at camp without you? I won't know what to do by myself."

Carmody's face worked as if something hurt him somewhere. He blinked rapidly, frowning then squinting, then frowning again. Nelson wanted to reach out and give him a hug, like Momma did when someone was hurt, but he was afraid they would both end up crying. He looked away.

"Are you going to camp?" Carmody asked.

Nelson nodded. "My folks are planning to drive back east to see relatives and do stuff on the way. I can't stay here, 'cause no one will be here."

"Craptastic," said Carmody. "Just fucktardo."

Nelson stared at one of the low-hanging clusters of fruit, green globes about the size of oranges but not ripe yet. The broad leaves of the grapefruit tree made a kind of darkened room, green and sweet-smelling though not without dangers. A wasp drifted through the branches and both boys flinched away but the little hunter-killer left them alone.

"How much, how much does it cost?" Nelson finally asked.

"It's over $3000, and that's with some kind of a discount figured in. With Geoffrey and Alexander in college and Millie needs braces – Mom says I can go to day camp every day all summer long for less than $800 and Millie can go too." Geoff and Alex were five and eight years older than Carmody, Millicent was three years younger.

"Wow," said Nelson. "That's like a lot more than I thought." He felt his own face begin to twitch and his eyes burned. He didn't want to think about a summer without his best friend.

"Mom says Dad had promised to pay for it but then Clunkerbell got into an accident and wrecked her car and broke a nail or something. So, now he says he doesn't have it." Clunkerbell was Carmody's private name for his stepmother, Clarissa.

"Don't they have insurance?" Nelson asked.

"I don't know," said Carmody. "Maybe my Dad is just lying 'cause he wants us to be miserable because he's miserable living with the Enchanted Toad Princess." Another pet name for the stepmother. "And the worst of it is both Mom and Dad knew this for weeks and no one told me. I'm just a kid. I had to faggin' find out from Millicent who listened in on a phone conversation!"

He jumped off the bench and paced around the tree, dodging again as the wasp went by on some insect-sized business. He had to dodge under a low hanging limb at every circle, too. "When were they going to tell me, a week from next Friday when I tried to line up for the bus?"

"Grownups," said Nelson. "I still don't know why we ever agreed to let them run the world."

Carmody smiled at that even though a tear trickled down his cheek. Both boys turned away and used the backs of their hands to wipe their eyes.

"Fucktards. Crapulent pissholes. Hodiggers. Creeping socialists." Carmody put some effort into cursing. He didn't actually know what 'creeping socialism' meant but his grandfather blamed it for having to live in a rest home. He wasn't sure what a 'hodigger' might be either.

"Don't give up," said Nelson. "We'll think of something."

"Neither of us have that kind of money," said Carmody. "Even if we sold our computers and our games we couldn't get $3000 dollars for them."

"We don't have to," said Nelson. "We only need $2200."

"Huh?"

"Your mom is willing to spend $800."

"Oh, yeah, well, make it $2295 then, cause it's $3095, all of it, after the discount."

"Who's giving the discount? Maybe you can get a second one?"

"I don't know," said Carmody. He smiled. "Maybe?"

"We'll think of something," said Nelson. "Your dad ought to be able to pay part of it, even if he can't pay all. So maybe all we need is $1000."

Carmody stopped smiling. "That's still a lot of money. It's not kid money."

"Don't be such a gloomer puss," said Nelson.

The boys stopped talking to think about ways to raise money. Nothing useful occurred to either of them, and the buzzing started again.

The wasp had returned and this time settled on Carmody's neck, just below his left ear. He heard the buzzing, then the quiet, then the buzz, buzz, buzz as the wasp settled down.

He didn't move. "It's still on me?" he asked in a strangled sounding voice.

Nelson nodded.

"What's it doing?" whispered Carmody.

"He's just doing that thing wasps do, cleaning his antlers and his wings," said Nelson. "Stay still and he'll fly away again." Neither boy moved for a long minute.

"I can feel him crawling around," said Carmody. "I'm going to scream in a minute here. Where is he now?"

"He's, uh, he's on your face. He's – crawling toward your mouth. Don't scream, you might swallow him."

"He's a gawdamn New Yawker liberal wasp," muttered Carmody, not opening his mouth much.

"Shh. He's a wasp, he's probably a Republican," said Nelson. He couldn't help grinning.

Flying up in front of Carmody's eyes suddenly, the wasp buzzed the equivalent of "booga-booga." Both boys screamed. Nelson jumped down from the back of the concrete bench, flailing his arms and yelling.

Carmody turned to run, forgot about the low hanging limb and managed to duck at the last moment just enough to catch himself across the forehead. His feet went out from under him and he sat down on a garden rake someone had conveniently left under the tree. The tines were pointing down, though, saving him from anything nastier than a bruise.

The wasp escaped, unconcerned with the actions of beings large enough to be features of the landscape.

"Am I stung? Am I stung?" asked Carmody, feeling his face, his ears, his arms and his backside.

"How would I know?" asked Nelson. "You screamed like you got stung."

"I only screamed 'cause you screamed."

"You screamed like your kid sister when we tied that knot in her jumprope."

"Well, you screamed like a lonesome hodigger with a ripe pomegranate stuck where the sun don't shine!"

Nelson laughed and wheezed. "What the – what the – what the heck does that mean?"

"I don't know," Carmody admitted, lying on his back under the grapefruit tree, wheezing and laughing. "It's something my granddad said once."

Maggie Frederick appeared at the edge of the flower garden. "Are you boys all right? I heard screaming."

"Yeah, momma," said Nelson. "Carmody didn't get stung by a wasp and it was funny."

"Well, he'd better get up out of that dirt. There's red ants under the grapefruit tree."

"Oh! Squarepants!" Carmody rolled over and over till he reached the patch of grass near the path. "Are there any on me? Get'em off!"

Nelson laughed so hard he had to kneel beside the bench then pry himself up to go help his friend look for "squarepants". "We've got to find you that money, Carmody," he said. "I can't go all summer without laughing like that."