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food by living on stored-up fat and then on muscle. But no one can go much more than four days without water.
    It’s Sparky who asks the question we’re all thinking: “Dad, what will happen if we can’t get the water?”

I went to my room, which I shared with Sparky, whose real name was Edward, but I called him Sparky because his hair grew straight out from his head as if he was always touching something electric.
    Wondering how bad the spanking would be, I sat on my bed, tugging at the hair behind my ear, too miserable to look at comics or play with my plastic army men. The paddleball racket was a given. When I was younger, Dad used to spank me, and then Sparky, with his hand, but one day he hurt his wrist and couldn’t play tennis for a few weeks, so now he spanked us with the wooden paddle, which hurt like the dickens.
    The bedroom door began to open and I tensed, but it was only Sparky. He pretended to look for a toy on his shelf, but I knew he’d really come in to see how I was coping with the stress. He kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.
    â€œDad’s really gonna give it to you. You’re not supposed to steal.”
    â€œGet lost.” I picked up
MAD
magazine and pretended to read it. The black and white enemies in “Spy vs. Spy” used the same round black bombs with fizzy fuses that Boris Badenov used against Rocky and Bullwinkle on TV.
    â€œMom says she doesn’t know what she’s gonna do with you.”
    That didn’t sound right. Taking the cheesecake was the first bad thing I’d done in months. “No, she didn’t.”
    â€œYes, she did,” Sparky insisted.
    â€œLiar.”
    â€œNuh-uh. She said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ And her eyes got red and watery.”
    That sounded ominous. Was it possible that even I didn’t know how bad what I’d done was? I’d done bad stuff before, like the time Puddin’ Belly Wright and I threw dirt bombs at the back of Old Lady Lester’s freshly painted garage, or the time I dropped Sparky’s brand-new rubber football down the storm drain because he wouldn’t share his double-stick cherry ice pop.
    But I’d never stolen before. Could stealing mean you’d crossed the line into juvenile delinquency and there was no going back? Could it mean I’d have to be a hood from now on and wear a leather jacket and heavy engineer boots all summer and pretend to be tough even though I knew I wasn’t very tough at all? Would I be the only kid on the block who was a hood, and none of my friends would be allowed to play with me? Just thinking about it made me want to cry.
    â€œGo away or you’re gonna get hurt,” I warned Sparky.
    He left and I felt tears of regret slide down my cheeks. Why had I listened to Ronnie?
    When the door opened a few moments later, I thought it would be Sparky again, but Dad came in, wearing a dark-green suit. I sniffed loudly, hoping he’d see my red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks and know how remorseful I was and that I’d clearly learned my lesson and therefore really didn’t need to be spanked.
    The good news was he didn’t have the paddle, but that could have been because he wanted to change clothes before he spanked me. Dad never did work around the house in his business clothes. He always changed into dungarees and a sweatshirt first. And that included when he punished us.
    I pulled my knees up under my chin and tried to squeeze a few more tears of remorse out of my eyes. Sitting across from me on Sparky’s bed, Dad looked serious, his jaw dark with five o’clock shadow, which was something gangsters and men who were desperate or crazy often had on TV.
    â€œYou know you’re not supposed to steal,” he said.
    I nodded, blinked hard, and sniffed loudly again. At the same time, I tried to estimate how many swats with the paddle I might get. The last time Dad