Drumming his fingers on the desk, Zach zones out the teacher. The entire class escape into the world of passing notes and using the bathroom. Zach launches a paper ball at Labecca seated in the front row doing her best not to fall asleep listening to the substitutes monotone voice.
The hit awakens her. She angrily turns around. The substitute teacher warns Zach about being disruptive in the classroom.
"Becca owes me a crumb cake".
"Well, you have to deal with that problem after class or after school".
"You heard Drew say he wouldn't have any until next week, why you doing that, that's not nice."
"He's not the only one with a corner store. There's four in the area. Let's go after school."
"I'm busy, I have choir practice".
"Give me the money then".
"Here take it, it's only $1.99", LaBecca says as she takes her dagger like nails and hurls it at him.
Zach misses the catch and the money falls, disturbing the classroom.
"You like being a pitcher LaBecca, you're a baseball player, you can practice it mentally outside of the classroom. Zach you too since you like playing Catcher, you join her and if I hear one peep out of you two, I'm sending you to the Principal's office."
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"That's not fair, I wasn't even doing nothing" says LaBecca.
"She threw my money at me and I'm going outside, that's cap."
"Watch it".
After school Zach goes on a quest to find Brendan's Crumb Cake. The sweet, moist, taste and texture have him wanting it even more. Gregory and the crew tag along with him. The first store is a convenience/fruits and vegetables store.
A plastic outer covering surrounds the fruits, vegetables and flowers. As they venture inside, the candy and snack selection is quite limited. Most of the products are for cooking and making beverages. Zach does a once over the snack selection and doesn't find any kind of crumb cake. His big hands makes sure that the item isn't in another snack box. He knows how some owners can and will mix and match items together since they all cost the same.
"Excuse me, you have Brendan's Crumb Cake?" asks Zach.
"Whatever you see there", says a kid counting a customer's items.
"Buy me some candy pretzels" says Gregory picking up a bag.
They leave and go to the second store. Zach and company run into a group of guys huddled in a corner of the establishment talking sports. One of the men invite the kids to weigh in on the basketball topic. When the man hears what he likes he offers to buy Zach anything he wants. He turns down the offer because his father told him to be wary of strangers and never accept anything from them because they have ulterior motives.
"Yo, you got any crumb cake?" he asks the worker who was engaged in the sports debate with the guy offering candy and snacks.
"What's that?"
"Z, let me get a soda, I'll pay you back tomorrow, I promise, I gotchu", says Gregory.
Zach and company leaves.
They reach the third and final store. A cat lays lazily at the store's entrance. Once, Zach and friends get closer to pet it, the cat gets up and struts down the middle aisle.