“No, you don’t.”
“Christ, can I get out a full sentence? I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” Vincent said, shaking his head. “I asked you to do one thing, and you couldn’t do it. Lesson learned, son. I now know I can’t count on you.”
Ouch. The list.
“I forgot,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“It’s too late. I already asked someone else.”
“Who?”
“Jen.”
He grimaced. “Why her?”
“Well, she knows the sorts of things girls need, since she is one.”
With some effort, Carmine refrained from making a crack about Jen’s age, but he couldn’t hold back his opinion entirely. “If by that you mean they need birth control and a heavy dose of penicillin, I agree.”
Vincent shot him a disapproving look. “You can’t judge, given the company you keep.”
“True, but I’m not exactly role model material, am I? Would you want me doing the shopping?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “You’d come home with underwear no bigger than dental floss.”
“And you think Jen won’t? She doesn’t even wear underwear.”
Vincent glared at him. “Aren’t you late for school?”
“Whatever.”
He turned to walk away, but his father called after him. “If you really want to make it up to me, there’s something you can do.”
Carmine glanced back at him. “What?”
“Stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll try, but I’m pretty sure wreaking havoc is in my genes, Dad.”
* * *
An hour and a half later, Carmine waltzed into his second period classroom and disrupted the American history teacher, Mrs. Anderson, in the middle of a lecture. She smiled curtly. “Mr. DeMarco, you’re just in time to give your presentation on the Battle of Gettysburg.”
He groaned, having forgotten all about them having oral presentations today. She motioned toward the front of the room, and he begrudgingly took his place as she sat behind her desk. “You can begin any time.”
“Uh, the battle happened in Pennsylvania. It was, like, 1800s.”
Mrs. Anderson corrected him, “1863.”
“Yeah, what she said. General Lee led his army up from the South; they met the North in Gettysburg. A bunch of people died on both sides, hundreds of thousands.”
“Tens of thousands.”
“Same difference,” he said. “The South lost and the North won. Abraham Lincoln came and gave the Emancipation Proclamation.”
“The Gettysburg Address,” Mrs. Anderson said. “The Emancipation Proclamation was delivered six months before the battle.”