How to win a slime war, p.7
How to Win a Slime War, page 7
“Newb!” yells Rudy, and he busts up. I’m too embarrassed to respond or look at Dad, or anyone.
I have played, in fourth grade, but I kept crying before practice because I didn’t want to, and I remember the hugest relief when Dad let me stop. Except he said: One day we’ll try again.
Dad blows his whistle. “Practice is over! Huddle up one last time, team! Good going, everyone!”
He can’t mean me, too. I stare down at my cleats.
Dad gives a little pep talk, then says, “On three…G-Beatz!” We all give a hands-in and the rest of the boys shout.
Finally we’re done. I help Dad pack up, but his smile from earlier is gone. We walk to the car. “What happened to all those times we kicked a ball around, Alexander? Did you forget everything I taught you?” I yank my shin guards out of my socks and look away. What do I even say to that? He looks at me like he feels bad now. “You did fine.”
I slip the headband off—it’s soaked with sweat. “Yeah,” I say, but I still don’t meet his gaze.
“Listen, whenever I’m scared of something, son, I do it anyway. It helps.”
“I’ll try again next practice.”
“If you’re confused about how things work, just ask me, okay?”
“I know, Dad, I got it.”
“Excellent.” He nods.
Trevor’s dad catches up to us. “Looks like your shooter could use some work,” he says to Dad with a little laugh.
“He’ll get there,” Dad says quietly, because I think he doesn’t want me to hear, but it’s just loud enough.
Slime War, day two.
When Logan and I walk into first-period science, Meadow’s already there kissing up to Mrs. Graham with her fake smile. Meadow pulls a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase out of a brown paper bag. Mrs. Graham says some gushy Thank yous and Oh, you and your mother didn’t have to do that!
“Of course we did! You’re my favorite teacher of all time!” Meadow’s smile is so stretched it might freeze that way. Even my most elastic slime would have snapped already.
“What’s she doing?” I whisper to Logan.
“It’s fine, she’s playing the game. Meadow’s sucked up to all our teachers ever since preschool, and we need that to not get us caught. It keeps the teachers happy and not suspicious,” Logan says. “Her mom owns a flower shop, and Meadow won’t ever shut up about how they’re so successful because they do every wedding and bar mitzvah in town.”
The bell rings and our class quiets. “Before we launch in this morning, I’m changing our seating chart,” says Mrs. Graham.
She has us all stand to one side of the room while she goes to each desk station and calls out two names. Logan gets paired with someone new, and so do the rest of the kids. She reads names two by two, and I’m left standing until the last desk and the last two students.
“Alex and Meadow, you know what to do.” She points to the station behind Logan’s.
Great.
“Please read the worksheet while I set up the video,” Mrs. Graham says as she busies herself at the large projection screen in the front of the room. We start to read.
Logan catches my attention and nods toward the kid sitting next to him.
“Customer,” he mouths.
“Not now,” I mouth back.
I look from Mrs. Graham’s back to Logan mouthing “Win, win, win!” to my competition seated next to me, engrossed in her worksheet and scooting in her chair as far away from me as she can like I’m about to give her cooties.
Well, it’s only one little tub.
I slip the container from my backpack and am sliding it to the corner of the table for Logan to grab, when Mrs. Graham turns around. Her eyes zero right in on the slime. She marches over.
“What is this?” she asks.
My breathing feels hurried. “I…uh—”
“Sorry, Mrs. Graham,” Meadow says. “That’s—that’s my slime.” The whole class stays silent. “I took it out of my backpack to get to my binder. I know we’re not supposed to have it here, and it will never ever happen again.” Meadow doesn’t look at me as she says any of this.
Mrs. Graham shakes her head. “Meadow, of all people. You know the rules.” Our teacher extends her palm and Meadow plonks my slime onto it. “You’ve never gotten a warning before, so consider this it.”
All the prying eyes turn back around and our class settles into their work again. Meadow writes something on the corner of her notebook and points it at me with her pencil:
You’re welcome.
My eyes get wide. Did Meadow just save me?
After class, Logan’s by my side and we head into the crowded hallway.
“You almost got me caught,” I say.
“Yeah, that was close. Sorry. But next time you’ll know not to pay any attention to me.” He smiles, and I can only laugh.
“Why’d Meadow take the blame? Strange, huh?”
Logan shrugs. “If I know Meadow, she’s probably cooking something up.”
Trevor and his group walk by doing their thing, laughing so hard like sixth grade’s so easy for them.
“Hey, Trev!” Logan says, but the boys keep going. Logan stays quiet, and I feel kind of bad for him. We keep walking down the hall.
“Why’d you want to be in the Slime War?” I ask. I don’t know a lot about Logan yet. I wonder if he needs the money, too.
“If I tell you something, will you swear not to ever say anything?”
I cross my heart.
“Trev always wanted to be cooler, and now that he’s friends with Rudy…” He shakes his head like he’s embarrassed. “Maybe if we win the Slime War, I’ll get my friend back. Is that dumb?”
“Nope. Not at all,” I say. I didn’t have close buddies at my old school besides Raj. It would have been really lonely without him.
