Kissing Brendan Callahan Read Free Page A

foyer.
    â€œAren’t you going to say hi?” says Mom.
    â€œHi,” I say, and look down at my book.
    â€œBeth and I need to meet for a while. We have to discuss the fair.” She means the Staten Island Preservation Society Fair, which includes the writing contest that I’m not allowed to enter!
    Brendan carries in a big box and drops it next to the coffee table. I don’t want to look, but I do. It’s the flyers for the writing contest.
    â€œSee ya,” says Brendan.
    â€œWait a minute,” says Beth. She tucks in the front of Brendan’s T-shirt, which he immediately untucks. It’s another silly shirt with a drawing of an upside-down cereal bowl running away from a bloody knife. The caption underneath reads, “Cereal Killer!”
    â€œWhile we have you two,” says Beth, “would you be sports and take the flyers around? You know, put them up on bulletin boards, in mailboxes, on car windows?”
    â€œWe’d really appreciate it,” my mother chimes in.
    â€œYou want me to hand out this flyer?” I’m astounded. How could she ask this of me?
    â€œSarah,” says Mom, nudging me. “Just deliver them around the neighborhood. Afterward, you and Brendan could take a ride together and have some fun.”
    â€œI’m busy,” says Brendan.
    â€œMe too.” I point to my book. Mom raises her left eyebrow when she sees it’s Antonia DeMarco.
    â€œJust do it for half an hour,” says Beth. “It’s for a very worthy cause.” Beth hands Brendan a stack of flyers. “It will go quickly if you work together.”
    â€œDon’t I have any rights?” he says in a gruff voice.
    â€œOf course you do,” says Beth. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help your mother for a measly half hour.”
    â€œThat’s all we’re asking,” says my mother, smiling. I know what my mother is up to. She thinks Brendan and I could be friends. She thinks she is doing something nice. She is misguided.
    â€œAre you coming?” he asks.
    I follow him. “A half hour and not a minute longer,” I call back into the living room. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
    â€œHere,” Brendan hands me the flyers and walks to his bike.
    â€œExcuse me,” I say. “We’re supposed to be doing this together.” I pick off about half the flyers and hand them back to him. By the time I get my bike out of the garage, Brendan is already down the block.
    I go from car to car and tuck a flyer under the windshield wipers. I see Brendan flinging flyers wherever he pleases, littering lawns, stuffing them in rosebushes, crumpling them, and throwing them at trees.
    I pedal over to him. “It wouldn’t kill you to put the flyers in the mailboxes.”
    â€œReally?” he says.
    â€œYes, really.”
    I get off my bike. “See, it only takes a second to do it the right way.” I slip the flyer in the mailbox.
    â€œWow,” he says, grinning. “That only took a second, princess.”
    Great! Now he’s making fun of me. How can Lynn think he’s cute and sweet? But she also thinks orange is a great color and that Jane Austen is a better writer than Antonia DeMarco.
    We, or shall I say I, continue to distribute flyers. Brendan flings a few more flyers and then tosses the rest into the corner garbage can. He rides alongside me without holding the handlebars, just leaning back with his arms crossed, watching me work.
    I picture Brendan wearing one of those black-and-white striped prison uniforms with a cap to match. I will escort my mother to see him on visiting day. “But I thought he was such a good boy,” she’d cry. “How could I have not seen what a public nuisance he is?”
    â€œHey,” he says. “There are these two snakes living in the snake house at the zoo. One snake says to the other, ‘Are we poisonous?’