Michael “Shotgun!” Nate shouts the second Connor grabs his keys, running straight to the front door.
There is a wave of complaint from the rest of us followed by some very colorful objections.
“No fair, you’re the last one to be dropped off!” Danny points out, his voice the loudest above all.
“It should be between Mickey and me, and you can fight with Mason after we get off.” “In that case, shotgun!” I yell hurriedly and take off running to Connor’s black Audi.
“I’m next,” Mason seconds immediately, which starts up a fight between him and Nathan.
In the meantime, Daniel has caught me by the leg and we’re trampling over each other to get to the front seat.
He holds my arm to keep me back but I trip him and he lets go.
Then he grabs my ankle and pulls, but I’m expecting that and I give him a good kick before I fall down.
Then I shoot out of his grasp when he goes to grab whatever part of him I injured.
Seconds later, I yank the door open and jump in next to Connor, locking it behind me.
Mason and Nathan are already in the backseat fighting.
“So are we going or what?” I yell so that Danny can hear me and hurry up.
“I don’t want to be late like last time.” “Don’t look at me; that was Nate’s fault,” Connor defends himself.
“Hey, you’re the one who turned off my alarm clock!” Nate complains.
Connor just shrugs.
“You made me the target; I had to retaliate.
You should have expected something like that.
I just wish Mom hadn’t made me go back for you; that would have been such a better plan.” “When I get my own car-” he starts.
“You’re a terrible driver, man; even Mickey’s got more of a shot at getting a car before you do, and he’s been waiting for less than you have,” Mase puts in before he can continue.
“I might just get my own car,” Nate goes on, obviously dreaming.
“For that to happen, you need money,” I point out, “and to get money, you have to actually maintain a job position.” “Hey, waitering is harder than it looks, alright?” “That’s not even a word, dumbass,” Con mocks.
That’s when Danny finally makes it to the car and opens the door.
“Dude, you broke my nose!” he complains.
He groans as he puts it back into place.
Well, that takes care of my vengeance against my twin.
Two more to go.
“Oh please,” I scoff.
“You’re a werewolf; you’ll live.” “This won’t heal for another hour!” “You better not bleed on my car or I swear I’ll make you walk,” Connor threatens as he pulls out of our driveway.
The drive to Danny’s and my school is not a very long one, but it always feels like it, mostly because we never shut up and almost always talk at the same time.
It’s a very interesting brotherly-bonding experience.
“Some brothers you guys are,” Daniel whines.
Seriously; what a baby!
“It was your decision to make Mickey the target for War Day,” he points out.
“Live with it.
You know he always comes back swinging.
Or were you not there when he almost broke me and Andrea up yesterday?” “How’s that going by the way?” I casually ask.
“Did she take you back?
Are you done groveling and begging yet?” Connor shrugs with a mischievous grin on his face.
“I didn’t need to; I convinced her it was a prank, courtesy of my baby brother.” We don’t say anything for a couple of seconds.
I think that’s the longest we’ve ever been quiet during the morning car ride.
Then something unpleasant settles in the pit of my stomach and I feel it growing to the surface, even though I don’t know what’s going on yet.
“What did you do?” I demand, making each word sound like a separate sentence.
“I introduced her to your girlfriend,” he teased.
Now I know what the feeling in the pit of my stomach is; anger.
There’s some embarrassment in there, too, at the concept of me having a girlfriend, but mostly anger.
I don’t say anything though, because I know that whatever I come up with is going to be countered by his indifference.
That’s the most effective way he knows to get on my nerves.
Instead, I wait for the opportune moment and let my brothers bash him out in the meantime.
“Dude, that is just wrong,” Danny is the first to defend me, even though I just broke his nose.
What can I say?
Twins always got each other’s backs.
“You can’t choose for Mickey to have a girlfriend when you want him to.” “And yet, I did,” he replies, completely carelessly.
“What if Andrea came and asked him about this imaginary girlfriend?” Nate adds in a rare moment of normal intelligence Connor shrugs, although he looks a bit uncomfortable now.
“Not my problem.” “Didn’t you think about how this would affect Dylan’s secret?” Mason protests, and he sounds almost mad.
“That was a really stupid thing to do.
Dad will bite your head off when he finds out.” This is apparently something Connor didn’t think about.
“You can’t tell Dad.” “Why not?” I interject, and I put as much venom in my voice as I can muster.
“It’s the four of us against you.” For a moment, he takes his eyes off the road to look at me, and I can see genuine regret flash in his eyes.
“Look, Dylan, I’m sorry, okay?
You’re right, just please don’t tell Dad, I’ll do anything,” he bursts out.
And there is the opportune moment I was waiting for.
“Anything?” “Yes,” he doesn’t hesitate to repeat.
“Alright, then listen up, all of you,” I start.
“Aside from the obvious fact of having to fix this with Andrea, my target is Connor, but you are not allowed to retaliate.” I guess I should explain how War Day works.
It’s pretty simple; there’s a target that all the others play pranks on every Sunday.
He has all week to retaliate and chose the next target.
Since I was yesterday’s victim, I am the one who chooses whose turn is next.
We used to sometimes pick the same person as the target repetitively, so we came up with a general rule that we can’t be picked more than once a month.
So now, because of what he did to Burns and because of how he got out of my counter-attack, I want Connor to be next week’s victim.
Nobody can object; it’s my choice.
“That’s only fair,” Mase agrees.
“Yeah, Con, I mean you basically retaliated against his counter-attack, and that’s not allowed,” Nate reminds him.
“Alright, I get it,” Connor stops them.
“It was a low move.
I won’t retaliate when you guys gang up on me.” This is what I love about our brotherly bond; we fight all the time, we humiliate each other practically every day, but we always respect each other’s boundaries.
Most importantly though, we have each other’s backs, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.
Once, in the ninth grade, this guy thought I was hitting on his girl and cornered me after school for a fight.
I was alright taking him on; I may look like a scrawny guy on the outside, but I’m stronger than I appear, even for a werewolf.
I mean, I can beat my brothers in a one-on-one wrestling match.
I definitely would have won against some human.
But he brought with him three of his friends, and that was about two more than I could handle at the time.
Connor had already graduated, but he had been the designated driver since getting his license.
It was after school, so he was parked there waiting for Danny and me.
He saw the guys corner me, called our brothers, and rushed to my side.
Those guys got their asses handed to them, although we tried to take it easy on them and not inflict any permanent damage.
They haven’t bothered me since.
A couple of seconds pass in silence, and then we continue talking when Danny complains about his nose one more time.
“People are going to notice,” he whines, “if I come in with a broken nose and miraculously heal an hour later!” I grunt in annoyance.
“Just take cover and avoid face to face confrontations until second period,” I tell him.
“You’ll be fine.
I do this all the time when I’m not in the mood to fix my voice.” Being a girl disguised as a boy is really rough.
There are a lot of manners of walking and talking that I have to pay attention to.
There are some perks, like never shaving or going anywhere near my eyebrows or nails, all of which I think are a waste of time that could be better spent doing something productive, like planning my next prank.
But the downsides are still hard to deal with, even though I’ve gotten used to keeping my mask on without thinking about it.
One thing my parents were really scared would expose my secret by the time I hit puberty, besides the obvious physical thing that we’ve found a way to hide, is my voice.
Luckily, it’s kind of hoarse and throaty for a girl, which means that if I constantly speak at a low volume, I sound like a young boy whose voice is just starting to deepen.
It also means that my singing is awesome, but that’s not important right now.