“What about you?” Logan asks.
I tell him how I want to help my dad with money. “And the whole being the heroes of the school thing still sounds pretty awesome.” I nod. “My dad wants a superstar for a kid.” Logan listens closely, the way a friend might, while I share what happened at practice.
His eyes turn determined. “Then let’s win. Meet back at lunch.”
At the lockers, Carl and Pepper are waving their arms frantically. As I get closer, a bunch of kids crowd around us.
“I’ll take one of the Birthday Cake Confettis,” says a girl to Pepper.
“Two for me,” another says to Carl. “Make that one Birthday Cake and one Oozy Eyeball.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We’re open for business,” says Logan.
There are so many hands exchanging money and slime, I can’t keep track of who’s who.
I turn to my CSC: a high five, two quick fist bumps, exploding fingers, pullback.
“Where’d all these buyers come from?” I ask.
“Him.” Logan nods toward a boy who walks past. We make eye contact briefly. He’s a tall, older-looking kid—the handsome kind who’d star in a teen vampire show.
The guy plays with an amazing batch I made—the Gooriffic—a mix of sleek colors and smooth textures that feels like silk (I added in generous dollops of soft, sweet-smelling lotion). He tosses it from hand to hand as he saunters by, and girls near my locker give him swoony giggles.
“Who’s that? He didn’t buy any slime from us. Did he?” I say.
“Nope,” says Logan. “Because we paid him.” Logan points to himself and Carl.
“We bribed him?”
“Paid, bribed…whatever! He’s an influencer. We need him on our side.”
“A what?”
“People who look so cool that everyone wants what they have,” Carl says. “He posted your slime online, but not in a mean Meadow kind of way—more in a come-get-your-own-and-be-so-suave-and-perfect-like-me-the-eighth-grader way. He’s that respected. And he has a ton of followers. It’s marketing. It’s my job!”
“Yeah…but how much did you pay him?”
“Thirty bucks.”
“I don’t have thirty bucks!”
“It’s fine, I used my lawn-mowing money. We’ve already made it back,” Carl says.
I ponder this and he’s right. “ROI. Good thinking. Good investment,” I say.
“R-O-what?” Logan says.
“Return on investment. It means you make back what you spent—plus more,” Pepper says, and I nod.
“But are you sure this isn’t going against the rules?” I ask.
“Nothing in the rules that says we can’t invest in our own marketing. Meadow chose a smear campaign. Ours is ten times more sophisticated.” Carl taps his head. “Trust me.”
The bell rings, but no one’s rushing off to class. Kids are still swarming us.
“People are loving your slime, Alex!” says Pepper. “Only one person has wanted an exchange since it was drying out.”
“Those are good odds,” I say. The demand’s high—another good sign. Except we can’t keep up with supply if we keep going strong like this. It gives me an idea.
“I should have enough slime to get us through the rest of this week, but you guys want to come over this weekend and we’ll make some more? I could use help with our inventory, then we can sell the final batches on Monday. We can fix the drying-out problem, too.”
Logan’s brow wrinkles. “Like I said before, I’m not much of a maker.”
When we first took over the market, Dad said he had to work every job there—stocking shelves, cleaning, register—so he could understand the business from every angle. If I show Logan, Carl, and Pepper how to make the slime, they’ll feel like it’s their business, too, and that will help us rock this war.
“It’s just having fun,” Pepper says.
“Exactly,” I say. “And I’ll have everything ready so all you have to do is show up, follow directions, and mix.”
Carl and Pepper playfully shake Logan by his shoulders until finally all three say, “We’re in.”
We sold every tub of slime in my backpack! Rulers of sixth grade, here we come.
After school I pedal off to the market for Dad’s daily dose of chores, and later this afternoon I have soccer again. The G-Beatz have practice every day this week with our first game this weekend, and I’m terrified. Whenever I’m on the field my head feels so jumbled—a little like how the market looks as I walk in, half taken apart with things all around. Auntie hung a banner that says excuse our mess while we remodel!
Somehow I don’t mind the chaos as much in here, though. It feels like we’re making things happen.
“Hi, Dad,” I say.
“How was your day, buddy?” He’s painting different shades of white onto a cream wall across from the register.
I want to tell him about my slime business—get him excited, too—but the more I think about it, the more I want to wait until I win the war. Bigger news is better news.
“School was fine.”
“Happy to hear it.”
I tackle my tasks of packing boxes and bins. Our whole family’s pitching in on this remodel, which means cleaning, painting, reorganizing, and designing a new menu for the hot-food bar. We’re ordering a new manalo market sign for the storefront. We’re keeping the shelves organized by different parts of Asia, but squishing them a bit because Dad wants to make room for some fancy-schmancy gourmet items that he thinks will bring in new customers.
I close a box of knickknacks, ceramic elephants and Chinese dragons, that Dad doesn’t want to carry anymore.
“Why can’t we keep selling these?” I ask.
“You know how much dust those things had?”
Dad swipes a few streaks of paint onto the wall. I climb onto the rice sacks, give them a slap, and watch him from up high.
