“Butterscotch chips make cookies extra special,” Grandma said from another time zone.

In frustration, I reached for another dirty dish and ended up pulling the plug on the sink. The water gurgled and the bubbles started sliding away. Not having to worry about Grandma overhearing, I cursed my best curse and leaned against the sink.

“All right,” I said. “I’ve got a proposal. Indulge me for one night. Just one night. You’ve still got that archery set, right?”

“Yeah, I got it, but—”

“And I know you have the nanny cam, right?”

“Well, sure. That thing wasn’t cheap. Grandma really thought she’d catch the babysitter stealing cookies. Didn’t have the heart to tell her it was me.”

“Okay, you find that stuff and bring it with you to the play tryouts at noon.”

“The play tryouts? Wait, Jim, no. I’m not doing any of this.”

“I’ll give you Dino-Mountain.”

That shut him up. Every kid dreams of unattainable gifts—expansive race-car sets, towering doll houses, futuristic clubhouses that cost more than your parent’s car—and one year I received exactly such a holy grail: Dino-Mountain, a plastic play set as high as my chest, complete with caves and tunnels from which one of ten different dino-troops could attack.

“I…” Tub started. The offer had caught him by surprise. “Come on. I’m too old for Dino-Mountain.” He did not sound entirely convinced of that.

“And a bag of sour worms. No, a case. A full case. Tub, that’s like eight bags.”

“Jim…”

“Anything you want. Just name it. It’s yours. I just want one night of help and then, tomorrow, I swear I’ll never mention it again.”

Tub looked at the floor, where Cat #40 and Cat #17 were swiping at each other’s tails. He knocked them aside with his ankle, though his heart was not in it. His cheeks were pink beneath the freckles. My offers had embarrassed him.

“A fiver,” he murmured. “Just a fiver. You know. For Steve.”

I reached out and gripped his shoulder.

“You got it, Tub. Noon at the school, okay?”

“Fine, whatever.”

I tossed the sponge onto the counter and wiped my hands on my jeans.

“I have to go dig out some sports equipment from my attic.”

“Sports? No one said anything about sports. This deal’s getting worse by the second.”

“I’ll explain later.”

I approached Grandma Dershowitz to crank up her hearing aid and say good-bye, but was distracted by the slurping noise of the final suds being sucked down the drain. I cradled my hands to my chest, wondering how I had made such a stupid mistake as plunging them into a sink with a drain the perfect size for an extending tentacle.

Because Shakespeare on the Fifty-Yard Line was an outdoor production, the auditions were held on a knoll just to the side of Harry G. Bleeker Memorial Field, where the football team was packing in an extra weekend practice beneath the jumbotron installers. Two doomed lines of would-be headliners, girls and boys, paired off to read for RoJu’s title roles while Mrs. Leach, the drama coach of the exhausted hair, frowsy hairbands, and floppy sweaters, took notes.