“Isn’t plain ol’ white plain ol’ boring?” I say. Lolo and Lola have a pretty teal wall behind the register where they used to hang framed photos of Dad and Auntie Gina’s school sports teams that the store sponsored. Now there are faded squares and the pictures are stacked up in towers on the floor.
“Trying to make it a little more uniform in here,” he says.
“Do…do Lolo and Lola know what your new plans for the market are?”
“No, they said they wanted to be surprised. They’ll be so happy to see this place looking fresh and new.”
I catch Dad eyeing the market’s first dollar bill. He glances around like he’s about to do something illegal, and very gingerly pulls out a metal tack from one corner where it sticks to the wall.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“We’ll hang it back up in an even better spot. It’ll be great to get some new faces in here, huh? We’ll be like the hip new spot on the block.”
“It’s not hip if you call it hip.” And definitely not if he’s going to want to sell olive oil and unfinished tree stumps like our neighbors. Dad laughs. “And we’ve already got a bunch of loyal shoppers,” I say, hopping off my rice throne.
“Which is wonderful, but there are tons of potential shoppers around here, especially from the hospital and those big business parks. This place could be a gold mine, but we have to help it get there.”
I grab some of the rice-wrapper candies from Lolo’s stash and pop one. The wrapper melts on my tongue.
“And you know what,” Dad says, “no more giving away free stuff. There are some traditions we don’t need to keep.”
My eyes get big and I nearly choke. Lolo’s going to hate that. Kids always come to our market instead of the giant Asian grocery store nearby because of Lolo’s free candy.
Dad ties up some garbage bags, and that’s my cue to take them out.
The sun’s up high and warms my face. I get a boost on sunny days. Uncle Benny said that’s because our body releases a chemical when we’re out in sunshine to make us feel happy. Uncle Benny knows a lot of cool things.
In the back of our building there’s another parking lot and a long chain-link fence that separates this strip mall from the park near school, with its grassy lawn, picnic tables, and beds of flowers. My cousins and I used to play there a lot. We’d go to the store early on weekends and make so much noise Lola had no choice but to boot us out. We’d hop the fence and spend hours there. But when my cousins got older they stopped doing that with me. I’ve never told them this, but I miss playing like that. They’d probably think I’m a baby for still wanting to now.
I toss the bags into a giant bin, and through the fence I spot…Meadow? I think it’s her. I walk closer. She looks around like she’s making sure no one’s watching, then plucks flowers—fluffy white ones Lola admires, but also some golden poppies—the California state flower! Whoa. If she pulled that move in a state park I’m pretty sure she’d get thrown in the slammer—that’s the rumor, anyhow.
I recognize those white flowers, they’re what Meadow gave to Mrs. Graham as her suck-up gift. Why would she do that? I thought Logan said her family owned a flower shop.
I head back inside, and Dad’s done with painting. The store’s first dollar is resting on the counter, like nothing special.
“Any other chores you need me to do before I go home?” I ask Dad. I want to do some slime-sperimenting.
Dad looks up from his clipboard. “No, but an old friend’s dropping by—going to give me some business advice. He owns a bunch of commercial property around town, including our block. Why don’t you stick around for a bit. As a future CEO, I think you’d learn something.”
I want to escape out the back door—I need to get home and do more strategizing—but the bell chimes and in walks a friendly-looking guy.
“John! Nice to see you!” says the man, who’s older than Dad, though they look similar, like they could be related. I feel that way sometimes when I meet other Filipino people because we know where we came from.
The man and Dad greet each other. “You must be Alex,” he says to me.
He introduces himself as Kevin Santiago and extends his hand. I take it—firm grip. A sure sign he’s successful. Maybe I will stick around.
“It’s been a while, let me give you a quick tour,” Dad says, and they begin walking around, talking nonstop.
“Alex, I’ve always admired your family’s market,” Mr. Santiago says. “It’s a part of life around here. The only place where my family could find everything they needed.”
I’ve heard this story before. I like knowing that somehow, my family’s helped make people feel at home.
“So, Kevin, what’s the scoop on the space next door?” Dad asks. “We’re so curious to find out who our new neighbors will be.”
“Good question. I’ve been reviewing applicants, and there’s a group of young entrepreneurs with an impressive business plan—and the capital to make it happen.”
“What kind of business?” I ask.
“Get this. Robot arms.” He laughs. “Sounds outrageous, but they’re revolutionizing the food service industry—flipping burgers, prepping meals, removing the chance of any human error. They want to do a trial run with a juice bar. Here, I’ll show you.”
Mr. Santiago pulls out his phone and plays us a video of a robot arm in a glass case in the middle of a huge mall. A kid touches and swipes through commands on a screen in front of the robot station, and a woman flashes her credit card in front of it. Out of nowhere a nice lady’s voice says: “Thank you for juicing with us! Squeeze the day!”
The robot arms whir and in Rube Goldberg style, a ramp lined with oranges tilts and the fruit slides down, spins onto a wagon wheel, lops into a squeezer, and the liquid drains into a cup. Another arm scoops in ice—plop! plop! plop!—and yet another arm secures the top and presses a button.
A final robot arm pokes in a straw and slides the drink through a tube.
